Melville Davisson Post
I.
IT is hard luck, Colonel,” said the broker, “but you are are not the only one skinned in the deal; the best of them caught it to-day. By Jupiter! the pit was like Dante’s Inferno!”
“Yes, it’s gone, I reckon,” muttered the Colonel, shutting his teeth down tight on his cigar; “I guess the devil wins every two out of three.”
“Well,” said the broker, turning to his desk, “it is the fortune of war.”
“No, young man,” growled the Colonel, “it is the blasted misfortune of peace. I have never had any trouble with the fortune of war. I could stand on an ace high and win with war. It is peace that queers me. Here in the fag-end of the nineteenth century, I, Colonel Moseby Allen, sheriff of Gull-more County, West Virginia, go up against another man’s game,—yes, and go up in the daytime. Say, young man, it feels queer at the mellow age of forty-nine, after you have been in the legislature of a great commonwealth, and at the very expiration of your term as sheriff of the whitest and the freest county in West Virginia,—I say it feels queer, after all those high honors, to be suddenly reminded that you need to be accompanied by a business chaperon.”
The Colonel stood perfectly erect and delivered his oration with the fluency and the abandon of a southern orator. When he had finished, he bowed low to the broker, pulled his big slouch hat down on his forehead, and stalked out of the office and down the steps to the street.
Colonel Moseby Allen was built on the decided lines of a southern mountaineer. He was big and broad-shouldered, but he was not well proportioned. His body was short and heavy, while his legs were long. His eyes were deep-set and shone like little brown beads. On the whole, his face indicated cunning, bluster, and rashness. The ward politician would have recognized him among a thousand as a kindred spirit, and the professional gambler would not have felt so sure of himself with such a face across the table from him.
When the Colonel stepped out on the pavement, he stopped, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked up and down Wall Street; then he jerked the cigar out of his mouth, threw it into the gutter, and began to deliver himself of a philippic upon the negative merits of brokers in general, and his broker in particular. The Virginian possessed a vocabulary of smooth billingsgate that in vividness and diversity approached the sublime. When he had consigned some seven generations of his broker’s ancestry to divers minutely described localities in perdition, he began to warm to his work, and his artistic profanity rolled forth in startling periods.
The passers-by stopped and looked on in surprise and wonder. For a moment they were half convinced that the man was a religious fanatic, his eloquent, almost poetic, tirade was so thoroughly filled with holy names. The effect of the growing audience inspired the speaker. He raised his voice and began to emphasize with sweeping gestures. He had now finished with the broker’s ancestry and was plunging with a rush of gorgeous pyrotechnics into the certain future of the broker himself, when a police officer pushed through the crowd and caught the irate Virginian by the shoulder.
Colonel Allen paused and looked down at the officer.
“You,” he said, calmly, “I opine are a minion of the law; a hireling of the municipal authorities.”
“See here,” said the officer, “you are not allowed to preach on the street. You will have to come with me to the station-house.”
The Colonel bowed suavely. “Sir,” he said, “I, Colonel Moseby Allen, sheriff of Gullmore County in the Mountain State of West Virginia, am a respecter of the law, even in the body of its petty henchmen, and if the ordinances of this Godforsaken Gomorrah are such that a free-born American citizen, twenty-one years old and white, is not permitted the inalienable privilege of expressing his opinion without let or hindrance, then I am quite content to accompany you to the confines of your accursed jail-house.”
Allen turned round and started down the street with the officer. He walked a little in advance, and continued to curse glibly in a low monotone. When they were half way to the corner below, a little man slipped out of the crowd and hurried up to the policeman. “Mike,” he whispered, putting his hand under the officer’s, “here is five for you. Turn him over to me.”
The officer closed his hand like a trap, stepped quickly forward, and touched his prisoner on the shoulder.
As the Virginian turned, the officer said in a loud voice: “Mr. Parks, here, says that he knows you, and that you are all right, so I ‘ll let you go this time.” Then, before any reply could be made, he vanished around the corner.
Colonel Allen regarded his deliverer with the air of a world-worn cynic. “Well,” he said, “one is rarely delivered from the spoiler by the hand of his friend, and I cannot now recall ever having had you for an enemy. May I inquire what motive prompts this gracious courtesy?”
“Don’t speak so loud,” said Parks, stepping up close to the man. “I happen to know something about your loss, Colonel Allen, and perhaps also a way to regain it. Will you come with me?”
The Virginian whistled softly. “Yes,” he said.
II.
