A moment more and a motorcycle shot down the road toward the village, and presently with blare of horn and siren a red car came rushing back filled with policemen, nearly all the little village boasted.
The combination of the safe baffled them for hours, and in the end they had to use dynamite to get it open. But when the contents were finally brought to the light of day they found all the booty that had been stolen from the bank except a few hundred dollars in small bills and change that the robbers had evidently taken with them.
Hastily the bank representatives were sent for, the treasure brought back to the bank again, and then the work of checking it began in earnest.
Meantime the search went on for the criminals, for now they definitely knew whom to look for—at least, they knew three of them, they said in covert whispers, with downward glances, and significant tones.
Charles Parsons, seeing some of these glances and hearing now and then a whisper, felt his heart sink, for he knew what they were thinking. Even men who were his friends and who respected him too much to speak out their thoughts were thinking that somehow Jason Whitney and Rowan Parsons were mixed up in the whole thing, if not as the actual perpetrators of the deed, at least as accomplices. If not, why didn’t they come home? They must know what had happened, wherever they might be. The story of the robbery and the probable slaying of a good citizen must have penetrated anywhere they might have hidden. Was it not broadcast on the radio? Was it not blazoned in headlines in the city papers? They could not fail to see it or hear it, and if they were innocent surely they would have sense enough to come home and say so! Both of them were too well educated and too intelligent not to know that to stay away was the worst thing they could do.
So Charles came home at night and tried to smile bravely.
“We’ve got most of the money back in the bank, Hannah,” he said with a sigh of relief, which yet had in it a tinge of sadness, “but they still think our boys were to blame for it.”
He had come to calling them “our boys” now. He seemed to have forgotten his grudge against Jason.
“Well,” said Hannah with her brave smile, “what does it matter? They can’t arrest them while they’re away, and when they come back they can surely prove they were not guilty. God has them hidden somewhere for His own good purpose.”
“Yes, I was thinking that,” said Charles. “God has let us know that there isn’t a shadow of doubt about them as far as any criminal connection with the robbery is concerned, and that’s a great thing. He has been tender to us. And for some reason He wants us to bear these rumors, at least for a while.”
Hannah looked up thoughtfully.
“Yes, I’m thankful. But you know, Charles, we aren’t sure ourselves about Jason. We’re sure that Rowan went out to find and save Jason, but how do we know but Jason was in on this thing? How do you know but our Rowan suspected that, and went out to try and persuade him out of it, and perhaps they both got caught in the net and couldn’t get away alive? Jason was in the bank, you know, and you said somebody had been tampering with the books.”
“I know, but I’ve been looking into the matter pretty thoroughly and I’m convinced that Jason had nothing to do with it. I’ve inquired into details most definitely. I am pretty sure I have settled it that the last tampering which included quite a large sum, several hundred dollars, more than had been attempted at any one time before, was taken that very morning that Jason was dismissed, and after he left the bank. The weight of the testimony is that Jason had had no possible opportunity at the books that morning. Though it’s true one man does think he saw him looking over one of the books very early when he first came in, and says he looked confused when he looked at him. But Mr. Goodright is very sure that was not possible. He says he was watching the boy from the time he came in, knowing what he must presently say to him.”
“Who was the one man, Charles?”
“Well, it was Corey Watkins, if you must know,” Charles said, smiling half sheepishly. “Of course that won’t count with you, but it certainly does with everyone else connected with the bank. Corey Watkins, they say, is the most conscientious and the most exact, and the most observing man working for them.”
“H’m!” said Hannah thoughtfully and said no more.
There was a long silence and at last Charles said, “Well, of course you might be right, Hannah!”
Hannah looked up in surprise. “Why, I didn’t say anything!”
“No, but you looked it,” said her husband, smiling. “But anyway, Hannah, I don’t think anymore that Jason was in this bank business. I believe he went away to find another job or to hide his heart. Goodright has been telling me what he said to him, and how cut up and angry the boy was. He says he almost felt he might have done him an injustice. He even offered to let Jason have another trial, it seems, but Jason declined it and left with his head high. He said if Mr. Goodright thought he was capable of doing some of those things that he had charged him with that he didn’t want to work for him another hour, and he got up and went without even denying what was charged. Of course that looks bad for him. And yet Mr. Goodright is inclined to believe in him, I am sure. I think even yet he would give him another chance if he would come back in spite of his proud rejection of his help.”
“But it was just like Jason,” said Hannah. “I know how he held his dark head, and how narrow and angry his fiery eyes got. He was like that when he was a child. And he comes truly by it. He’s his father all over again.”
“Yes,” sighed Charles. “And Nathan is feeling this. He looks twenty years older than he did a week ago. The poor man hasn’t any Savior to lean on. I don’t suppose he’d even own that he’s feeling it, either, except in anger at the boy. Well, poor man! Hannah, we’ve a great deal to be thankful for that we have such a wonderful God, and that His Word is so full of dependable promises.”
Hannah gave her husband a bright smile and went on with her work.
