Under Orders: The story of a young reporter

“And now, Mr. Detective,” said Billings, who seemed to have taken the entire management of affairs into his own hands, “if you will join our little party of four lawyers, one captain, one prisoner, and one reporter, and come up to the hotel for breakfast our happiness will be complete.”

The detective went, of course, for nobody ever refused Billings any thing, and, though the little fellow worried and puzzled and made fun of him from the time they sat down to table until they rose from it, he completely won his heart. The officer said afterwards that, when it came time for Mr. Billings to be arrested, he hoped some one besides himself would be sent to do it, for the little chap would laugh the chief himself out of the job before it was begun.

Amid all this merriment in company with these friends poor Myles’ mountain of trouble rapidly decreased in size until its difficulties did not appear so very insurmountable after all.

As soon as breakfast was over the whole party went to court, where, after a very brief preliminary examination, Myles was admitted to bail and the date of his trial was fixed for the following Monday. He was amazed at the ease with which the whole business was transacted. There seemed to be a dozen men ready and anxious to sign his bail-bond, though only two were needed.

When this formality had been disposed of, Myles and his friends, bidding the detective good-bye, returned to the hotel, where, in Billings’ room, they held a consultation as to what was to be done next.

After listening attentively to his client’s story, and asking him many questions, the soldier-lawyer became convinced that the real thief was Ben Watkins, but that, under the circumstances, this was going to be very difficult to prove.

“If ever there was a guilty-looking chap in this world,” said Billings, “it was that same Watkins when he found, or rather pretended to find, that envelope under the carpet in this very room. He watched me all the time he was making believe look in other places, and when he saw that his companions were about to leave the room he walked right to the place where the envelope was and stopped there as readily as though it were lying out in plain sight. If he didn’t put it there himself then I’m a billy goat, that’s all.”

“What we have got to do,” said Captain Ellis, thoughtfully, “is to get hold of Jacob Allen, if possible, for I fancy that his testimony would be very important. Then if we could by some happy chance discover the note signed by ‘A Friend in Need,’ it would be a great piece of luck. We must also find out every thing we can about Ben Watkins and his mode of life since he came to this place. This last I will make my especial business, while I want you two to use every possible effort you can think of to find Allen and that note.”

To Myles a search for either of these seemed hopeless, and even the sanguine Billings acknowledged that the assignment was a tough one.

“Still, it’s your first job of space work, old man,” he said cheerfully to Myles, “and it won’t do to give it up without a big try.”

Myles first duty was to write home a full account of his present trouble, for he had decided that this was, after all, the best thing to do. He made as light of it as he could, and took the most hopeful view possible of the situation; but he did not conceal any thing. He was afterwards thankful enough that he did this, for, by some means or other, a very exaggerated report of the case got into one of the New York papers the next day, and somebody took pains to send a marked copy of it to Mrs. Manning.

Myles also wrote a letter, of which he said nothing to either of his companions, to Mr. Saxon. It contained a request which was so promptly granted that two days later he received an answer which apparently gave him great satisfaction as he read it.

He saw but little of Ben Watkins during this week, for Ben was out of town most of the time, and even when he was not, both he and Myles carefully avoided meeting each other.

In the meantime Myles and Billings made two trips out to the lonely little cabin in which the former had found shelter on the night that he lost the “Friend-in-Need” note they were now anxious to discover. Both times they found the cabin closed and deserted, and, though they lingered in its vicinity for several hours, they saw nothing of the man named Bill who lived there. Still, the place did not have the air of being abandoned. They even felt almost certain from what they saw that it was occupied between the times of their visits, and once Myles was confident that he heard Tige barking at a distance up on the mountain-side. The locality seemed to have a peculiar fascination for Billings, and Myles found it difficult to get him away each time that they visited it.

“There’s something here, old man,” said the little reporter; “something that I want. I feel it in my bones, but I can’t tell where or what it is.”