This is a fine hotel,” observed Colonel Allen, beginning to mellow under the mystic spell of a five-course dinner and a quart of Cliquot. “Devilish fine hotel, Mr. Parks. All the divers moneys which I in my official capacity have collected in taxes from the fertile county of Gullmore, would scarcely pay for the rich embellishment of the barber shop of this magnificent edifice.”
“Well, Colonel,” said the bald Parks, with a sad smile, “that would depend upon the amount of the revenues of your county. I presume that they are large, and consequently the office of sheriff a good one.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the Virginian, “it is generally considered desirable from the standpoint of prominence. The climate of Gullmore is salubrious. Its pasture lands are fertile, and its citizens cultured and refined to a degree unusual even in the ancient and aristocratic counties of the Old Dominion. And, sir,”—here the Colonel drew himself up proudly, and thrust his hand into the breast of his coat,—”I am proud, sir,—proud to declare that from time to time the good citizens of Gullmore, by means of their suffrage, and with large and comfortable majorities, have proclaimed me their favorite son and competent official. Six years ago I was in the legislature at Charleston as the trusted representative of this grand old county of Gullmore; and four years ago, after the fiercest and most bitterly contested political conflict of all the history of the South, I was elected to that most important and honorable office of sheriff,—to the lasting glory of my public fame, and the great gratification of the commonwealth.”
“That gratification is now four years old?” mused Parks.
Colonel Moseby Allen darted a swift, suspicious glance at his companion, but in a moment it was gone, and he had dropped back into his grandiloquent discourse. “Yes, sir, the banner county of West Virginia, deserting her ancient and sacred traditions, and forgetting for the time the imperishable precepts of her patriotic fathers, has gone over to affiliate with the ungodly. We were beaten, sir,—beaten in this last engagement,—horse, foot, and dragoons,—beaten by a set of carpet-baggers,—a set of unregenerate political tricksters of such diabolical cunning that nothing but the gates of hell could have prevailed against them. Now, sir, now,—and I say it mournfully, there is nothing left to us in the county of Gullmore, save only honor.”
“Honor,” sneered Parks, “an imaginary rope to hold fools with! It wont fill a hungry stomach, or satisfy a delinquent account.” The little clerk spoke the latter part of his sentence slowly and deliberately.
Again the suspicious expression passed over the face of Colonel Allen, leaving traces of fear and anxiety in its wake. His eyes, naturally a little crossed, drew in toward his nose, and the muscles around his mouth grew hard. For a moment he was silent, looking down into his glass; then, with an effort, he went on: “Yes, the whole shooting-match is in the hands of the Philistines. From the members of the County Court up to the important and responsible position which I have filled for the last four years, and when my accounts are finally wound up, I——”
“Your accounts,” murmured Parks, “when they are finally wound up, what then?”
Every trace of color vanished from the Virginian’s face, his heavy jaws trembled, and he caught hold of the arms of the chair to steady himself.
Parks did not look up. He seemed deeply absorbed in studying the bottom of his glass. For a moment Colonel Moseby Allen had been caught off his guard, but it was only for a moment. He straightened up and underwent a complete transformation. Then, bending forward, he said, speaking low and distinctly: “Look here, my friend, you are the best guesser this side of hell. Now, if you can pick a winning horse we will divide the pool.”
The two men were at a table in a corner of the Hoffman café, and, as it chanced, alone in the room. Parks glanced around quickly, then he leaned over and said: “That depends on just one thing, Colonel.”
“Turn up the cards,” growled the Virginian, shutting his teeth down tight on his lip.
“Well,” said Parks, “you must promise to stick to your rôle to the end, if you commence with the play.”
The southerner leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully. Finally he dropped his hand and looked up. “All right,” he muttered; “I’ll stand by the deal; throw out the cards.”
Parks moved his chair nearer to the table and leaned over on his elbow. “Colonel,” he said, “there is only one living man who can set up a successful counter-plot against fate, that is dead certain to win, and that man is here in New York to-day. He is a great lawyer, and besides being that, he is the greatest plotter since the days of Napoleon. Not one of his clients ever saw the inside of a prison. He can show men how to commit crimes in such a way that the law cannot touch them. No matter how desperate the position may be, he can always show the man who is in it a way by which he can get out. There is no case so hopeless that he cannot manage it. If money is needed, he can show you how to get it—a plain, practical way, by which you can get what you need and as much as you need. He has a great mind, but he is strangely queer and erratic, and must be approached with extreme care, and only in a certain way. This man,” continued the little clerk, lowering his voice, “is named Randolph Mason. You must go to him and explain the whole matter, and you must do it just in the way I tell you.”
