Chapter 7
Bob Allison lay motionless for as much as five whole minutes, thinking. He was perhaps doing the most intensive thinking about one single thing of his whole lifetime.
He had always had trouble in concentrating, there were so many interesting topics to divert his mind, especially when he was trying to study.
But just now he was putting his whole eager young soul into concentrating, and it brought about a state of bodily quiescence that would have alarmed his mother is she had happened to be where she could watch him. Nothing save absolute oblivion in sleep had ever before made young Robert Allison lie so still.
For it happened that Jason Whitney had been Bob Allison’s hero since kindergarten days.
It was Jason Whitney who had taken the trouble at odd moments before and after school, to teach Bob how to pitch a ball better than any of the other boys in his grade. It was Jason who made snowmen for him, and took him sometimes on his bike to school, and once took him along when he went fishing. Bob adored the very ground Jason walked on.
And now Jason had been driven from his job and his home into a cold, unsympathetic world, with a cloud of suspicions hanging over his past and a dark uncertain future before him. Bob felt that he had to do something about it.
Bob had been quick to register another name mentioned by his sister in her confidential talk with their father. Corey Watkins had been for years as much hated by Bob as Jason had been adored. His aversion to Corey Watkins was much more deeply seated than even his lover for Jason Whitney and dated back to the time when he was only three years old and had gone to visit high school with his sister Rose. They were out in the yard at recess time, and Rose was talking to some of her friends with her back turned. Corey had come along and persuaded the infant Bobbie to pick up a nice soft yellow bumblebee in his chubby hand and stroke its yellow fur. When suddenly disillusionment had come and he howled, bringing Rose and the teacher to instant rescue, Corey had told them that it was Jason who had perpetrated the trick. Bob had never forgotten that. He could feel the sting in his hand yet whenever he saw the smug look on Corey Watkins’s face.
And Corey Watkins was a pain in the neck, even though he was grown up. Corey was slick, and of course it was he who had done anything in the bank that ought not to have been done. And he had let Jason be the goat. Bob knew very many other instances when this had been the case. He wondered why grown people were always so stupid and indulged the wrong people. Mr. Goodright was likely that way, too. He probably didn’t know Corey was that kind of a guy, and he ought to be enlightened. Bob felt himself qualified to be the enlightener. There was nobody else who could very well do it, so he must.
He could see that it wouldn’t do for Rose to go to Mr. Goodright and tell what she knew. Everybody might hear of it and think she had a crush on Jason. Of course Rose couldn’t do anything. His father had been right about that.
And his father was a minister, and a minister had to be careful about hurting people’s feelings. Mrs. Watkins was a member of the church. No, his father couldn’t warn the bank. He would have to do it himself. And even he mustn’t let them know who he was. He was too young. They wouldn’t pay any attention to a kid’s warning, not unless he had seen something definite to tell. Of course there was the time Rose had been so sick and Father was away, and his mother had sent him to the drugstore for medicine at midnight. He had seen Corey Watkins come out of a side door in the bank and go around through the alley instead of going up Main Street, which was the short way to the Watkins home. Still, of course, that didn’t exactly prove anything. But somehow he had to expose Corey Watkins to the world, or to the bank anyway, and bring back his idol, Jason, to his rightful place among his fellow townsmen where he would be no longer misjudged but understood and admired as was right and proper. Having decided this much, it did not take him long to decide what to do. Mr. Goodright, the president of the bank, should be informed of the injustice he had done in dismissing Jason from his place in the bank and retaining Corey Watkins. Another half second sufficed to decide Bob how to right this wrong. He would himself write a letter to Mr. Goodright informing him of the mistake he was making in retaining Corey and dismissing Jason, and he would sign it “a well-wisher of the bank” or something like that.