The study of Billings’ character interested Myles greatly, and served largely to divert his thoughts from the unpleasant contemplation of his approaching trial. The little man had sent to New York for a trunkful of clothes, and was no longer obliged to borrow shirts and collars many sizes too large for him. On the contrary, he now dressed with the same attention to detail that Myles had noticed when they first met. When about the hotel he was the same languid, tired-appearing individual, apparently indifferent to all that was going on about him, that he appeared in New York. When, however, he was on duty and engaged in some difficult undertaking, like the present search for the lost note, he was another being. He became wide-awake, alert, sharp-witted, and so brimful of cheerfulness that it continually bubbled over in laughter and bright sayings. To Myles he was a true friend, a charming companion, and a constant puzzle.

On the day that Myles received the letter from Mr. Saxon he inclosed it in an envelope with one written by himself, and took them to Jacob Allen’s cottage, in which the striker’s wife and little Bob still remained. The child was playing outside, and its mother sat in the door-way sewing. Myles lifted his hat as he asked:

“Is this Mrs. Allen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did your husband tell you of what an escape little Bob there had a week or so ago?”

“Indeed he did, sir, and it makes me tremble now to think of it. The child was saved by a New York reporter. God bless him!”

“Yes,” said Myles, flushing a little, “I know it, for I am the reporter who was fortunate enough to be on hand just in time.”

“You, sir! Are you Mr. Manning?” cried the woman, starting from her chair and gazing eagerly in Myles’ face.

“Yes, that is my name.”

“Well, sir, I’ve wanted badly to see you and thank you with my own lips, and I would have done so too but for the trouble that has come to my man. They are watching me that close in the hope of me leading them to him that I can’t stir from the house without being followed. But oh, sir, I’m proud to see you, and thankful, and may a mother’s blessing follow you all the years of your life for the brave deed you did that night!”

“I didn’t come here to be thanked or praised, Mrs. Allen,” said Myles, considerably embarrassed by the woman’s warmth of manner, “though I am much obliged to you for your kind words. I came to ask a favor of you.”

“Ask a thousand, sir, and if it lies in my power I’ll be only too glad of the chance to grant them all.”

“Well, perhaps you will find it hard to grant even the one I am going to ask,” said Myles, smiling. “It is that you will take this letter and contrive some means of getting it to your husband within the next three days. If you can do that you will indeed be conferring a favor, for I am in a great trouble that I believe your husband can help me out of.”

“And him with a price on his head!” exclaimed the woman, regarding the letter doubtfully, as though it might contain something dangerous to her husband’s safety.

“I know it,” said Myles, “and I realize that it may be very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to get this letter to him. I know though that you will undertake it for the sake of what I was able to do for little Bob, and because your husband would want you to if he knew of it.”

“Of course, sir, I’ll gladly take the letter and get it to him if I have the chance. I only hesitated because of the unlikelihood of having it in his hands within the time you named. I’m watched so close. There comes one of them now. Give me your letter quick and go your way, sir, before the spy suspects what we are talking of.”

“Very well, madam,” said Myles loud enough for the man who was sauntering slowly past the house and watching them closely to hear, “I am sorry I can’t sell you one of our sewing-machines on the installment plan. But here is a circular containing the address, and if you ever feel inclined to give the machine a trial, just drop us a postal.”

“Thank you, sir,” answered the woman, with a ready comprehension. “If I’m ever in a way to buy a machine I’ll give you the first chance to sell it to me.”

As she spoke she turned to go into the house, and Myles, again lifting his hat, bade her good afternoon and walked away.

He felt satisfied that he had done a good stroke of business, and was almost certain that, by some means, Mrs. Allen would contrive to have his letter conveyed to her husband within the time named.

While Myles was thus engaged Billings was also perfecting a plan that he proposed to carry out alone that very night. As he was already at work upon it when Myles returned to the hotel the latter could not find his versatile companion, and wondered where he was. This wonder increased when he did not appear at supper-time, and had not been seen or heard from at eleven o’clock, when, tired of waiting for him, Myles went to bed.