Again the Virginian whistled softly. “My friend,” he said, “there is a little too much mystery about this matter. I am not afraid of you, because you are a rascal; no one ever had a face like you that was not a rascal. You will stick to me because you are out for the stuff, and there is no possible way to make a dollar by throwing the game. I am not afraid of any living man, if I have an opportunity to see his face before the bluff is made. You are all right; your game is to use me in making some haul that is a little too high for yourself. That is what you have been working up to, and you are a smooth operator, my friend. A greenhorn would have concluded long ago that you were a detective, but I knew a blamed sight better than that the moment you made your first lead. In the first place, you are too sharp to waste your time with any such bosh, and in the second place, it takes cash to buy detectives, and there is nobody following me with cash. Gullmore county has no kick coming to it until my final settlements are made, and there is no man treading shoe leather that knows anything about the condition of my official business except myself, and perhaps also that shrewd and mysterious guesser—yourself. So, you see, I am not standing on ceremonies with you. But here, young man, comes in a dark horse, and you want me to bet on him blindfolded. Those are not the methods of Moseby Allen. I must be let in a little deeper on this thing.”
“All I want you to do,” said Parks, putting his hand confidentially on the Virginian’s arm, “is simply to go and see Randolph Mason, and ap-proach him in the way I tell you, and when you have done that, I will wager that you stay and explain everything to him.”
Colonel Allen leaned back in his chair and thrust his hands into his pockets. “Why should I do that?” he said curtly.
“Well,” murmured the little man mournfully, “one’s bondsmen are entitled to some consideration; and then, there is the penitentiary. Courts have a way of sending men there for embezzlement.”
“You are correct,” said Allen, quietly, “and I have not time to go.”
“At any rate,” continued Parks, “there can be no possible danger to you. You are taking no chances. Mr. Mason is a member of the New York bar, and anything you may tell him he dare not reveal. The law would not permit him to do so if he desired. The whole matter would be kept as thoroughly inviolate as though it were made in the confessional. Your objections are all idle. You are a man in a desperate position. You are up to your waist in the quicksand, now, and, at the end of the year, it is bound to close over your head. It is folly to look up at the sky and attempt to ignore this fact. I offer to help you—not from any goodness of heart, understand, but because we can both make a stake in this thing. I need money, and you must have money,—that is the whole thing in a nutshell. Now,” said Parks, rising from his chair, “what are you going to do?”
“Well,” said the Virginian, drawing up his long legs and spreading out his fat hands on the table, “Colonel Moseby Allen, of the county of Gullmore, will take five cards, if you please.”
III.
This must be the place,” muttered the Virginian, stopping under the electric light and looking up at the big house on the avenue. “That fellow said I would know the place by the copper-studded door, and there it is, as certain as there are back taxes in Gullmore.” With that, Colonel Moseby Allen walked up the granite steps and began to grope about in the dark door-way for the electric bell. He could find no trace of this indispensable convenience, and was beginning to lapse into a flow of half-suppressed curses, when he noticed for the first time an ancient silver knocker fastened to the middle of the door. He seized it and banged it vigorously.
The Virginian stood in the dark and waited. Finally he concluded that the noise had not been heard, and was about to repeat the signal when the door was flung suddenly open, and a tall man holding a candle in his hand loomed up in the door-way.
“I am looking,” stammered the southerner, “for one Randolph Mason, an attorney-at-law.”
“I am Randolph Mason,” said the man, thrusting the silver candlestick out before him. “Who are you, sir?”
“My name is Allen,” answered the southerner, “Moseby Allen, of Gullmore county, West Virginia.”
“A Virginian,” said Mason, “what evil circumstance brings you here?”
Then Allen remembered the instructions which Parks had given him so minutely. He took off his hat and passed his hand across his forehead. “Well,” he said, “I suppose the same thing that brings the others. We get in and plunge along just as far as we can. Then Fate shuts down the lid of her trap, and we have either to drop off the bridge or come here.”
“Come in,” said Mason. Then he turned abruptly and walked down the hall-way. The southerner followed, impressed by this man’s individuality. Allen had pushed his way through life with bluff and bluster, and like that one in the scriptural writings, “neither feared God nor regarded man.” His unlimited assurance had never failed him before any of high or low degree, and to be impressed with the power of any man was to him strange and uncomfortable.
Mason turned into his library and placed the candlestick on a table in the centre of the floor. Then he drew up two chairs and sat down in one of them motioning Allen to the other on the opposite side of the table. The room was long and empty, except for the rows of heavy book-cases standing back in the darkness. The floor was bare, and there was no furniture of any kind whatever, except the great table and the ancient high-back chairs. There was no light but the candle standing high in its silver candlestick.