Having reached this conclusion and feeling that the whole matter was already on its way to being set right, Bob opened one eye and glanced briefly at the page where his forefinger was inserted in the much-thumbed history book he held. Softly his lips mumbled over the stale old phrases. “Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492,” on down through a long list that he had been droning over more or less all afternoon with only half his mind upon it. Now he was wholly concentrated and he had the fourteen long lines memorized perfectly in five minutes, so that he was sure he would not forget them.
Then softly he flung open the red fringes of the hammock which enveloped him, stealthily swung first one leg and then the other free, and slid down noiselessly to the porch floor, thence continuously to the grass in front. He stole around the house, issuing a moment later from the other side and mounting the front steps whistling, “My country ’tis of thee,” a trifle off key, but cheerfully.
He knocked at his father’s study door, and entering, produced his history book triumphantly.
“I’m ready to recite,” he announced, and glibly hurled the facts of history at his preoccupied father, who smiled his satisfaction, his eyes upon his evening paper, and signified that Bob was now free to attend the evening entertainment of the Boy Scouts.
Bob retreated from the room silently, not with his usual grin when a penance was completed, and softly ascended the stairs to his room. He had intended chasing the cat, tying a worm to her tail, and then setting her free in the chicken yard among the hens, but that was before graver matters engrossed his mind.
Almost stealthily he entered his room and pushed the bolt on the door so that he would not be interrupted. Then the better to act the part he had now to play he removed his shoes and stocking-footed went over to the bed and got a pillow, placing it in the desk chair to still a chronic creak that the seat sometimes emitted. He sat gravely down and got out his writing materials.
Sheet after sheet of his Christmas writing paper he rejected because of the emblems they bore, and they were numerous. There was the first kindergarten paper with a row of little children hand in hand going to school with their school bags and slates. That was the first paper he ever got, and he had once admired it. How silly it looked to him now. And there was the animal paper. Some had kittens, some puppies, some ponies, and some a group of cows, but all those were childish and would not do for grave matters like this. And there was the baseball paper with batters and catchers and pitchers all in suitable costumes. He put them aside. There was nothing left but the last paper from his tenth birthday that displayed his initials in red and blue and gold letters! And that wouldn’t do either! He was going to sign this note “a well-wisher.” It wasn’t necessary for them to know his name. it would carry more weight, he felt sure, if it appeared to be written by some man.
So finally he ventured forth stealthily to his mother’s desk and filched a sheet of her plain note paper.
He went at his task vigorously, forming each letter with care, trying to keep the lines even and not let them run uphill. His clear, round schoolboy handwriting was very characterful. Now and then he rubbed his smudgy hand across his eyes wearily and sighed. It was unusual that he should apply himself so intensively to a task like this. Several times he almost gave it up, but he plodded on, and by the time the supper bell rang he had completed his letter. It was a bit smeary, but very plainly decipherable.
Mr. Goodright,
President of the Bank
Dear Sir:
You had better watch your step. You’ve got a slick guy in your bank and you’d be surprised if you knew who he was. I can’t name him because it wouldn’t be honorable to tell tales. Jason Whitney is a noble young man who took the bla
me for another, and you ought to try to get him back when you get rid of the other man. You won’t have any trouble in spotting the crook if you just pick out the one you’re sure he isn’t, and then watch him hard. But remember he is slick. He has it in for Jason since he was a kid.
Very truly yours,
A Well-Wisher
Bob took some of his treasured money saved for marbles and went to the post office for a stamp to mail his letter, thereby arriving late at supper with unwashed hands and uncombed hair, incurring a reprimand. But he felt that that was the penalty of being noble and trying to set wrongs right, so he suffered in silence.
Even at the Boy Scout entertainment that evening he was preoccupied and felt like a noble elderly person set apart to higher things than laughing over childish tricks put up for amusement. His deep-set admiration for Jason Whitney, and his great longing to do something to set him right in the eyes of the world, stimulated him like an intoxicating drink. He kept wondering all the evening how long it would be before his letter began to take effect. He regretted deeply that he had to go to school in the morning and could not hover around and watch to see if anything was happening at the bank after that letter would have been received. It was a great bore this having to go to school after one reached the age of discretion and had been called to noble endeavors.
