CHAPTER IV THREE CONFERENCES AND THEIR RESULTS

There were three very important conferences held that evening.

The first was by Barnaby Vernon with himself.

As he walked down-town, towards his hotel, off came the mustache, the glasses, the pin, one after another, and then even the duster was removed and thrown over his arm.

He had left his straw hat “to be called for,” and now he went into the store and put it on again, ordering the tall silk hat to be delivered at the hotel.

There was, therefore, on his return, no perceptible difference in his exterior, and he had no fears whatever that Major Montague would make his appearance very soon.

After supper, however, he retired to his own room, for a good solid “think” over the events of the day.

“No,” he said at last, “there’s no sort of question[Pg 44] about the honesty of it, bad as it would have looked if anybody had seen me do it. Still it was a terribly dangerous experiment, and I’ll never try anything of the sort again, even to keep a man from being robbed. I might just have collared old Prosper, and shouted ‘Police!’ Then it never would have been found on him, and I’d have made a fool of myself. But what’ll I say to the owner? I won’t own to any connection with that gang. We’ll see about it when the time comes. Maybe he’ll be glad enough to get his money back without asking any questions. Now for a look at it, and to find out to whom it belongs.”

The door of the room was safely locked and bolted, and Bar sat down with a strange kind of a trouble all over him, and drew from his bosom the treasure of which he had so singularly obtained possession.

It must have been made at the same shop as the one left in his hands by the “pocketbook-dropper” that morning, and Bar could not help wondering whether that baffled swindler would soon succeed again in rigging up so very taking a bait.

[Pg 45]“He’ll end his days in the penitentiary,” muttered Bar, “and so’ll all the rest of ’em. I’d rather not go that way, if you please. Hullo! what’s this?”

Thousand-dollar bills, ten of them. Others of smaller denominations, comparatively, but all large. Checks and drafts for ten times as much more.

Business memoranda and receipts, which, even to Bar’s inexperienced eye, were evidently of great importance, and there could be no manner of doubt that the whole belonged to Dr. Randall Manning, the great physician.

“Glad he’s so rich,” muttered Bar. “And to think of such a man going in to help a poor fellow that fell in a fit on the sidewalk! How mad he must have been when he found he had been cheated! Yes, and what did he say or think when he found all this among the missing. I see. That gang played for him on purpose, and they played it wonderfully well. Hope they’ll be happy over their winnings. Why, I shall hardly dare go to sleep to-night with all this in my room. Only nobody’d dream of trying to rob a boy like me. Not worth robbing, and[Pg 46] that’s a comfort just now. I’ll go to the doctor’s the first thing in the morning. Why not to-night? It’s early yet. No, he won’t be at home this evening. He’ll be hunting all over the city to see if he can get on the track of his property.”

Barnaby was only half right, and his better course would have been to go at once, for although the worthy doctor did employ his evening till a late hour, too, in the manner the quick-witted boy had imagined, he was just then at home and would have been glad enough to welcome such a visitor as Bar would have been.

Moreover, Bar himself might have had some chance for a good night’s sleep, instead of lying wide awake, as he did, hugging his precious wallet.

Perhaps, however, that night’s wakefulness, as the guardian of another man’s property, with all the thoughts it brought to the mind of the lonely and friendless boy, may have been of special service, and Bar’s decision may have been for the best, after all.

At all events, when morning came, Bar had fully made up his mind as to the course he meant[Pg 47] to take, and it was scarcely the same he would have chosen if he had acted on the spur of the moment.

The second “conference” that evening began at the same time with Bar’s, but it did not last all night.

It was held in the elegantly furnished library of Dr. Manning, and the parties to it were an elderly-looking, intellectual-seeming gentleman, and the doctor himself.

The former was no less a man than Dr. Manning’s legal counsel, who had called for a very different piece of business from the one before him now.

He had evidently been listening to his client’s account of his misfortune, and his face expressed almost as much indignation as sympathy.

“You see, Judge,” urged the doctor, “I felt that I ought to take it while I could get it. He was to go on board the steamer at six o’clock, and it seemed like my last chance. He means to be honest, you know, but he’s so speculative and uncertain. He signed over the checks and drafts, and paid me the money, just as if he had never intended to do anything else.”

[Pg 48]“You could have had him arrested,” snapped the judge.

“Arrested, Judge Danvers? The very thing I did not want to do. Besides, how could I, when he turned upon me so frankly and said, ‘There’s your money just as I collected it, every cent,’ and paid it squarely into my hands.”

“No telling what he has that belongs to other men. You were not his only victim.”

“Never thought of that,” said the doctor. “Anyhow, I received my money.”

“And lost it on your way home,” growled the judge.

“I hope not,” replied the doctor. “I’ve already sent advertisements to all the newspapers. The finder could not use the checks and drafts, even if he were dishonest, and my wallet was marked inside with my address in full.”

“Finder!” petulantly exclaimed the judge. “Why, Doctor, you’ve had your pocket picked. Do you suppose your reward—a thousand dollars I think you said—will make a pickpocket send back your greenbacks? Of course, you can stop payment of the other things, if you’re quick enough. I’ll take care of that myself, but how[Pg 49] are we ever to get at the money, I’d like to know? It’s a pretty kettle of fish. You say you took a carriage and rode all the way home?”

“Yes,” replied the doctor, almost meekly, “it was after bank hours or I’d have deposited the whole thing at once. So I took a carriage and hurried home, meaning to lock it up in my own safe here, over night, and deposit it in the bank in the morning.”

