Roads of Destiny

ROADS OF DESTINY

ing the chapel. She told them that Sister Félicité, the head of the order, was then at prayer at the altar in the alcove. In a few moments she would emerge. Heavy, black curtains screened the alcove. They waited.

Soon the curtains were disturbed, and Sister Félicité came forth. She was tall, tragic, bony, and plain-featured, dressed in the black gown and severe bonnet of the sisterhood.

Robbins, a good rough-and-tumble reporter, but lacking the delicate touch, began to speak.

They represented the press. The lady had, no doubt, heard of the Morin affair. It was necessary, in justice to that gentleman’s memory, to probe the mystery of the lost money. It was known that he had come often to this chapel. Any information, now, concerning Mr. Morin’s habits, tastes, the friends he had, and so on, would be of value in doing him posthumous justice.

Sister Félicité had heard. Whatever she knew would be willingly told, but it was very little. Monsieur Morin had been a good friend to the order, sometimes contributing as much as a hundred dollars. The sisterhood was an independent one, depending entirely upon private contributions for the means to carry on its charitable work. Mr. Morin had presented the chapel with silver candlesticks and an altar cloth. He came every day to worship in the chapel, sometimes remaining for an hour. He was a devout Catholic, consecrated to holiness. Yes, and also in the alcove was a statue of the Virgin that he had himself modeled, cast, and presented to the order. Oh, it was cruel to cast a doubt upon so good a man!

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Robbins was also profoundly grieved at the imputation. But, until it was found what Mr. Morin had done with Madame Tibault’s money, he feared the tongue of slander would not be stilled. Sometimes – in fact, very often – in affairs of the kind there was – er – as the saying goes – er – a lady in the case. In absolute confidence, now – if – perhaps –

Sister Félicité’s large eyes regarded him solemnly.

“There was one woman,” she said, slowly, “to whom he bowed – to whom he gave his heart.”

Robbins fumbled rapturously for his pencil.

“Behold the woman!” said Sister Félicité, suddenly, in deep tones.

She reached a long arm and swept aside the curtain of the alcove. In there was a shrine, lit to a glow of soft colour by the light pouring through a stained-glass window. Within a deep niche in the bare stone wall stood an image of the Virgin Mary, the colour of pure gold.

Dumars, a conventional Catholic, succumbed to the dramatic in the act. He bowed his head for an instant and made the sign of the cross. The somewhat abashed Robbins, murmuring an indistinct apology, backed awkwardly away. Sister Félicité drew back the curtain, and the reporters departed.

On the narrow stone sidewalk of Bonhomme Street, Robbins turned to Dumars, with unworthy sarcasm.

“Well, what next? Churchy law fem?” “Absinthe,” said Dumars.

With the history of the missing money thus partially related, some conjecture may be formed of the sudden idea that

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Madame Tibault’s words seemed to have suggested to Robbins’s brain.

Was it so wild a surmise – that the religious fanatic had offered up his wealth – or, rather, Madame Tibault’s – in the shape of a material symbol of his consuming devotion? Stranger things have been done in the name of worship. Was it not possible that the lost thousands were molded into that lustrous image? That the goldsmith had formed it of the pure and precious metal, and set it there, through some hope of a perhaps disordered brain to propitiate the saints and pave the way to his own selfish glory?

That afternoon, at five minutes to three, Robbins entered the chapel door of the Little Sisters of Samaria. He saw, in the dim light, a crowd of perhaps a hundred people gathered to attend the sale. Most of them were members of various religious orders, priests and churchmen, come to purchase the paraphernalia of the chapel, lest they fall into desecrating hands. Others were business men and agents come to bid upon the realty. A clerical-looking brother had volunteered to wield the hammer, bringing to the office of auctioneer the anomaly of choice diction and dignity of manner.

A few of the minor articles were sold, and then two assistants brought forward the image of the Virgin.

Robbins started the bidding at ten dollars. A stout man, in an ecclesiastical garb, went to fifteen. A voice from another part of the crowd raised to twenty. The three bid alternately, raising by bids of five, until the offer was fifty dollars. Then the stout man dropped out, and Robbins, as a sort of coup de main, went to a hundred.

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“One hundred and fifty,” said the other voice. “Two hundred,” bid Robbins, boldly. “Two-fifty,” called his competitor, promptly.

The reporter hesitated for the space of a lightning flash, estimating how much he could borrow from the boys in the office, and screw from the business manager from his next month’s salary.

“Three hundred,” he offered.

“Three-fifty,” spoke up the other, in a louder voice – a voice that sent Robbins diving suddenly through the crowd in its direction, to catch Dumars, its owner, ferociously by the collar.

“You unconverted idiot!” hissed Robbins, close to his ear – “pool!”

“Agreed!” said Dumars, coolly. “I couldn’t raise three hundred and fifty dollars with a search-warrant, but I can stand half. What you come bidding against me for?”

“I thought I was the only fool in the crowd,” explained Robbins.

No one else bidding, the statue was knocked down to the syndicate at their last offer. Dumars remained with the prize, while Robbins hurried forth to wring from the resources and credit of both the price. He soon returned with the money, and the two musketeers loaded their precious package into a carriage and drove with it to Dumars’s room, in old Chartres Street, nearby. They lugged it, covered with a cloth, up the stairs, and deposited it on a table. A hundred pounds it weighed, if an ounce, and at that estimate, according to their calculation, if their daring theory were correct, it stood there, worth twenty thousand golden dollars.

