Mr. Blair started as though a physical blow had been aimed at his head.
“Why—why—— What do you mean by that, Judge?” he demanded, gripping the arms of his chair until his knuckles showed white through the skin.
“You carry the keys of the bank yourself, don't you? And you know the combination of the safe, don't you? And so does Herbie Kivil.”
“Do you mean to insinuate——”
“Hiram, I don't mean to insinuate nothin'. Insinuations don't make the best of evidence in court, though I will admit they sometimes count for a good deal outside of court. No, Hiram; I reckin you and your detective friend from St. Louis will have to dig up somethin' besides your personal beliefs before you kin expect the Grand Jury of this county to lay a charge aginst a man who's always enjoyed a fair standin' in this here community. That's all I've got to say to you on the subject.”
Taking the hint, Mr. Blair, red-faced and agitated, took his departure. After he was gone Judge Priest remained immersed in reflection for several hours.
So Emanuel went free. But he might almost as well have stayed in jail, for the smell of it seemed to cling to his garments—garments that grew shabbier as the weeks passed, for naturally he did not go back to the bank and just as naturally no one cared to offer employment to one who had been accused by his late employer of a crime. He fell behind with his board at Mrs. Morrill's. He walked the streets with drooping shoulders and face averted, shunning people and shunned by them. And, though he kept to his room in the evening, he no longer played on his clarinet. And the looting of the Commonwealth Bank's vault continued, as the Daily Evening News more than once remarked, to be “shrouded in impenetrable mystery.”
One evening at dusk, as Judge Priest was going home alone from the courthouse, on a back street he came face to face with Emanuel.
The younger man would have passed by him without speaking, but the old man thrust his broad shape directly in the little man's course.
“Son,” he said, putting a hand on the other's arm, “I want to have a little talk with you—ez a friend. Jest you furgit all about me bein' a judge. I wisht, ef you ain't got anythin' else to do, you'd come up to my house to-night after you've had your supper. Will you, son?”