“Sir,” said Mason, when the Virginian had seated himself, “which do you seek to evade, punishment or dishonor?”
The Virginian turned round, put his elbows on the table, and looked squarely across at his questioner. “I am not fool enough to care for the bark,” he answered, “provided the dog’s teeth are muzzled.”
“It is well,” said Mason, slowly, “there is often difficulty in dealing with double problems, where both disgrace and punishment are sought to be evaded. Where there is but one difficulty to face, it can usually be handled with ease. What others are involved in your matter?”
“No others,” answered the Virginian; “I am seeking only to save myself.”
“From the law only,” continued Mason, “or does private vengeance join with it?”
“From the law only,” answered Allen.
“Let me hear it all,” said Mason.
“Well,” said the Virginian, shifting uneasily in his chair, “my affairs are in a very bad way, and every attempt that I have made to remedy them has resulted only in disaster. I am walking, with my hands tied, straight into the penitentiary, unless some miracle can be performed in my favor. Everything has gone dead against me from my first fool move. Four years ago I was elected sheriff of Gullmore county in the State of West Virginia. I was of course required by law to give a large bond. This I had much difficulty in doing, for the reason that I have no estate whatever. Finally I induced my brother and my father, who is a very old man, to mortgage their property and thereby secured the requisite bond. I entered upon the duties of my office, and assumed entire control of the revenues of the county. For a time I managed them carefully and kept my private business apart from that of the county. But I had never been accustomed to strict business methods, and I soon found it most difficult to confine myself to them. Little by little I began to lapse into my old habit of carelessness. I neglected to keep up the settlements, and permitted the official business to become intermixed with my private accounts. The result was that I awoke one morning to find that I owed the county of Gullmore ten thousand dollars. I began at once to calculate the possibility of my being able to meet this deficit before the expiration of my term of office, and soon found that by no possible means would I be able to raise this amount out of the remaining fees. My gambling instincts at once asserted themselves. I took five thousand dollars, went to Lexington, and began to play the races in a vain, reckless hope that I might win enough to square my accounts. I lost from the very start. I came back to my county and went on as before, hoping against hope that something would turn up and let me out. Of course this was the dream of an idiot, and when the opposition won at the last election, and a new sheriff was installed, and I was left but a few months within which to close up my accounts, the end which I had refused to think of arose and stared me in the face. I was now at the end of my tether, and there was nothing there but a tomb. And even that way was not open. If I should escape the penitentiary by flight or by suicide, I would still leave my brother and my aged father to bear the entire burden of my defalcations; and when they, as my bondsmen, had paid the sum to the county, they would all be paupers.”
The man paused and mopped the perspiration from his face. He was now terribly in earnest, and seemed to be realizing the gravity and the hopelessness of his crime. All his bluster and grandiloquent airs had vanished.
“Reckless and unscrupulous as I am,” he went on, “I cannot bear to think of my brother’s family beggars because of my wrong, or my father in his extreme old age turned out from under his own roof and driven into the poor-house, and yet it must come as certainly as the sun will rise tomorrow.”
The man’s voice trembled now, and the flabby muscles of his face quivered.
“In despair, I gathered up all the funds of the county remaining in my hands and hurried to this city. Here I went to the most reliable broker I could find and through him plunged into speculation. But all the devils in hell seemed to be fighting for my ruin. I was caught in that dread and unexpected crash of yesterday and lost everything. Strange to say, when I realized that my ruin was now complete, I felt a kind of exhilaration,—such, I presume, as is said to come to men when they are about to be executed. Standing in the very gaping jaws of ruin, I have to-day been facetious, even merry. Now, in the full glare of this horrible matter, I scarcely remember what I have been doing, or how I came to be here, except that this morning in Wall Street I heard some one speak of your ability, and I hunted up your address and came without any well defined plan, and, if you will pardon me, I will add that it was also without any hope.”
The man stopped and seemed to settle back in his chair in a great heap.
Randolph Mason arose and stood looking down at the Virginian.
“Sir,” said Mason, “none are ever utterly lost but the weak. Answer my question.”
The Virginian pulled himself together and looked up.
“Is there any large fund,” continued Mason, “in the hands of the officers of your county?”
“My successor,” said Allen, “has just collected the amount of a levy ordered by the county court for the purpose of paying the remainder due on the court-house. He now has that fund in his hands.”
“When was the building erected?” said Mason.
“It was built during the last year of my term of office, and paid for in part out of levies ordered while I was active sheriff. When my successor came in there still remained due the contractors on the work some thirty thousand dollars. A levy was ordered by the court shortly before my term expired, but the collection of this levy fell to the coming officer, so this money is not in my hands, although all the business up to this time has been managed by me, and the other payments on the building made from time to time out of moneys in my hands, and I have been the chief manager of the entire work and know more about it than any one else. The new sheriff came into my office a few days ago to inquire how he was to dispose of this money.”
