At once and as if he had taken his resolution, the janitor turned. “I beg your pardon,” said he, “I ought to have told you in the first place. When I opened the vaults as usual on the morning of which I speak, I found the boxes displaced; that was nothing if you had been to them, sir; but what did alarm me and make me feel as if I had held my position too long was to find that one of them was unlocked.”
Mr. Sylvester fell back a step.
“It was Mr. Stuyvesant’s box, sir, and I remember distinctly seeing him lock it the previous afternoon before putting it back on the shelf.”
The arms which Mr. Sylvester had crossed upon his breast tightened spasmodically. “And it has been in that condition ever since?” asked he.
The janitor shook his head. “No,” said he, taking his little girl up in his arms, possibly to hide his countenance. “As you did not come down again on that day, I took the liberty of locking it with a key of my own when I went to put away the books and shut the vault for the night.” And he quietly buried his face in his baby’s floating curls, who feeling his cheek against her own put up her hand and stroked it lovingly, crying in her caressing infantile tones,
“Poor papa! poor tired papa.”
Mr. Sylvester’s stern brow contracted painfully. The look with which his eye sought the sky without, would have made Paula’s young heart ache. Taking the child from her father’s clasp, he laid her on the bed. When he again confronted the janitor his face was like a mask.
“Hopgood,” said he, “you are an honest man and a faithful one; I appreciate your worth and have had confidence in your judgment. Whom have you told of this occurrence beside myself?”
“No one, sir.”
“Another question; if Mr. Stuyvesant had required his box that day and had found it in the condition you describe, what would you have replied to his inquiries?”