Still, he enjoyed the entertainment fairly well in spite of his distraught mind, and managed to write down one or two tricks on a scrubby card he found in his pocket. He went home tired and happy, casting a knowing look toward the post office as he went by as to a fellow conspirator. That night he dreamed that Jason was restored to the fellowship of the town, and all saw what a wise and noble young man he was, and how utterly despicable was the one who had tried to cause his downfall.
The next morning when Mr. Goodright received that letter he read it with much amusement, slowly, and with a relish. Then he turned to the front page and read it again, carefully, deliberately, thoughtfully. Finally he folded it away in a second envelope and locked it into a secret drawer in his desk. Then he took a pencil and wrote a list of all the employees of the bank, from the least unto the greatest. Slowly, thoughtfully, he went down the list checking off the names, numbering them in the order he had checked them, and paused, noting with astonishment the first name he had checked off. Then he sat back and stared for fully five minutes at the blank wall ahead of him.
Was this a game or something serious? Was it some friend of Jason who was trying to get revenge? Was it—no, it couldn’t be Jason himself. He took out the letter again from its hiding and looked at the formation of each letter, each word. Surely that was a child, or at least a very young person. No grown person could have imitated a schoolboy’s writing as well as that—or—could it be a schoolgirl? No, there was something altogether boyish about it.
The bank president went to a cabinet and took out a drawer where were filed the specimens of handwriting of all the employees in the bank and spent several minutes in absorbed contemplation of the formation of the letters. Finally he locked Bobby’s letter away again, and got up and walked the length of the room several times, his hands behind him.
It was absurd, of course, to pay attention to an anonymous letter, especially one that came so obviously from a boy, for there was “boy” written all over that missive, and yet there was something in the Bible about “out of the mouth of babes.” There might be something in it well worth considering, perhaps even worth acting upon, especially if there should be any further signs of tampering with the books.
The president went back to the perplexities of the day, but every little while that schoolboy letter kept coming to mind, and as he chanced to see the different employees under him he kept applying the test the boy had given, and smiling, with albeit a grave look in his eyes.
And then, when Charles Parsons came in late in the afternoon, he unlocked his secret drawer and took the letter out and showed it to him.
“What do you think of that, Charlie?”
There was a twinkle in Charles Parsons’s eyes as he handed the letter back, but his voice was grave as he answered, “There might be something in it, you know, Jamie. It is sometimes permitted to boys to see and know things that their elders cannot find out. You remember the time when you and I peeked in the back windows of the greengrocery one night and saw Mr. Buxton fitting a false bottom to his peck measure so it wouldn’t hold quite a peck, and the time we caught the temperance lecturer taking a drink at the hotel bar; and the time we hid in the bushes and caught Sam Downes kissing the milkmaid at Browers when he was supposed to be taking the minister’s daughter to choir rehearsal? You know, Jamie, a boy gets around a lot, and learns to read character sometimes rather better than his elders. I wouldn’t ignore the warning, if you can call it a warning that doesn’t tell you what it warns against.”
“Yes,” said James Goodright. “That’s it. I wish I had the little rascal here that wrote that letter and I’d choke it out of him who it is he means.”
Charles Parsons grinned. “You wouldn’t have let anybody choke a thing like that out of you, Jamie, when you were that age. You know you wouldn’t! Not if you choked for it.”
“No, I suppose not,” said the banker. “And after all, perhaps that’s why it has worried me all day, the very fact that he didn’t mention a name. There isn’t anything that I can do about it.”
“Except follow the advice of the letter,” said Charles gravely.
“Well, I have!” said the banker. “I wrote a list and narrowed it down to tow, and I’ve been worrying all day about which of the two it could be. And yet, of course, it isn’t fair to either of them to pay any attention to it at all. I have perfect confidence in every man in the bank.”
