FOR a month or two after the agreeable episode just recounted, the stream of my life flowed on tranquilly and perhaps rather monotonously. But I was quite happy. My position in Mr. Parrish’s establishment seemed fairly settled and I had the feeling that my employer set some value on me as a workman. Not, however, to the extent of increasing my salary, though of this I still cherished hopes. But I did not dare to raise the question; for at least I had an assured livelihood, if a rather meagre one, and so great was my horror of being thrown out of employment that I would have accepted the low wage indefinitely rather than risk my security. So I worked on contentedly, poor as a church mouse, but always hoping for better times.
But at last came the explosion which blew my security into atoms. It was a disastrous affair and foolish, too; and what made it worse was that it was my own hand that set the match to the gunpowder. Very vividly do I recall the circumstances, though, at first, they seemed trivial enough. A man from a tool-maker’s had come into the workshop to inspect a new slide-rest that his firm had fitted to the lathe. When he had examined it and pronounced it satisfactory, he picked up the heavy bag that he had brought and was turning towards the door when Mr. Parrish said:
“If you have got the account with you, I may as well settle up now.”
The man produced the account from his pocket-book and handed it to Mr. Parrish, who glanced at it and then, diving into his coat-tail pocket, brought out a leather wallet (which I instantly recognized as an old acquaintance) and, extracting from it a five-pound note, handed the latter to the man in exchange for the receipt and a few shillings change. As our visitor put away the note, Mr. Parrish said to me: “Take Mr. Soames’s bag, Polton, and carry it out to the cab.”
I picked up the bag, which seemed to be filled with tool-makers’ samples, and conveyed it out to the waiting “growler”, where I stowed it on the front seat, and, waiting with the door open, saw Mr. Soames safely into the vehicle and shut him in. Returning into the house, I encountered Mr. Parrish, who was standing at the front door; and then it was that some demon of mischief impelled me to an act of the most perfectly asinine folly.
“I see, sir,” I said with a fatuous smirk, “that you still carry your wallet in your coat-tail pocket.”
He halted suddenly and stared at me with a strange, startled expression that brought me to my senses with a jerk. But it was too late. I saw that the fat was in the fire, though I didn’t guess how much fat there was or how big was the fire. After a prolonged stare, he commanded, gruffly:
“Come into my room and tell me what you mean.” I followed him in, miserably, and when he had shut the door, I explained:
“I was thinking, sir, of what the inspector at the police station said to you about carrying your wallet in your tail pocket. Don’t you remember, sir?”
“Yes,” he replied, glaring at me ferociously, “I remember. And I remember you, too, now that you have reminded me. I always thought that I had seen you before. So you are the young rascal who was found in possession of the stolen property.”
“But I didn’t steal it, sir,” I pleaded.
“Ha!” said he. “So you said at the time. Very well. That will do for the present.”
I sneaked out of the room very crest-fallen and apprehensive. “For the present!” What did he mean by that? Was there more trouble to come? I looked nervously in at the workshop, but as the other occupants had now gone to dinner, I took myself off and repaired to an a-la-mode beef shop in Oxford Market, where I fortified myself with a big basinful of the steaming compound and “topped up” with a halfpennyworth of apples from a stall in the market. Then I whiled away the remainder of the dinner hour rambling about the streets, trying to interest myself in shop windows, but unable to rid myself of the haunting dread of what loomed in the immediate future.
At length, as the last minutes of the dinner hour ran out, I crept back timorously, hoping to slink unnoticed along the passage to the workshop. But even as I entered, my forebodings were realized. For there was my employer, evidently waiting for me, and a glance at his face prepared me for instant dismissal. He motioned to me silently to follow him into his room, and I did so in the deepest dejection; but when I entered and found a third person in the room, my dejection gave place to something like terror. For that third person was Detective Sergeant Pitts.
He recognized me instantly, for he greeted me drily by name. Then, characteristically, he came straight to the point.
“Mr. Parrish alleges that you have opened his cash drawer with a false key and have, from time to time, taken certain monies from it. Now, before you say any thing, I must caution you that anything you may say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence against you. So be very careful. Do you wish to say anything?”