Mason sat down abruptly. “Sir,” he said almost bitterly, “there is not enough difficulty in your matter to bother the cheapest intriguer in Kings county. I had hoped that yours was a problem of some gravity.”
“I see,” said the Virginian, sarcastically, “I am to rob the sheriff of this money in such a manner that it won’t be known who received it, and square my accounts. That would be very easy indeed. I would have only to kill three men and break a bank. Yes, that would be very easy. You might as well tell me to have blue eyes.”
“Sir,” said Randolph Mason, slowly, “you are the worst prophet unhung.”
“Well,” continued the man, “there can be no other way, If it were turned over to me in my official capacity what good would it do? My bondsmen would be responsible for it. I would then have it to account for, and what difference, in God’s name, can it make whether I am sent to the penitentiary for stealing money which I have already used, or for stealing this money? It all belongs to the county. It is two times six one way, and six times two the other way.”
“Sir,” said Mason, “I retract my former statement in regard to your strong point. Let me insist that you devote your time to prophecy. Your reasoning is atrocious.”
“I am wasting my time here,” muttered the Virginian, “there is no way out of it.”
Randolph Mason turned upon the man. “Are you afraid of courts?” he growled.
“No,” said the southerner, “I am afraid of nothing but the penitentiary.”
“Then,” said Mason, leaning over on the table, “listen to me, and you will never see the shadow of it.”
IV.
Isuppose you are right about that,” said Jacob Wade, the newly elected sheriff of Gullmore county, as he and Colonel Moseby Allen sat in the office of that shrewd and courteous official. “I suppose it makes no difference which one of us takes this money and pays the contractors,—we are both under good bonds, you know.”
“Certainly, Wade, certainly,” put in the Colonel, “your bond is as good as they can be made in Gullmore county, and I mean no disrespect to the Omnipotent Ruler of the Universe when I assert that the whole kingdom of heaven could not give a better bond than I have. You are right, Wade; you are always right; you are away ahead of the ringleaders of your party. I don’t mind if I do say so. Of course, I am on the other side, but it was miraculous, I tell you, the way you swung your forces into line in the last election. By all the limping gods of the calendar, we could not touch you!” Colonel Moseby Allen leaned over and patted his companion on the shoulder. “You are a sly dog, Wade,” he continued. “If it had not been for you we would have beaten the bluebells of Scotland out of the soft-headed farmers who were trying to run your party. I told the boys you would pull the whole ticket over with you, but they did n’t believe me. Next time they will have more regard for the opinion of Moseby Allen of Gull-more.” The Colonel burst out into a great roar of laughter, and brought his fat hand down heavily on his knee.
Jacob Wade, the new sheriff, was a cadaverous-looking countryman, with a face that indicated honesty and egotism. He had come up from a farm, and had but little knowledge of business methods in general, and no idea of how the duties of his office should be properly performed. He puffed up visibly under the bald flattery of Allen, and took it all in like a sponge.
“Well,” said Wade, “I suppose the boys did sort of expect me to help them over, and I guess I did. I have been getting ready to run for a long time, and I aint been doing no fool things. When the Farmers Alliance people was organizing, I just stayed close home and sawed wood, and when the county was all stirred up about that there dog tax, I kept my mouth shut, and never said nothing.”
“That ‘s what you did, Wade,” continued the Colonel, rubbing his hands; “you are too smooth to get yourself mixed up with a lot of new-fangled notions that would brand you all over the whole county as a crank. What a man wants in order to run for the office of sheriff is a reputation for being a square, solid, substantial business man, and that is what you had, Wade, and besides that you were a smooth, shrewd, far-sighted, machine politician.”
Jacob Wade flushed and grew pompous under this eloquent recital of his alleged virtues. Allen was handling his man with skill. He was a natural judge of men, and possessed in no little degree the rare ability of knowing how to approach the individual in order to gain his confidence and goodwill.
“No,” he went on, “I am not partisan enough to prevent me from appreciating a good clearheaded politician, no matter what his party affiliations may be. I am as firm and true to my principles as any of those high up in the affairs of state. I have been honored by my party time and again in the history of this commonwealth, and have defended and supported her policies on the stump, and in the halls of legislation, and I know a smooth man when I see him, and I honor him, and stick to him out of pure love for his intelligence and genius.”
The Colonel arose. He now felt that his man was in the proper humor to give ready assent to the proposition which he had made, and he turned back to it with careless indifference.
