The Brick Moon and Other Stories Part 16

Things were in good order. Mrs. Gilbert was proud to show that they were in good order. The day-book for 1863 was at hand. Matty knew the fatal dates only too well.

And the fatal entries were here!

How her heart beat as she began to read!

Cr.

To Thomas Molyneux Esq., (B. I. I.) official authentication of signature of Felipe Gazza . . . $1.25 Same, authentication of signature of Jose B. Du Camara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.25 Same, authentication of signature of Jacob H.

Cole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.25

And this was all! Poor Matty copied it all, but all the time she begged Mrs. Gilbert to tell her if there was not some note-book or journal that would tell more. And kind Mrs. Gilbert looked eagerly for what she called the "Diry." At the proper dates on the cash-book, at intervals of a week or two, Matty found similar entries-- the names of the two Spaniards appearing in all these-- but other names in place of Cole's just as Tom had told her already. By the time she had copied all of these, Mrs. Gilbert had found the "Diry." Eager, and yet heart- sick, Matty turned it over with her old friend.

This was all:--

"Mr. Molyneux here. Very private. Papers in R. G. E."

And then followed a little burst of unintelligible short-hand.

Poor Matty! She could not but feel that here would not be evidence good for anything, even in a novel. But she copied every word carefully, as a chief clerk's daughter should do. She thanked the kind old lady, and even kissed her. She looked at her watch. Heavens! how fast time had gone! and the afternoons were so short!

"Yes, my dear Miss Molyneux; but they have turned, my dear, the day is a little longer and a little lighter."

Did the old lady mean it for an omen, or was it only one of those chattering remarks on meteors and weather change of which old age is so fond? Matty wondered, but did not know. Fast as she could, she tripped bravely on to the avenue for her street car.

"The day is longer and lighter."

Meanwhile Tom was following his clue in the public rooms at Willard's, to which, as he prophesied, Mr.

Greenhithe had returned after the unusual variation in his life of a morning spent in the sanctuary. Tom bought a copy of the Baltimore "The Sun," and went into one of the larger rooms resorted to by travellers and loafers, and sat down. But Mr. Greenhithe did not appear there.

Tom walked up and down through the pa.s.sages a little uneasily, for he was sure the ex-clerk had come into the hotel. He went up and looked in at the ladies'

sitting-rooms, to see if perhaps some d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, of high political circles, had found it worth while to drag Mr. Greenhithe up there by a single hair.

No Mr. Greenhithe! Tom was forced to go down and drink a gla.s.s of beer to see if Mr. Greenhithe was not thirsty.

But at that moment, though Mr. Greenhithe was generally thirsty in the middle of the day, and although many men were thirsty at the time Tom hung over his gla.s.s of lager, Mr. Greenhithe was not thirsty there. It was only as Tom pa.s.sed the billiard-room that he saw Mr.

Greenhithe was playing a game of billiards, by way of celebrating the new birth of a regenerated world.

What to do now! Tom could not, in common decency, go in to look on at the game of a man he wanted to choke.

Yet Tom would have given all his chances for rank in the Academy to know what Greenhithe was talking about. Tom slowly withdrew.

As he withdrew, whom should be meet but one of his kindest friends, Commodore Benbow? When the boys made their "experimental cruise" the year before, they had found Commodore Benbow's s.h.i.+p at Lisbon. The Commodore had taken a particular fancy to Tom, because he had known his mother when they were boy and girl. Tom had even been invited personally to the flag-s.h.i.+p, and was to have been presented at Court, but that they sailed too soon.

To tell the whole truth, the Commodore was not overpleased to see his protege hanging about the bar and billiard-room on Christmas Day. For himself, his whole family were living at Willard's, but he knew Tom's father was not living there, and he thought Tom might be better employed.

Perhaps Tom guessed this. Perhaps he was in despair.

Anyway he knew "Old Benbow," as the boys called him, would be a good counsellor. In point of statistics "Old Benbow" was just turned forty, had not a gray hair in his head, could have beaten any one of Tom's cla.s.s, whether in gunning or at billiards, could have demonstrated every problem in Euclid while they were fiddling over the forty-seventh proposition. He was at the very prime of well-preserved power, but young nineteen called him "Old Benbow," as young nineteen will, in such cases.

Bold with despair, or with love for his father, Tom stopped "Old Benbow" and asked him if he would come into one of the sitting-rooms with him. Then he made this venerable man his confidant. The Commodore had seen the slurs in the "Scorpion" and the "Argus" and the "Evening Journal." "A pity," said he, "that Newspaper Row, that can do so much good, should do so much harm. What is Newspaper Row? Three or four men of honor, three or four dreamers, three or four schoolboys, three or four fools, and three or four scamps. And the public, Molyneux,-- which is to say you and I,--accept the trumpet blast of one of these heralds precisely as we do that of another. Practically," said he, pensively, "when we were detached to serve with the 33d Corps in Mobile Bay, I found I liked the talk of those light-infantry men who had been in every scrimmage of the war, quite as much as I did that of the bandmen who played the trumpets on parade. But this is neither here nor there. I thought of coming round to see your father, but I knew I should bother him. What can I do, my boy?"