It was broad daylight when he awoke with a start to find a most disreputable, dirty, and weary-looking, but triumphant Billings standing at his bedside, and holding out for his inspection a soiled and crumpled envelope. As he took it wonderingly, a folded paper dropped from it. It was the identical note signed “A Friend in Need” they had been so anxious to obtain, but which they had given up for lost.

“Good for you, Billings!” he cried joyfully. “But when, where, and how did you get it?”

“Last night, where you lost it, and by asking for it,” replied Billings, soberly.

“Oh, come, old man, you know what I mean. Sit down and tell me all about it, there’s a good fellow.”

“Well,” said Billings, pretending he was not just as anxious to tell his story as Myles was to hear it, “if I must I suppose I must, but” – here he gave a prodigious yawn – “I’m powerful sleepy. You see I wanted to get hold of that bit of paper, and I was pretty certain if it still existed it would be found in the possession of your cabin friend Bill. So last evening I took a walk out that way. I got to the place about sunset, and, as usual, it was closed and deserted. Then I just lay low and waited. I have had many a lonely night-watch in the city since I became a reporter, waiting for some folks to die, for others to be born, and for more to be arrested, but that wait out there in the woods, with only the hoot-owls for company, beat them all for pure, unadulterated loneliness. Scared! I never was so scared in my life, and the noises that scared me most were generally made by crickets or frogs, or other wild beasts of that kind.

“However, they say all things come to him who waits, and so all sorts of things came to me; among them a man and a dog.”

“Bill and Tige,” interrupted Myles.

“How do you know? Were you there?”

“Go on,” laughed the other, “I won’t interrupt again.”

“Well, they were Bill and Tige, and without suspecting my presence, they went into the cabin.

“After giving them time to get something to eat and settle down a bit, I went to the door and knocked. At the same time I called out: ‘Hello, Bill! Hang on to Tige, for I’m coming in’; and in I went.

“‘Who are you?’ said Bill, holding on to Tige with all his might.

“‘A New York reporter, come to interview you,’ said I.

“That tickled him so that he nearly let go of Tige with laughing. Then we had a nice long talk. I told him exactly what I wanted, and what I wanted it for.

“At first he said he hadn’t got the letter, and didn’t know any thing about it, but when I told him that if he’d give it to me no questions would ever be asked about the money, he finally pulled it out of his pocket and handed it over.

“Then I told him I wanted him to come to the trial and testify as to how the letter came into his possession, and how much money there was in it when Tige found it lying on the ground in front of the cabin where you dropped it. If he doesn’t he knows I will tell where his moonshine distillery is.”

“Billings, you are a born detective.”

“I’m better than that. I’m a born reporter, though a mighty hungry, sleepy, and tired one just at this minute.”

CHAPTER XXI.

A DAY OF TRIAL

DURING the week that preceded his trial Myles did not care to be seen on the streets more than he could help. It was very unpleasant to be recognized and pointed out as the reporter who had robbed a safe, and to have people turn and stare at him. So he spent most of the time in his room consulting with his friends or reading and answering the long letters from home that either his mother or Sister Kate wrote to him every day. These were of the greatest comfort to him, and more than any thing else enabled him to bear cheerfully the painful suspense of this time of waiting.

His case was to be called on Monday, and on Sunday afternoon, feeling a great desire for exercise and fresh air, Myles went for a long walk up the side of a mountain, back of the town. He climbed nearly to the top, and then sat down to enjoy the quiet beauty of the panorama outspread before him. The maples wore their brilliant autumn dresses and splashed the landscape with irregular patches of scarlet and gold; in and out among them wound the gleaming steely blue of a river; white farmhouses and red barns dotted the fields that stretched back from it, and the quiet town lay as though asleep at his feet. The whole glowing picture, bathed in waves of unclouded sunlight, was bordered by a soft blue frame of dim encircling mountains.