“Yes,” said Charles, “and yet it must have been somebody. If it still goes on, if it wasn’t Jason, then we can say it must be somebody here. Of course you didn’t suspect any deliberate work when you dismissed Jason, you say. You thought the discrepancies were carelessness.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said the banker, passing a hand wearily over his eyes. “I certainly wish that this matter was cleared up. Of course it’s a great weight off my mind that we got back most of our property and not of our trustees are going to have to be brought down to poverty, but I certainly wish I understood it all. There is something behind it that I cannot understand, Charlie. It isn’t just an ordinary bank robbery. There has been some inside work. I’m sure of that. I suppose I must have precipitated matters by dismissing Jason Whitney, but—I was all out of patience.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure!” said Charles. “We haven’t got this thing figured out yet, Jamie. It’s a matter to pray over, I’m thinking.”
The banker drew a deep sigh. “Yes, I suppose so, Charlie. You attend to the praying end, won’t you? You were always better at that than I. Charlie, what’s become of your boy Rowan? And what’s all this whispering about him that I hear?”
Charles Parsons turned his deep eyes on his friend.
“if you want to know what I think, Jamie,” he said gravely, “I think he’s gone after Jason to try and bring him back.”
The banker studied his friend’s face for a while, and then he said, “Well, Charlie, I sincerely hope he has! I’m glad you trust your boy. You know him better than I do. And time will tell. Well, anyway, Charlie, we’re standing by each other, just as we always did.”
“God bless you for that, Jamie,” said Charles, grasping his friend’s hand.
“Well, that goes without saying, of course,” said the banker. “I know you, and I trust you better than my own soul.”
“Better be careful, Jamie,” said Charles, with a wry smile, “you know what the letter warns, that you’re to watch the one you trust the most, or something like that.”
“Well, that’s not you, Charlie Parsons. I’d stake my soul on that! But I certainly do wish they’d catch one of those Rowleys and put him through the third degree. Then I think we’d know a little something at least. Bu
t don’t say anything about this letter to anyone.”
“Of course not,” said Charles. And after a few more words they parted.
Two hours later word came flashing over the wires that one of the Rowley gang had been shot down by police in a western city and killed, and a second Rowley had been captured and taken to the police station, while several others who had been a part of the outfit at Rowley’s Road House had escaped westward.
The town and countryside held its breath for a few hours and looked at one another with horror in their eyes. They had never supposed that stark things like robbery and shootings would come to their quiet town. They paused to think of the dark-browed man who had presided over the gas station and over the Road House, and who had gone in and out among them hostilely, having little to say to anyone. It was easy to think of him as a gangster, a public enemy, but it was appalling to think they had harbored him quietly now for nearly two years and not known a peril in their midst. And now he had met his end, ignominiously, as should be, in an alley, with his feet lying pitifully straight on the cobble stones as the evening papers pictured him. What a leveler death was! How it suddenly took the power from villains and brought their evil machinations to an end!
And the other Rowley brother captured! They drew a breath of relief and then turned to face the rest of the story. “The others had escaped.” Who were the others?
A later edition of the paper stated that one of those who had been with the Rowleys when taken was Pete Bundon, a notorious escaped convict. They thought of him, a thickset, ugly jowled man, uncouth, and with a beetling brow and cruel eyes. But somehow by this time it did not seem so important to the town as the question, Who were the others who had escaped? The next paper narrowed it down to three in all who had been in the gang when discovered, Pete Bundon and two others, not as yet identified.
Wild, fearful eyes looked into one another and dared not ask that question, “Who?” Two fathers lay wide eyed and stared at the dark all night, saw that question in unfriendly eyes and trembled for the future. A mother, and a tender sister lay and waited for the morning, with tears upon their lashes and firm quivering lips that prayed. And a girl lay all alone in a little cottage bed in the parsonage room and cried her heart out into her pillow, setting her lips in a firm believing line. Never! Never would she believe such a thing! Never though the whole world said he was a criminal. She knew! And if necessary she would tell what she knew!