Then Tom told him, rather doubtfully, that he had reason to fear that Mr. Greenhithe was at the bottom of the whole scandal. He said he wished he did not think that Mr. Greenhithe had himself stolen the papers. "If I am wrong, I want to know it," said he; "if I am right, I want to know it. I do not want to be doing any man injustice. But I do not want to keep old Eben Ricketts down at the department hunting for a file of papers which Greenhithe has hidden in his trunk or put into the fire."

"No!--no!--no, indeed," said "old Benbow," musing.

"No!--No!--No!--"

Then after a pause, "Tom," said he, "come round here in an hour. I know that young fellow your friend is playing with, and I wish he were in better company than he is. I think I know enough of the usages of modern society to 'interview' him and his companion, though times have changed since I was of your age in that regard. Come here in an hour, or give me rather more, come here at half-past two, and we will see what we will see."

So Tom went round to the Navy Department, and here he found the faithful Eben--faithful to him, though utterly faithless as to any success in the special quest which was making the entertainment of the Christmas holiday.

Vainly did Tom repeat to him his formula,--

"If the Navy did the work, the Navy has the vouchers."

"My dear boy," Eben Ricketts repeated a hundred times, "though the Navy did the work, the Navy did not provide the pork and beans; it did not arrange in advance for the landing, least of all did it buy the greasers.

I will look where you like, for love of your father and you; but that file of vouchers is not here, never was here, and never will be found here."

An a.s.sistant like this is not an encouraging companion or adviser.

And, in short, the vouchers were not found in the Navy Department, in that particular midday search. At twenty-five minutes past two Tom gave it up unwillingly, bade Eben Ricketts good-by, washed from his hands the accretions of coal-dust, which will gather even on letter-boxes in Navy Departments, and ran across in front of the President's House, to Willard's. He looked up at the White House, and wondered how the people there were spending their Christmas Day.

Commodore Benbow was waiting for him. He took him up into his own parlor.

"Molyneux, your Mr. Greenhithe is either the most ingenious liar and the best actor on G.o.d's earth, or he knows no more of your lost papers than a child in heaven.

"I went back to the billiard-room, after you left me.

I walked up to Millet--that was Lieutenant Millet playing with Greenhithe--and I shook hands. He had to introduce me to your friend. Then I asked them both to come here, told Millet I had some papers from Montevideo that he would be glad to see, and that I should be glad of a call when they had done their game. Well, they came. I am sorry to say your friend--"

"Oh, don't, my dear Commodore Benbow, don't call him my friend, even in a joke; it makes me feel awfully."

"I am glad it does," said the Commodore, laughing.

"Well, I am very sorry to say that the black sheep had been drinking more of the whisky downstairs than was good for him; and, no fault of mine, he drank more of my Madeira than he should have done, and, Tom, I do not believe he was in any condition to keep secrets. Well, first of all, it appeared that he had been in Bremen and Vienna for six months. He only arrived in New York yesterday morning."

Tom's face fell.

"And, next--you may take this for what it is worth-- but I believe he spoke the truth for once; he certainly did if there is any truth in liquor or in swearing. For when I asked Millet what all this stuff about your father meant, Greenhithe interrupted, very unnecessarily and very rudely, and said, with more oaths than I will trouble you with, that the whole was a d.a.m.ned lie of the newspaper men; that they had lied about him (Greenhithe) and now were lying about old Molyneux; that Molyneux had been very hard on him and very unjust to him, but he would say that he was honest as the clock-- honest enough to be mean. And that he would say that to the committee, if they would call on him, and so on and so on."

"Much good would he do before the committee," said poor Tom.

And thus ended Tom's branch of the investigation.

"Come to me, if I can help you, my boy," said Old Benbow.

"It is always the darkest, old fellow, the hour before day."

Tom was astronomer enough to know that this old saw was as false as most old saws. But with this for his only comfort, he returned to the bureau to seek Beverly and his father.

Neither Beverly nor his father was there! Tom went directly home. His mother was eager to see him.

She had come home alone, and, save Horace and Laura and Flossy and Brick, she had seen n.o.body but a messenger from the bureau.

Brick was the family name for Robert, one of the youngest of this household.

Of Beverly's movements the story must be more briefly told. They took more time than Tom's; as much indeed as his sister's, after they parted. But they were conducted by means of that marvel of marvels, the telegraph,--the chief of whose marvels is that it compels even a long- winded generation like ours to speak in very short metre.

Beverly began with Mr. Bundy at Georgetown.

Georgetown is but a quiet place on the most active of days. On Christmas Day Beverly found but little stirring out of doors.