Lulled by the influence of the scene Myles fell into a reverie, from which he was roused by a rustling in the bushes close beside him. Before he could move from his position they were parted, and from them stepped a little boy, hatless, ragged, and barefooted. The child looked earnestly at the young reporter for a moment, and then, without a word, thrust a bit of paper into his hand. Almost as he did so he sprang back into the bushes and disappeared. There was a slight rustle and all was still as before. Myles curiously unfolded the bit of paper thus left with him and saw that it contained a few words written with a lead-pencil. They were:

“Yours received. Will be on hand when wanted. Would have come anyhow for little Bob’s sake.

“Hastily but gratefully yours,J. A.”

Myles’ plan had worked, and Jacob Allen would appear to testify in his behalf. The news was too good to keep. He must go at once and tell it to Captain Ellis and Billings. Hurrying down the narrow pathway Myles had nearly reached the foot of the mountain, when, without a warning, he found himself face to face with Ben Watkins. There was a moment of embarrassed hesitation, and then, moved by a sudden impulse, Myles exclaimed:

“What is it all for, Ben? Why are you trying to ruin me?”

“I think I should be the one to ask why have you tried to ruin me ever since we first met,” replied Ben, bitterly.

“I try to ruin you, Ben Watkins!” cried Myles, amazed at the charge. “Such an idea never entered my head. I tried to save you from yourself that night we met in your uncle’s office; but I never even wished to harm you in my life.”

“You didn’t, eh?” sneered Ben. “Who was my rival in the college crew? Who made me the laughing-stock of all the fellows at New London? Who took the key to the safe, promising to return it before it should be called for, and then failed to keep that promise? Who did all these things if not you, Myles Manning?”

“All that is absurd, Ben, and you know it. Our college rivalry was an honorable one and could do no harm to either of us. I had nothing whatever to do with that New London affair, and was as greatly surprised at the way it turned out as you were. In regard to the safe business, I own that my taking that key was a mistake. I did it, though, with the idea of saving you from committing a crime, and I returned it the moment I learned that your uncle had come back.”

“You returned it too late all the same.”

“Well, I am very sorry, and am willing to make a full explanation of that affair to your uncle, taking the blame so far as possible upon myself. But, Ben, you know I never took that money.”

“I don’t know any thing about the money except that it was in the safe that night. You took the key away and when the safe was next opened it was gone.”

“Is that the story you are going to swear to to-morrow?”

“I shall swear to the facts,” answered Ben, evasively.

“And supposing your testimony sends me to prison for a crime you know I never committed?”

“I shall be very sorry, of course, to see an old classmate in such a fix; but I don’t know what I can do to help it. The law must take its course.”

“You will live to regret this, Ben. Take my advice: straighten this matter out while there is yet time and before it goes any further,” said Myles, earnestly.

“I think the chances are that the regrets will be on your side rather than on mine, and as for your advice, Mr. Reporter, I have not asked it, nor do I want it,” replied Ben, roughly.

As he spoke he pushed past Myles and went on his way, while the other continued on into the town, with a heavy heart.

The day of the trial broke bright and fair. Soon after breakfast the sheriff called at the hotel for Myles and took him to the court-house. Billings, in his capacity of reporter, was allowed to accompany his friend. The case had excited great interest in the town, and long before the court-room doors were opened they were surrounded by an eager crowd of would-be spectators. After the judge, jury, lawyers, and reporters had been admitted by a back door, and were in their places, the great front-door was thrown open and the crowd rushed in, almost instantly, occupying every available space.

The court was declared open for business, and the judge announced that the case for its present consideration was that of the A. & B. Railroad Company against Myles Manning, and asked if both sides were ready for trial.

Both Captain Ellis and the counsel for the company answering that they were, Myles was ordered to stand up. He did so, and the judge, looking keenly at him through his spectacles, said:

“Myles Manning, you stand accused of robbing the safe in the office of the division superintendent of the A. & B. Railroad, at this place, of an express package containing one thousand dollars. What have you to say to this charge? Are you guilty, or not guilty?”

“Not guilty!” answered Myles in a clear, steady voice, gazing full into the face of the judge.

“Let the case proceed,” said the latter, settling himself comfortably back in his big arm-chair.

Myles resumed his seat, and the counsel for the company opened the case with a brief address to the jury, stating its nature and what he hoped to prove concerning it.