“Now, Jacob,” he said lowering his voice, “this is not all talk. You are a new officer, and I am an old one. I am familiar with all the routine business of the sheriffalty, and I am ready and willing and anxious to give all the information that can be of any benefit to you, and to do any and everything in my power to make your term of office as pleasant and profitable as it can be made. I am wholly and utterly at your service, and want you to feel that you are more than welcome to command me in any manner you see fit. By the way, here is this matter that we were just discussing. I am perfectly familiar with all that business. I looked after the building for the county, collected all the previous levies, and know all about the contracts with the builders—just what is due each one and just how the settlements are to be made,—and I am willing to take charge of this fund and settle the thing up. I suppose legally it is my duty to attend to this work, as it is in the nature of unfinished business of my term, but I could have shifted the whole thing over on you and gotten out of the trouble of making the final settlements with the contractors. The levy was ordered during my term, but has been collected by you, and on that ground I could have washed my hands of the troublesome matter if I had been disposed to be ugly. But I am not that kind of a man, Wade; I am willing to shoulder my lawful duties, and wind this thing up and leave your office clear and free from any old matters.”
Jacob Wade, sheriff of Gullmore county, was now thoroughly convinced of two things. First, that he himself was a shrewd politician, with an intellect of almost colossal proportions, and second, that Colonel Moseby Allen was a great and good man, who was offering to do him a service out of sheer kindness of heart.
He arose and seized Allen’s hand. “I am obliged to you, Colonel, greatly obliged to you,” he said; “I don’t know much about these matters yet, and it will save me a deal of trouble if you will allow me to turn this thing over to you, and let you settle it up. I reckon from the standpoint of law it is a part of your old business as sheriff.”
“Yes,” answered Allen, smiling broadly, “I reckon it is, and I reckon I ought n’t to shirk it.”
“All right,” said Wade, turning to leave the office, “I ‘ll just hand the whole thing over to you in the morning.” Then he went out.
The ex-sheriff closed the door, sat down in his chair, and put his feet on the table. “Well, Moseby, my boy,” he said, “that was dead easy. The Honorable Jacob Wade is certainly the most irresponsible idiot west of the Alleghany mountains. He ought to have a committee,—yes, he ought to have two committees, one to run him, and one to run his business.” Then he rubbed his hands gleefully. “It is working like a greased clock,” he chuckled, “and by the grace of God and the Continental Congress, when this funeral procession does finally start, it wont be Colonel Moseby Allen of the county of Gullmore who will occupy the hearse.”
V.
The inhabitants of the city could never imagine the vast interest aroused in the county of Gullmore by the trial of Colonel Moseby Allen for embezzlement. In all their quiet lives the good citizens had not been treated to such a sweeping tidal wave of excitement. The annual visits of the “greatest show on earth” were scarcely able to fan the interests of the countrymen into such a flame. The news of Allen’s arrest had spread through the country like wildfire. Men had talked of nothing else from the moment this startling information had come to their ears. The crowds on Saturday afternoons at the country store had constituted themselves courts of first and last resort, and had passed on the matter of the ex-sheriff’s guilt at great length and with great show of learning. The village blacksmith had delivered ponderous opinions while he shod the traveller’s horse; and the ubiquitous justice of the peace had demonstrated time and again with huge solemnity that Moseby Allen was a great criminal, and by no possible means could be saved from conviction. It was the general belief that the ex-sheriff would not stand trial; that he would by some means escape from the jail where he was confined. So firm-rooted had this conviction become that the great crowd gathered in the little county seat on the day fixed for the trial were considerably astonished when they saw the ex-sheriff sitting in the dock. In the evening after the first day of the trial, in which certain wholly unexpected things had come to pass, the crowd gathered on the porch of the country hotel were fairly revelling in the huge sensation.
Duncan Hatfield, a long ungainly mountaineer, wearing a red hunting-shirt and a pair of blue jeans trousers, was evidently the Sir-Oracle of the occasion.
“I tell you, boys,” he was saying, “old Moseby aint got no more show than a calliker apron in a brush fire. Why he jest laid down and give up; jest naturally lopped his ears and give up like a whipped dog.”
“Yes,” put in an old farmer who was standing a little back in the crowd, “I reckon nobody calkerlated on jest sich a fizzle.”
