I went, but he"ll never know how much I wanted to kick him. As I shut the door of the mail room I saw poor Mary"s head go down on her arms on the desk.
Peters led me out to the front of the store, where he come to anchor on a shoe-case.
"Set down," says he, pattin" the case alongside of him.
"I don"t feel like settin"," I says, ugly. "And I tell you, Mr. Peters-"
"No," says he, "I"m goin" to tell _you_ this time. Or, if I"m not, the feller I told to be here at half past eleven will. Yes ... here he comes now."
In at the door comes Sim Kelley, and, if ever a chap looked as if he was marchin" to be hung, he did. His eyes was red and his face was white under the freckles.
"Here-here I be, Mr. Peters," he stammered.
"Yes, I see you "be,"" says Peters, dry as a chip. "All right. Now you can tell Cap"n Snow what you told me this mornin"."
Sim looked at me, and at the government man. He was shakin" all over.
"Aw, Cap"n Zeb," he bust out, "don"t be too hard on me. Don"t put me in jail! I know I hadn"t ought to have taken that letter, but you riled me up when you told me I couldn"t be trusted with it. Ike pays me to fetch the mail. And he told me he was expectin" an important letter from them stockbrokers. So I-"
Well, there"s no use tryin" to spin the yarn the way he did. "Twas all mixed up with prayers about not puttin" him in jail, and what would his ma say, and "pleases" and "oh, dont"s" and such. B"iled down and skimmed it amounted to this: He"d seen me lay that Hamilton letter on the sortin" table, saw it when he come back to tell me that Peters had arrived. After I"d gone out to the platform he was struck with an idea.
He _would_ take that letter to Ike, just to show that he could be trusted, and, besides Ike had promised him fifty cents for lookin" out for it and fetchin" it to him direct. He had a key to the Hamilton box and the letter laid right back of that box. All he had to do was to reach through the box to the table, take the letter, and lock up again.
So he did it, and put the letter in his overcoat inside pocket.
"And-and-" he finished up, almost blubberin", "there was a great big hole in that pocket and I didn"t know it."
"I did," says I, involuntary, so to speak. "Never mind. Heave ahead."
"And the letter must have dropped out of it. When I got a little ways up the road I found "twas gone. I didn"t dast tell Ike or you. I-I didn"t _dast_ to. Ike would kill me if I told him, and-and-Oh, please, Cap"n Zeb, don"t put me in jail! I don"t know where the letter is. Honest, I don"t! _Please_ ..." and so on.
Peters cut him short. "There!" says he, "that"ll do. Kelley, you go out on the platform and wait till we need you. Go ahead! Shut up-and go."
Sim went, but I cal"late if we"d listened we could have heard the platform boards tremblin" underneath where he was standin".
Peters looked at me and grinned. "Twas my time to rub my forehead.
"Well!" says I. "Well, I-I.... Is he lyin"?"
"Didn"t act like it, did he?"
"No-o, he didn"t. But-but, if he took that letter, how did it get back onto that sortin" table?"
"How do you know it did?"
"How do I know! Course it got back there! Didn"t Mary say-"
"Wait a minute," he put in. "How do you explain that, Cap"n?"
He was holdin" out somethin" that he"d took from his pocket. I grabbed it. "Twas the regular receipt for that registered letter, and "twas signed by Ichabod Hamilton, Junior.
I looked at that receipt and then at him. The paddin" in my head that, up to then, I"d complimented by callin" brains was whirlin" as if somebody was stirrin" it. I couldn"t say a word. He laughed out loud.
"Don"t have a fit, Cap"n Snow," he says. "It"s simple enough. What you told me yesterday about the firm of Hamilton and Co. put me wise to the real answer to the riddle. I remembered that you pointed out Hamilton to me on the street when you and I were on the way to that hotel where we dined the noon of my arrival. He was on his way home then and he had been somewhere in this vicinity. There was a chance that he had been here at the office. This mornin" I went to his house and found him in bed. He was full of rheumatism and groans, but fuller still of the Evil One. I told him I knew he"d got his partner"s registered letter-a bluff of course-and he didn"t take the trouble to deny it. Seems Sim Kelley, with the mail box, pa.s.sed him right here by the store platform. As they pa.s.sed each other the letter fell from Kelley"s overcoat pocket. The old man picked it up, intendin" to call to Kelley and give it back to him.
When he saw the address he didn"t."
He stopped then, waitin" for me to say somethin", I s"pose. But I couldn"t say anything. My head was fuller of stir-about than ever, and I just stared at him with my mouth open.
"When he saw the address-and the name of the brokerage firm-he didn"t.
He took that letter home and opened it. You see, the old feller is n.o.body"s fool, even if his rheumatism has kept him from active business for the last few months. He had suspected his nephew of speculatin" and here was the proof, a hundred shares of cheap minin" stock, and a letter sayin" that two hundred more had been bought on a margin. Young Hamilton had been stockjobbin" with the firm"s money."
"My-soul!" was all I could say.
"Yes; well, old Ichabod is-ha! ha!-a queer character. His rheumatism had come back and he was waitin" to get better afore he took the matter up with his partner. "What I"ll say and do to that young pup is a well man"s job," he told me. We had a long talk and it ended in his sendin"
for Ike. As soon as the young chap came I cleared out-that is, after I got this receipt signed. That bedroom was too sulphurous for me. I could smell brimstone even in the front yard. Cap"n, I guess you needn"t worry about your rival candidate for postmaster. He"s got troubles enough of his own."
I got up, slow and deliberate, from that shoe-case.
"But-but-" I stuttered.
"Yes? Anything that I haven"t made clear?"
"Anything? Why! if all this yarn of yours is so-.... But it _can"t_ be so! Why did Mary burn that letter?"
"She didn"t."
"But she said she did."
"I know. Well, Cap"n, if you"ll remember when we talked, the three of us, yesterday, I hinted that unless you were cleared of blame in this affair you might be removed from office."
"I know, but.... Hey? You mean that she lied and put the blame on herself, so as to save _me_? So"s I"d keep my job?"
"Looks that way to a man up a tree, doesn"t it?"
"But why? Why should she sacrifice herself for-for me?"
Peters bit the end off of a cigar. "That," says he, "don"t come under the head of government business."
Mary was still at her desk when I walked into the mail room. I put my hand on her shoulder.
"Mary," says I, "I know all about it."
She looked at me. Her eyes were wet, and I cal"late mine wa"n"t as dry as a sand bank in July.
"You know?" she says.
"Yes," says I. And I told her the yarn. Afore I got through the color had come back to her cheeks.
"Then you did leave it on the sortin" table after all," she says, almost in a whisper.