“Not much,” said I, “in so far as I am interested, but something in so far as Mr M——o and his young daughters are concerned.”
“I have left his employment, and do not intend to go back,” was the answer, framed to avoid the main chance.
“I am not going to take you back to your office, but rather to take you up to ours, with a view to get some explanation of certain forgeries on the National and Savings Banks, perpetrated by some one.”
“Then get that some one,” said he, waxing firmer.
“I am just going to take him,” replied I, a little nettled, and taking out my handcuffs.
The sight of these produced another effect, which may be said to be inconsistent with human nature. For my part, I don’t know what human nature is, except just so far as I see it, and I never saw much consistency in it. The attempt to be firm, against the nervousness produced by his week’s drunkenness, seemed to give way, as if suddenly let loose by the opening of some unseen aperture, and the effort to say something strong was changed into a kind of hysterical laugh—something like the cackle of a goose, and dying away into loud breathings. This was the mere going down of the barometer; it got up again on the courage side.
“I deny all knowledge of these forgeries,” he cried.
“Well,” said I, “it will only put us to a little trouble in proving it. In the meantime, accept the handcuffs.”
To this I got no reply. He seemed to be struggling for stronger words of defiance, but they would not come at his bidding, and I heard nothing but a jabber, which expressed nothing but determination. I called in my assistant, and while he lay back in the chair we put on the cuffs—observing, as I have done before, the clenched hand, with the perspiration in the act of oozing out between the rigid fingers. Can any man imagine the fearful agony that could effect this, or the state of that conscience-riven and bursting heart?
Having raised him up, a little bit of romance introduced itself into this very prosaic affair, and, as it did not come out at the trial, was never known. He was standing by the side of a bureau, and suddenly he snatched with his left hand a miniature (that indispensable appurtenance of the romance-wrights), and placed it in his breast.