“When he come into court this mornin’,” continued the Oracle, “with that there young lawyer man Edwards, I poked Lum Bozier in the side, and told him to keep his eye skinned, and he would see the fur fly, because I knowed that Sam Lynch, the prosecutin’ attorney, allowed to go fer old Moseby, and Sam is a fire-eater, so he is, and he aint afraid of nuthin that walks on legs. But, Jerusalem! it war the tamest show that ever come to this yer town. Edwards jest sot down and lopped over like a weed, and Sam he begun, and he showed up how old Moseby had planned this here thing, and how he had lied to Jake Wade all the way through, and jest how he got that there money, and what an everlasting old rascal he was, and there sot Edwards, and he never asked no questions, and he never paid no attention to nuthin.”
“Did n’t the lawyer feller do nuthin at all, Dunk?” enquired one of the audience, who had evidently suffered the great misfortune of being absent from the trial.
“No,” answered the Oracle, with a bovine sneer, “he never did nothin till late this evenin. Then he untangled his legs and got up and said somethin to the jedge about havin to let old Moseby Allen go, cause what he had done was n’t no crime.
“Then you ought to a heard Sam. He jest naturally took the roof off; he sailed into old Moseby. He called him nine different kinds of horse-thieves, and when he got through, I could see old Ampe Props noddin his head back thar in the jury-box, and then I knowed that it were all up with Colonel Moseby Allen, cause that jury will go the way old Ampe goes, jest like a pack of sheep.”
“I reckon Moseby’s lawyer were skeered out,” suggested Pooley Hornick, the blacksmith.
“I reckon he war,” continued the Oracle, “cause when Sam sot down, he got up, and he said to the jedge that he didn’t want to do no argufying, but he had a little paper that would show why the jedge would have to let old Moseby go free, and then he asked Sam if he wanted to see it, and Sam he said no, he cared nuthin for his little paper. Then the feller went over and give the little paper to the jedge, and the jedge he took it and he said he would decide in the mornin’.”
“You don’t reckon,” said the farmer, “that the jedge will give the old colonel any show, do you?”
“Billdad Solsberry,” said the Oracle, with a grave judicial air, as though to settle the matter beyond question, “you are a plumb fool. If the angel Gabriel war to drop down into Gullmore county, he could n’t keep old Moseby Allen from goin’ to the penitentiary.”
Thus the good citizens sat in judgment, and foretold the doom of their fellow.
VI.
On Monday night, the eleventh day of May, in the thirty-third year of the State of West Virginia, the judge of the criminal court of Gullmore county, and the judge of the circuit court of Gullmore county were to meet together for the purpose of deciding two matters,—one relating to the trial of Moseby Allen, the retiring sheriff, for embezzling funds of the county, amounting to thirty thousand dollars, and the other, an action pending in the circuit court, wherein the State of West Virginia, at the relation of Jacob Wade, was seeking to recover this sum from the bondsmen of Allen. In neither of the two cases was there any serious doubt as to the facts. It seemed that it was customary for the retiring sheriff to retain an office in the court building after the installation of his successor, and continue to attend to the unfinished business of the county until all his settlements had been made, and until all the matters relating to his term of office had been finally wound up and administered.
In accordance with this custom, Moseby Allen, after the expiration of his term, had continued in his office in a quasi-official capacity, in order to collect back taxes and settle up all matters carried over from his regular term.
It appeared that during Allen’s term of office the county had built a court-house, and had ordered certain levies for the purpose of raising the necessary funds. The first of the levies had been collected by Allen, and paid over by him to the contractors, as directed by the county court. The remaining levies had not been collected during his term, but had been collected by the new sheriff immediately after his installation. This money, amounting to some thirty thousand dollars, had been turned over to Allen upon his claim that it grew out of the unfinished affairs of his term, and that, therefore, he was entitled to its custody. He had said to the new sheriff that the levy upon which it had been raised was ordered during his term, and the work for which it was to be paid all performed, and the bonds of the county issued, while he was active sheriff, and that he believed it was a part of the matters which were involved in his final settlements. Jacob Wade, then sheriff, believing that Allen was in fact the proper person to rightly administer this fund, and knowing that his bond to the county was good and would cover all his official affairs, had turned the entire fund over to him, and paid no further attention to the matter.
It appeared that, at the end of the year, Moseby Allen had made all of his proper and legitimate settlements fully and satisfactorily, and had accounted to the proper authorities for every dollar that had been collected by him during his term of office, but had refused and neglected to account for the money which he had received from Wade. When approached upon the subject, he had said plainly that he had used this money in unfortunate speculations and could not return it. The man had made no effort to check the storm of indignation that burst upon him; he firmly refused to discuss the matter, or to give any information in regard to it. When arrested, he had expressed no surprise, and had gone to the jail with the officer. At the trial, his attorney had simply waited until the evidence had been introduced, and had then arisen and moved the court to direct a verdict of not guilty, on the ground that Allen, upon the facts shown, had committed no crime punishable under the statutes of West Virginia.
