Held to Answer: A Novel

by Peter Clark MacFarlane

But neither, for that matter, had the minister; although he was never surer of himself than now, when he ushered his guest out of the side door with a cheery, courage-giving smile, and hastened in to his greatly delayed breakfast.

With a thoughtful air and a feeling of intense satisfaction in his breast, he unfolded his napkin, broke his egg, and sipped his coffee, still with no suspicion that this was the day of all days for him, or that he had just sawed and hammered the cross which might make his title clear to saviourhood.

CHAPTER XXV

HIS BRIGHT IDEA

Young Burbeck's desk at the Amalgamated National was in an open space behind a marble counter. About him in the same open space were desks of two other assistant cashiers. Back of these were the private offices of the cashier, the president and the vice-president, as well as one or two reception rooms. Beyond the marble counter was a broad public aisle, on the farther side of which the tellers and bookkeepers worked, screened by the usual wire and glass. The safe deposit vaults were in the basement and reached by a stairway from the open lobby on the first floor.

Hurrying from the minister's house, Burbeck reached his desk at ten minutes before the hour of nine. This left him ten minutes of waiting before he could get the eleven hundred dollars of the Wadham currency; and waiting was the very hardest thing he could do under the circumstances. He was the first of the assistant cashiers to arrive, but the cashier, Parma, heavy-jowled, with dark wall eyes, was visible through the open door of his office, checking over some of the auditor's sheets with a gold pencil in his pudgy hand. His thick shoulders and broad, unresponsive back somehow threw a chill of apprehension into Rollie. What brought that old owl down here at this time of the morning, he wondered.

The colored porter, resplendent in his uniform of gray and brass, advanced with obsequious courtesy and proffered a copy of the morning paper. Rollie snatched at it with a sense of relief, but the relief was only momentary. There was the hateful headline again. It had been hours, days, weeks since he saw that headline first, while standing on the street and looking up for the rope that was to be swinging over the cornice of the Hotel St. Albans. Couldn't they get something else for a headline? Why, of course not. The paper had been on the street but three hours. That headline must hold sway till the noon edition. Besides, it was a good headline.

Rollie grasped the paper firmly with both hands, threw his head back, and pretended to read; but he was not reading. He was looking to see if his hands trembled. Unmistakably they did. They trembled so the paper rattled as if it were having a chill. But pshaw! There was really little to read anyway, beyond the headline. The news had come in too late to make a story for the morning papers. It only said that Miss Dounay had been entertaining some friends and on retiring at half-past two had chanced to notice that her diamond necklace was missing. A search failed to reveal it in the apartment. She at once notified the police. That was all. No word as to who was present, who was suspected, whether a guest, or a servant, or a burglar, or whether any clue had been discovered. There had been no time for that. That would be the story for the afternoon papers. They would find out all about Miss Dounay's movements the night before, and all about her party, and who was present. They would interview each guest, and get a statement from him. They would be sure to interview John Hampstead. Rollie had a sudden feeling of security as he thought of their investigating Hampstead. It was amazing what a rocklike confidence a man could feel in Hampstead.

But they would also interview him—Rollie Burbeck. Because he was so readily accessible, they would interview him first. What would he tell them? How would he bear himself? Would his voice tremble when he tried to talk, as now his hands trembled when he tried to hold the newspaper?

At this very moment the diamonds were in his inside coat pocket. Could he receive the reporters with his usual urbanity, sit smiling nonchalantly, and recite the incidents of the evening, suggest theories and clues, express his righteous indignation at the crime,—all with that envelope and its contents rustling under every movement of his arm? Could he?