But the rumors continued and grew as they went the rounds of the town, and more and more of them drifted back to the parsonage and to the ears of Rose Allison.
“Gee!” said her young brother Bob at the lunch table, talking with his mouth full of bread and jelly. “Gee! They’re sayin’ now that Jase Whitney was the one that showed the Rowleys the combination of the safe, and gave ’em the high sign when Sam Paisley was at the other side of the block. They say they’re almost sure he was the one that hit Sam on the head with a piece a’ lead pipe. I don’t b’lieve it. Jase is a good egg. He wouldn’t do a thing like that!”
Rose looked up startled and opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Finally she decided to speak.
“No, I don’t believe it either!” she said firmly. But she did not give her reason for thinking so.
Late that afternoon Bob was lying in the old-fashioned hammock on the front porch close under the windows of his father’s study, memorizing his history for the next day’s lesson. His father had told him very firmly that if he didn’t know that long string of dates perfectly before supper he couldn’t go out that night to a boy scout entertainment he was eager to attend, so he had taken time off from a ball game and was studying hard, rolled up in the fringes of the hammock, his eyes shut, saying over and over the dates. “Columbus discovered America in fourteen-ninety-two—”
Rose had been up in her room standing at the window staring out at a faraway hill, without seeing it, struggling with a natural reticence. But at last she made a decision and hurried down to her father’s study. She knew he had come in a few minutes before from parishional calls, and it never bothered him as much to be interrupted in the afternoon as it did in the morning when he was usually studying or writing a new sermon.
Rose tapped at the door and stepped in. “Father, are you too busy to talk to me a minute? There’s something I think maybe I ought to tell you.”
Bob pricked up his ears. She wasn’t going to tell Dad about the window he broke with his baseball at school, was she? Aw, gee, wha’d
she wanta do that for? He was going to pay for it with his own money. He’d already told the superintendent so. Gee! That wasn’t like Rose to go squealing. She was a good sport. She didn’t tell tales.
He remained motionless in the hammock and listened. If she looked out of the window she wouldn’t know there was a soul in the hammock, it was so still and look so flat.
But Rose was not looking out of the window. She came over and stood with her back to it and her hands behind her on the windowsill. “Father, I don’t know whether this is important or not, but it seemed to me I’d better tell you. It isn’t anything much, and might not have anything to do with the case, but I can’t seem to get away from worrying about it.”
“All right. Say on, little girl!”
“Well, Father, you know I was trying to get my quota of people to come to the meeting the other night, and I had them all but one, I just couldn’t seem to think of another one to ask that somebody else hadn’t asked.”
The father wasn’t paying much attention to her. He had his eyes on the evening paper which he had just brought in, but he nodded rather absent-mindedly, and she went on.
“That was the day before the night of the robbery.” She said.
At the word robbery her father looked up sharply. He didn’t want his sweet young daughter connected in any way with this crime, even in any trifling incident, and he gave instant attention. And out in the hammock Bob listened breathlessly.
“Well, Father, I was on my way down to the post office and I saw Jason Whitney coming along on his way to the bank. The thought came to me that maybe I might ask him. I didn’t suppose it would do any good, but I didn’t see how it could do any harm either, and I didn’t know another soul to ask, so when he stopped and said good morning I thought maybe I should ask him.”
“Does he usually stop to say good morning to you?” Mr. Allison was watching his lovely daughter intently and noticing with a sudden qualm how fast she was growing into young womanhood. There was a soft flush on her cheek as she talked and her eyes were cast down as if she were a trifle embarrassed.
“No, he never did before. I don’t know why he did. I don’t think he meant to. He acted as if he was going right on and then all of a sudden he stopped. You know we used to sit across the aisle in high school, though we never knew each other very well. He didn’t pay much attention to girls just then. So when he stopped I thought maybe that showed I should ask him. So I did.”
“He turned you down, I suppose?”
“No,” said Rose, “not exactly. I said, ‘Oh, Jason, I wish you’d do something for me!’ And he said, ‘Sure, I will, kid, what is it?’ And then I told him about the meetings and how we had each pledged to ask so many and I had them all but one. And he said, ‘Great Caesar’s ghost, Rose. Church! I never go to church. It isn’t in my line!’ So then I told him about the speaker and he stood still a minute and looked at me sort of thoughtfully, and finally he said, ‘Sure, kid, I’ll do it,’ and then he lifted his hat again and went on.”
“But he didn’t come, did he?” asked the father amusedly. He was much relieved that Rose’s worry had been merely a matter of inviting an old schoolmate to a meeting, nothing really to do with the robbery. Poor fellow! How different things might have been if he had come instead of—well, where was he anyway? Did he believe that Jason Whitney had taken part in a robbery or not? He wasn’t sure. But he watched his daughter’s face as she went on.
“No, Father, but he called me up.”
“He called you up? On the telephone?” The father’s swivel chair came smartly down to the level and he sat up straight and looked at Rose. “He took the liberty of calling you up! When?”
“Why, I guess it was just a little while after he had been fired from the bank. The dining room clock was striking twelve when he began to talk. I remember because I had to ask him over again. I couldn’t hear. But you know the dining room clock is almost always a little slow. You ought to fix it. It was half an hour slow all last week.”