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Robbins removed the covering, and opened his pocketknife.

“Sacré!” muttered Dumars, shuddering. “It is the Mother of Christ. What would you do?”

“Shut up, Judas!” said Robbins, coldly. “It’s too late for you to be saved now.”

With a firm hand, he chipped a slice from the shoulder of the image. The cut showed a dull, grayish metal, with a thin coating of gold leaf.

“Lead!” announced Robbins, hurling his knife to the floor – “gilded!”

“To the devil with it!” said Dumars, forgetting his scruples. “I must have a drink.”

Together they walked moodily to the café of Madame Tribault, two squares away.

It seemed that madame’s mind had been stirred that day to fresh recollections of the past services of the two young men in her behalf.

“You mustn’t sit by those table,” she interposed, as they were about to drop into their accustomed seats. “Thass so, boys. But no. I mek you come at this room, like my trés bon amis. Yes. I goin’ mek for you myself one anisette and one café royale ver’ fine. Ah! I lak treat my fren’ nize. Yes. Plis come in this way.”

Madame led them into the little back room, into which she sometimes invited the especially favoured of her customers. In two comfortable armchairs, by a big window that opened upon the courtyard, she placed them, with a low table between. Bustling hospitably about, she began to prepare the promised refreshments.

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It was the first time the reporters had been honoured with admission to the sacred precincts. The room was in dusky twilight, flecked with gleams of the polished, fine woods and burnished glass and metal that the Creoles love. From the little courtyard a tiny fountain sent in an insinuating sound of trickling waters, to which a banana plant by the window kept time with its tremulous leaves.

Robbins, an investigator by nature, sent a curious glance roving about the room. From some barbaric ancestor, madame had inherited a penchant for the crude in decoration.

The walls were adorned with cheap lithographs – florid libels upon nature, addressed to the taste of the bourgeoisie – birthday cards, garish newspaper supplements, and specimens of art-advertising calculated to reduce the optic nerve to stunned submission. A patch of something unintelligible in the midst of the more candid display puzzled Robbins, and he rose and took a step nearer, to interrogate it at closer range. Then he leaned weakly against the wall, and called out:

“Madame Tibault! Oh, madame! Since when – oh! since when have you been in the habit of papering your walls with five thousand dollar United States four per cent. gold bonds? Tell me – is this a Grimm’s fairy tale, or should I consult an oculist?”

At his words, Madame Tibault and Dumars approached. “H’what you say?” said madame, cheerily. “H’what you say,

M’sieur Robbin? Bon! Ah! those nize li’l peezes papier! One tam I think those w’at you call calendair, wiz ze li’l day of mont’ below. But, no. Those wall is broke in those plaze, M’sieur Robbin’, and I plaze those li’l peezes papier to conceal ze crack.

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XII.

FRIENDS IN SAN ROSARIO

The west-bound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8.20 a.m. A man with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.

Indecision had no part in the movements of the man with the wallet. He was short in stature, but strongly built, with very light, closely-trimmed hair, smooth, determined face, and aggressive, gold-rimmed nose glasses. He was well dressed in the prevailing Eastern style. His air denoted a quiet but conscious reserve force, if not actual authority.

After walking a distance of three squares he came to the centre of the town’s business area. Here another street of importance crossed the main one, forming the hub of San Rosario’s life and commerce. Upon one corner stood the post-office. Upon another Rubensky’s Clothing Emporium. The other two diagonally opposing corners were occupied by the town’s two banks, the First National and the Stockmen’s National. Into the First National Bank of San Rosario the newcomer walked,

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never slowing his brisk step until he stood at the cashier’s window. The bank opened for business at nine, and the working force was already assembled, each member preparing his department for the day’s business. The cashier was examining the mail when he noticed the stranger standing at his window.

“Bank doesn’t open ‘til nine,” he remarked curtly, but without feeling. He had had to make that statement so often to early birds since San Rosario adopted city banking hours.

“I am well aware of that,” said the other man, in cool, brittle tones. “Will you kindly receive my card?”

The cashier drew the small, spotless parallelogram inside the bars of his wicket, and read:

J. F. C. NettlewickNational Bank Examiner

“Oh – er – will you walk around inside, Mr. – er – Nettlewick. Your first visit – didn’t know your business, of course. Walk right around, please.”

The examiner was quickly inside the sacred precincts of the bank, where he was ponderously introduced to each employee in turn by Mr. Edlinger, the cashier – a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation, discretion, and method.

“I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon,” said Mr. Edlinger. “Sam’s been examining us now, for about four years. I guess you’ll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms, sir, stand the storms.”

“Mr. Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange districts,” said the examiner, in his decisive, for-

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mal tones. “He is covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will take the cash first, please.”

Perry Dorsey, the teller, was already arranging his cash on the counter for the examiner’s inspection. He knew it was right to a cent, and he had nothing to fear, but he was nervous and flustered. So was every man in the bank. There was something so icy and swift, so impersonal and uncompromising about this man that his very presence seemed an accusation. He looked to be a man who would never make nor overlook an error.

Mr. Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers flew like some expert musician’s upon the keys of a piano. He dumped the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime. He had the scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda – certain checks, charge slips, etc., carried over from the previous day’s work – with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink cheeks and a stammering tongue.

This newly-imported examiner was so different from Sam Turner. It had been Sam’s way to enter the bank with a shout, pass the cigars, and tell the latest stories he had picked up on

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