The first witness called was the landlord of the hotel, who identified Myles as having registered at his house on the very day that the date of the express package showed it to have reached Mountain Junction. He testified that Myles and Ben Watkins were apparently on friendly terms, and that, during the evening while they were together in the latter’s room, a quantity of wine was ordered up there. Then he described how, in the evening of the following day, as Myles was about to go out of town, he had presented his bill for five dollars, and his guest claimed to have no money with which to pay it; how he had left his watch as security; how the next morning he had presented a fifty-dollar bill to be changed, at the same time ordering him – the landlord – in a most offensive manner to take his pay out of that and return the watch immediately. Then he testified to depositing that bill in the bank on the following Saturday; to the visit of himself, the superintendent, and Ben Watkins, to the room formerly occupied by Myles – and to the discovery in it of the empty express envelope beneath the carpet. This witness was allowed to go without cross-examination.

The next witness called was Lieutenant Easter, who, as befitting the importance of the occasion, appeared in full uniform, and created no little merriment by tripping over his dangling sword as he mounted the stand.

His answers were rambling and incoherent, but his testimony was to the effect that on the evening of Mr. Manning’s arrival at the hotel he had joined him and Mr. Watkins in a game of cards in the latter’s room; that Mr. Manning played recklessly, drank heavily, and lost his money carelessly, declaring that he knew where to get plenty more, or words to that effect. He testified to the dropping of the safe-key from Ben’s pocket, but did not know what he did with it after that. He also uttered his belief that Myles was in league with the strikers, and had furnished them with information they could not otherwise have obtained.

Captain Ellis sharply cross-examined this witness, and drew from him the facts that both he and Ben Watkins had kept perfectly sober on the evening in question, that they played cards long enough to win all the money Myles had, and that they then carried him to bed. He was also forced to acknowledge that he had at different times won large sums of money from Ben Watkins, whose note for two hundred dollars he held at one time.

“Do you still hold that note?” asked Captain Ellis.

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because it has been paid.”

“When was it paid?”

“On the day I left this place, when Mr. Watkins and I were prisoners together in the hands of the strikers.”

“Why did Mr. Watkins choose that time to redeem his note?”

“He said he was afraid he would be robbed, and he wanted me to share the risk with him.”

“Did it take all the money he had to pay that note?”

“No, sir.”

“How much did he have left?”

“I don’t know.”

“A hundred dollars?”

“I should think more than that.”

“Did he have five hundred?”

“I should think so.”

“That will do, Mr. Lieutenant. I expect after this disclosure of your true character you will find it rather difficult to get anybody to play cards with you again in this vicinity.”

The once pompous but now crestfallen little lieutenant hurriedly took his seat amid the titters and contemptuous glances of the spectators.

Several bell-boys and servants of the hotel testified to Myles’ condition on the night of his arrival and the morning after, also to the fact that he had gambled and been a loser.

The telegraph operator was made, very unwillingly, to describe Myles’ agitated manner on the second evening that he was in town, upon his return from Mr. Watkins’ office. He also testified that Myles had telegraphed to his paper for money, and had acknowledged himself to be so short of funds that he had been obliged to leave his watch at the hotel as security for a two days’ board-bill.

The famous fifty-dollar bill was shown, and the treasurer’s private mark on it was pointed out to each one of the jury. The division superintendent identified the mark on the bill as being that of the treasurer of the road, while the bank cashier identified the bill as one deposited by the landlord of the hotel.

The examination of these witnesses occupied the entire morning, and when, at noon, the court took a recess, public opinion had set pretty strongly against poor Myles, and many persons confidently predicted that he would serve a term in the penitentiary.

Even Myles himself was greatly depressed by the seeming weight of testimony against him; but Billings was as cheerful as a cricket.

“Why, my dear boy,” he cried, “the more evidence they pile up the more fun it will be for us to knock it down! You just wait till the captain begins to pour in his hot shot; if he don’t make them hunt their cyclone cellars then I’m a clam, that’s all.”