“Well, get on. What did he say? I don’t suppose he intended to come any of the time.”
“Yes, he did. I really think he did. He said he’d meant to keep his promise to me but he couldn’t because something had happened at the bank that morning and he was leaving town.”
“He said that to you?” The father looked startled and thoughtful.
“Yes, he said just that, and I said I was sorry. And then before I stopped to think I said, ‘Oh, Jason, you haven’t done anything to make them dismiss you, have you?’ And his voice got real bitter the way it used to do in school when the teacher found fault with him, and he said, ‘No, Rose, I haven’t, and that’s the truth, but the poor fishes think I have and that’s just as bad. And the worst of it is I can’t tell what I know so they’ve pinned everything on me. They’ll tell you to the contrary and I can’t blame you if you believe them instead of me, but it’s true!’”
The father was still, considering her for a moment.
“And what did you say to that, Rose?”
Rose hadn’t expected to be asked that, and her face got white and embarrassed and then she lifted honest eyes and looked at her father with a sweet young dignity, lifting her chin a bit. “I said I would believe him; I said I would always believe him!”
She looked straight into her father’s eyes with a gentle kind of defiance ready to meet even his condemnation, as if she believed what she had done was right. He watched her in astonishment. The little girl was becoming a woman, and he admired the way she spoke. He did not condemn her. After a minute he said, “And was that all, dear?”
Her eyes became thoughtful, and lovely color suddenly flooded her face again. “No, Father, He said, ‘Thanks a lot,’ sort of as if he was crying, and then after a second he said, ‘And I’ll always tell you the truth!’ and then he was silent almost a whole minute and he added in a very low tone: ‘If I ever see you again! I’m beating it, kid, and I’m not sure I’m ever coming back. I can’t get a square deal here, and nobody cares, nobody but my sister, and she can’t do anything about it.’”
Rose stopped there. Somehow the rest was too sacred even for her father to know. She couldn’t bring it out that she has said she cared, too. Her father might take it in a different way from what she meant it. And anyway, it had nothing to do with the whole case.
“We said good-bye,” she added simply and stood waiting a moment.
“And what has troubled you about this, Rose?” asked her father.
“Well, it’s what he said about being blamed for what somebody else had done, and not being able to tell. I just got to thinking that Corey Watkins is in the bank, too, and how he used to do things and let Jason be the goat, and I wondered—”
Mr. Allison studied her thoughtfully. “But Corey is a young man now, daughter, and he has the respect and confidence of everybody concerned. I asked about him only yesterday because of what you had told me about his tricks in school that Jason got blamed for, but I find that he has been most exemplary in the bank, in the church, everywhere. He is quite a church worker over at the Second Church.”
“Yes,” said Rose quite unmoved. “He always was. He’s always been exemplary, and Jason has go the blame.”
There was silence in the room for a long minute while the minister studied his young daughter’s face again. Then she lifted her eyes and spoke once more:
“Then you don’t think I ought to tell them that he talked to me and said he was going away? I thought perhaps you would think I should go and tell Mr. Goodright.”
“Oh no!” said the minister quickly. “I don’t want you to get mixed up in this thing. Anything you could possibly say would be utterly misunderstood and cause terrible gossip, especially just now.”
“I know,” said Rose with a sigh, partly troubled and partly relieved. Her tone showed that she fully understood what would be said.
“No, child! Don’t breathe a word. If anything at all is to be said I would be the one to say it, but I can’
t see how it could possibly do any good. They would only say you were a romantic girl, and that girls always defended good-looking young men.”
“I know!” said Rose again. “I didn’t want to, but I thought maybe I should.”
“Well, dear, I’m glad you told me, and if anything comes up that your bit of evidence can help I’ll let it be known some way, but at present I can’t see how it would help. And anyway, you can’t just go and cast aspersions upon some other young man without a bit of evidence. And without that what point would there be to your testimony? Only a statement from the young man himself that he wasn’t getting a square deal, which wouldn’t mean a thing to them, nor change their opinion.”
“I know,” she said sadly as she left him and went her way.
Poor child! She thought it all out, and yet she was willing to go and tell them, if it was the right thing to do. What a good little thing she was! And how sweet she looked when she was confessing that she had told Jason Whitney she would believe him!
He found himself profoundly thankful that Jason Whitney had gone away. No telling what complication might have arisen out of this so simple and sweet beginning if he had stayed. Suppose he had come to the meeting. Suppose he had been converted and become a trustworthy person. Well, even such impossible things as that had happened through the years, and the grace of God was able to save even Jason Whitney. But he must watch his sweet little girl. She was growing into a woman, and she was certainly a winsome lass.
Then the minister went into retirement behind his newspaper and forgot the whole matter for the time being.
But out under the window in the hammock there was a motionless young person who was not forgetting what he had just heard, and he lay still and thought it over, lay so still that he was even afraid he might go to sleep. He didn’t want anybody to know that he had heard what he had heard.