The lights were yet shining in Mr. Stuyvesant’s parlors, though the guests were gone, who but a short time before had assembled there to witness the marriage of Cicely’s dear friend, Paula.
At one end of the room stood Mr. Sylvester and Bertram, the former gazing with the eyes of a bridegroom, at the delicate white-clad figure of Paula, just leaving the apartment with Cicely.
“I have but one cause for regret,” said Mr. Sylvester as the door closed. “I could have wished that you and Cicely had participated in our joy and received the minister’s benediction at the same moment as ourselves.”
“Yes,” said Bertram with a short sigh. “But it will come in time. It cannot be but that our efforts must finally succeed. I have just had a new idea; that of putting the watchman on the hunt for Hopgood. They are old friends, and he ought to know all the other’s haunts and possible hiding-places.”
“If Fanning could have helped us, he would have told us long ago. He knows that Hopgood is missing and that we are ready to pay well for any information concerning him.”
“But they are old cronies, and possibly Fanning is keeping quiet out of consideration for his friend.”
“No; I have had a talk with Fanning, and there was no mistaking his look of surprise when told the other had run away under suspicion of being connected with a robbery on the bank’s effects. He knows no more of Hopgood than we do, or his wife does, or the police even. It is a strange mystery, and one to which I fear we shall never obtain the key. But don’t let me discourage you; after a suitable time Mr. Stuyvesant will—”
He paused, for that gentleman was approaching him.
“There is a man outside who insists upon seeing me; says he knows there has just been a wedding here, but that the matter he has to communicate is very important, and won’t bear putting off. The name on his card is Cummins; I am afraid I shall have to admit him, that is, if you have no objection?”
Mr. Sylvester and Bertram at once drew back with ready acquiescence. They had scarcely taken their stand at the other end of the apartment, when the man came in. He was of robust build, round, precise and businesslike. He had taken off his hat, but still wore his overcoat; his face in spite of a profusion of red whiskers and a decided pair of goggles, was earnest and straightforward. He walked at once up to Mr. Stuyvesant.
“Your pardon,” said he, in a quick tone. “But I hear you have been somewhat exercised of late over the disappearance of certain bonds from one of the boxes in the Madison Bank. I am a detective, and in the course of my duty have come upon a few facts that may help to explain matters.”
Mr. Sylvester and Bertram at once started forward; this was a topic that demanded their attention as well as that of the master of the house.
The man cast them a quick look from behind his goggles, and seeming to recognize them, included them in his next question.
“What do you think of the watchman, Fanning?”
“Think? we don’t think,” uttered Mr. Stuyvesant sharply. “He has been in the employ of the bank for twelve years, and we know him to be honest.”
“Yet he is the man who stole your bonds.”
“Impossible!”
“The very man.”
Mr. Sylvester stepped up to him. “Who are you, and how do you know this?”
“I have said my name is Cummins, and I know this, because I have wormed myself into the man’s confidence and have got the bonds, together with his confession, here in my pocket.” And he drew out the long lost bonds, which he handed to their owner, with a bit of paper on which was inscribed in the handwriting of the watchman, an acknowledgment to the effect that he, alone and unassisted, had perpetrated the robbery which had raised such scandal in the bank and led to the disappearance of Hopgood.
“And the man himself?” cried Bertram, when they had all read this. “Where is he?”
“Oh, I allowed him to escape.”
Mr. Sylvester frowned.
“There is something about this I don’t understand,” said he. “How came you to take such an interest in this matter; and why did you let the man escape after acknowledging his crime?”
With a quick, not undignified action, Cummins stepped back. “Gentlemen,” said he, “it is allowable in a detective in the course of his duty, to resort to means for eliciting the truth, that in any other cause and for any other purpose, would be denominated as unmanly, if not mean and contemptible. When I heard of this robbery, as I did the day after its perpetration, my mind flew immediately to the watchman as the possible culprit. I did not know that he had done the deed, and I did not see how he could have possessed the means of doing it, but I had been acquainted with him for some time, and certain expressions which I had overheard him use—expressions that had passed over me lightly at the time, now recurred to my mind with startling distinctness. ‘If a man knew the combination of the vault door, how easily he could make himself rich from the contents of those boxes!’ was one, I remember; and another, ‘I have worked in the bank for twelve years and have not so much money laid up against a rainy day, as would furnish Mr. Sylvester in cigars for a month.’ The fact that he had no opportunity to learn the combination, was the only stumbling-block in the way of my conclusions. But that obstacle was soon removed. In a talk with the janitor’s wife—a good woman, sirs, but a trifle conceited—I learned that he had once had the very opportunity of which I speak, provided he was smart enough to recognize the fact. The way it came about was this. Hopgood, who always meant