“Certainly I do,” I replied, my indignation almost overcoming my alarm. “I say that I have no false key, that I have never touched the drawer except in Mr. Parrish’s presence, and that I have never taken any money whatsoever.”
The sergeant made a note of my reply in a large black note-book and then asked: “Is it true that you made a key to fit this drawer?”
“Yes, for Mr. Parrish; and he has that key and the broken one from which it was copied. I made no other key.”
“How did you make that key? By measurements only, or did you make a squeeze?”
“I made a squeeze from the broken key, and, as soon as the job was finished, I destroyed it.”
“That’s what he says,” exclaimed Mr. Parrish, “but it’s a lie. He kept the squeeze and made another key from it.”
The sergeant cast a slightly impatient glance at him and remarked, drily: “We are taking his statement,” and continued:
“Now, Polton, Mr. Parrish says that he marked some, or all, of the money in that drawer with a P. scratched just behind the head. If you have got any money about you, perhaps you would like to show it to us.”
“Like, indeed!” exclaimed Mr. Parrish. “He’ll have to be searched whether he likes it or not.”
The sergeant looked at him angrily, but, as I proceeded to turn out my pockets and lay the contents on the table, he made no remark until Mr. Parrish was about to pounce on the coins that I had laid down, when he said, brusquely: “Keep your hands off that money, Mr. Parrish. This is my affair.”
Then he proceeded to examine the coins, one by one, laying them down again in two separate groups. Having finished, he looked at me steadily and said:
“Here, Polton, are five coins: three half-crowns and a shilling and a sixpence. All the half-crowns are marked with a P. The other coins are not marked. Can you explain how you came by those half-crowns?”
“Yes, sir. I received them from Mr. Parrish when he paid me my wages last Saturday. He gave me four half-crowns, two forms and a shilling; and he took the money from that drawer.”
The sergeant looked at Mr. Parrish. “Is that correct?” he asked.
“I paid him his wages — fifteen shillings — but I don’t admit that those are the coins I gave him.”
“But,” the sergeant persisted, “did you take the money from that drawer?”
“Of course I did,” snapped Parrish. “It’s my petty-cash drawer.”
“And did you examine the coins to see whether they were marked?”
“I expect I did, but I really don’t remember.”
“He did not,” said I. “He just counted out the money and handed it to me.”
The sergeant gazed at my employer with an expression of bewilderment.
“Well, of all —” he began, and then stopped and began again: “But what on earth was the use of marking the money and then paying it out in the ordinary way?”
The question stumped Mr. Parrish for the moment. Then, having mumbled something about “a simple precaution”, he returned to the subject of the squeeze and the key. But the sergeant cut him short.
“It’s no use just making accusations without proof. You’ve got nothing to go on. The marked money is all bunkum, and as to the key, you are simply guessing. You’ve not made out any case at all.”
“Oh, haven’t I?” Parrish retorted. “What about that key and the lock that he repaired and the stolen money? I am going to prosecute him, and I call on you to arrest him now.”
“I’m not going to arrest him,” said the sergeant; “but if you still intend to prosecute, you’d better come along and settle the matter with the inspector at the station. You come, too, Polton, so that you can answer any questions.”
Thus did history repeat itself. Once more, after five years, did I journey to the same forbidding destination in company with the same accuser and the guardian of the law. When we arrived at the police station and were about to enter, we nearly collided with a smartly dressed gentleman who was hurrying out, and whom I recognized as my late benefactor, Mr. Cohen. He recognized me at the same moment and stopped short with a look of surprise at the sergeant.
“Why, what’s this, Polton?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“He is accused by this gentleman,” the sergeant explained, “of having stolen money from a drawer by means of a false key.”
“Bah!” exclaimed Mr. Cohen. “Nonsense. He is a most respectable lad. I know him well and can vouch for his excellent character.”
“You don’t know him as well as I do,” said Mr. Parrish, viciously.
Mr. Cohen turned on him a look of extreme disfavour and then addressed the sergeant.
“If there is going to be a prosecution, Serg............