“But didn’t you stop, anywhere?”

“No—yes—well, I did get out for just a minute in front of Stewart’s, to look at a fellow they said had tumbled in a fit on the sidewalk. He was a complete fraud. No fit at all.”

“I see,” exclaimed the judge. “If I could only get hold of that make-believe epileptic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mean? Why, there was a crowd, of course, all around you, behind you, close to you, as you leaned over your patient. The light-fingered gentry had it all their own way.”

“Why, Judge, I saw half a dozen men I knew, and a more respectable-looking crowd you never saw. There were even ladies in it, just come out of Stewart’s.”

[Pg 50]“Exactly,” said the judge, “and I must see the police this very night again, and so must you. Send for a carriage, Doctor; we’ve no time to lose.”

“Certainly,” replied the doctor, as he rose from his chair, “but I’ve three or four patients I must look to on the way. Mustn’t neglect them, you know, for any mere matter of money.”

“Patients!” exclaimed the dry, hard man of law, but he gazed very admiringly on the true-hearted and high-principled physician for all that. “Yes, I’ll help you ’tend cases all night. No other medicine man shall have the killing of me. To think of them under such circumstances!”

And so, a few minutes later, the doctor and the judge rode away together on their joint errand of healing, mercy, and pickpocket detection.

The third conference had taken place even earlier in the evening.

Such experienced hands as Prosper, Major Montague, and their colleagues, were not likely to come together at once, after such a remarkable exploit as they had performed, and they found[Pg 51] their way to their appointed rendezvous by circuitous routes, and one by one.

Moreover, even Prosper, mindful of the suspicious jealousy of his associates, did not dare to disturb the outer covering of his prey until the rest arrived, although his clawlike fingers worked around it, as it lay in his pocket, with a perfect ague-shake of mingled greed and curiosity.

The hour agreed upon was not likely to be overstaid on such an occasion as that, and Prosper was in no danger of being long compelled to bear his temptation alone.

First came the little, dapper, sharp-visaged person who had made so good an imitation of a fit, then Major Montague, and, closely following him were two very well dressed, respectable-looking gentlemen, who had been conspicuous as active members of the “crowd” in front of Stewart’s.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Prosper, “we are all here and it may be there’s no time to lose. We’ve made a magnificent haul, or I’m mistaken. There it is.”

And so saying he threw down upon the table[Pg 52] before them the elegantly finished Russia leather wallet, which Barnaby Vernon had received from the “dropper” a few hours earlier, plump and full as when Bar had refused to “divide the reward” for it.

The eyes of the whole party glistened with expectation, and more than one of them drew a long breath and reached out an involuntary hand. It was by no means easy for such men to look upon a pocketbook like that and not lay a finger on it.

“Open it, Monsieur Prosper,” said Major Montague, dignifiedly. “Let all witness the opening and feel sure of the exact justice of our mutual dealings.”

A hum of approbation ran around the little circle as Prosper’s unsteady fingers drew the strap and disclosed the precious contents to their admiring gaze.

“What’s that?” almost instantly thereafter shouted Major Montague. “Prosper, you old villain, do you think you can play any such game on us?”

The chorus of wrath, indignation, bitterness, profanity that followed upon the major’s “opening”[Pg 53] would have defied a dozen stenographers, and poor old Prosper bent tremblingly and helplessly before the storm, vainly protesting the truth that the wallet had not left his pocket until he laid it before them on the table.

No such assertion could be of any manner of service. Were they all fools? Had Dr. Manning rigged himself for the drop game? What had he done with the money?

And then came darker hints and threats, until Prosper, almost beside himself with rage, fear, and perplexity, actually stuck his head out of the open window and yelled:

“Police! police!” at the top of his voice.

The room behind him was empty in a moment, but Bar Vernon’s afternoon work had resulted in forever disbanding what had threatened, from the skill and ability of its well-trained membership, to be one of the most dangerous gangs of rogues that ever infested the metropolis.

Prosper knew that he would thenceforth be a marked man, even among the thieving fraternity itself, and could hope for no more confederates.

The major had lost faith in humanity, and knew, besides, that all humanity had lost faith in[Pg 54] him, for it was more than intimated that he was suspected of collusion with Prosper.

The little dapper “fits” imitator declared that he had lost all ambition, and should at once return to his legitimate business of three-card monte.

As for the other two, they contented themselves for weeks with a vain attempt to dog the movements of their late associates, and learn what had become of the doctor’s money.

The only man who made any profit out of the operation was the landlord of the “hotel,” who found the wallet lying on the table after Prosper’s half-frenzied exit, and sold it to a countryman for three dollars, applying that sum to the rent of the room.

Perhaps the bitterest moment undergone by any of them all, however, came to the share of Prosper himself, the next morning, when he read in the papers an offer of a thousand dollars’ reward for the return of that very wallet.

Then, indeed, he bowed his head in utter desolation, for the truth became only too clear to a mind so well trained as his own.

“Changed in the crowd!” he exclaimed.

[Pg 55]“Got into the wrong hands. Somebody else will get the reward or keep the wallet!”

It was too much for human endurance, and for at least an hour the defeated pickpocket had serious thoughts of giving up everything and going to work for an honest living.

It looked a good deal as if even the evil one had turned against him, which is very much what every evil man is apt to make up his mind to, sooner or later.