The court had been strongly disposed to overrule this motion without stopping to consider it, but the attorney had insisted that a memorandum which he handed up would sustain his position, and that without mature consideration the judge ought not to force him into the superior court, whereupon his Honor, Ephraim Haines, had taken the matter under advisement until morning.
In the circuit court the question had been raised that Allen’s bond covered only those matters which arose by virtue of his office, and that this fund was not properly included. Whereupon the careful judge of that court had adjourned to consider.
It was almost nine o’clock when the Honorable Ephraim Haines walked into the library to consult with his colleague of the civil court. He found that methodical jurist seated before a pile of reports, with his spectacles far out on the end of his nose,—an indication, as the said Haines well knew, that the said jurist had arrived at a decision, and was now carefully turning it over in his mind in order to be certain that it was in spirit and truth the very law of the land.
“Well, Judge,” said Haines, “have you flipped the penny on it, and if so, who wins?”
The man addressed looked up from his book and removed his spectacles. He was an angular man, with a grave analytical face.
“It is not a question of who wins, Haines,” he answered; “it is a question of law. I was fairly satisfied when the objection was first made, but I wanted to be certain before I rendered my decision. I have gone over the authorities, and there is no question about the matter. The bondsmen of Allen are not liable in this action.”
“They are not!” said Haines, dropping his long body down into a chair. “It is public money, and the object of the bond is certainly to cover any defalcations.”
“This bond,” continued the circuit judge, “provides for the faithful discharge, according to law, of the duties of the office of sheriff during his continuance in said office. Moseby Allen ceased to be sheriff of this county the day his successor was installed, and on that day this bond ceased to cover his acts. This money was handed over by the lawful sheriff to a man who was not then an officer of this county. Moseby Allen had no legal right to the custody of this money. His duties as sheriff had ceased, his official acts had all determined, and there was no possible way whereby he could then perform an official act that would render his bondsmen liable. The action pending must be dismissed. The present sheriff, Wade, is the one responsible to the county for this money. His only recourse is an action of debt, or assumpsit, against Allen individually, and as Allen is notoriously insolvent, Wade and his bondsmen will have to make up this deficit.”
“Well,” said Haines, “that is hard luck.”
“No,” answered the judge, “it is not luck at all, it is law. Wade permitted himself to be the dupe of a shrewd knave, and he must bear the consequences.”
“You can depend upon it,” said the Honorable Ephraim Haines, criminal judge by a political error, “that old Allen won’t get off so easy with me. The jury will convict him, and I will land him for the full term.”
“I was under the impression,” said the circuit judge, gravely, “that a motion had been made in your court to direct an acquittal on the ground that no crime had been committed.”
“It was,” said Haines, “but of course it was made as a matter of form, and there is nothing in it.”
“Have you considered it?”
“What is the use? It is a fool motion.”
“Well,” continued the judge, “this matter comes up from your court to mine on appeal, and you should be correct in your ruling. What authorities were cited?”
“Here is the memorandum,” said the criminal judge, “you can run down the cases if you want to, but I know it is no use. The money belonged to the county and old Allen embezzled it,—that is admitted.”
To this the circuit judge did not reply. He took the memorandum which Randolph Mason had prepared for Allen, and which the local attorney had submitted, and turned to the cases of reports behind him. He was a hard-working, conscientious man, and not least among his vexatious cares were the reckless decisions of the Honorable Ephraim Haines.
The learned judge of the criminal court put his feet on the table and began to whistle. When at length wearied of this intellectual diversion, he concentrated all the energy of his mammoth faculties on the highly cultured pastime of sharpening his penknife on the back of the Code.
At length the judge of the circuit court came back to the table, sat down, and adjusted his spectacles. “Haines,” he said slowly, “you will have to sustain that motion.”
“What!” cried the Honorable Ephraim, bringing the legs of his chair down on the floor with a bang.
“That motion,” continued the judge, “must be sustained. Moseby Allen has committed no crime under the statutes of West Virginia.”
“Committed no crime!” almost shouted the criminal jurist, doubling his long legs up under his chair, “why, old Allen admits that he got this money and spent it. He says that he converted it to his own use; that it was not his money; that it belonged to the county. The evidence of the State shows that he cunningly induced Wade to turn this money over to him, saying that his bond was good, and that he was entitled to the custody of the fund. The old rascal secured the possession of this money by trickery, and kept it, and now you say he has committed no crime. How in Satan’s name do you figure it out?”
“Haines,” said the judge, gravely, “I don’t figure it out. The law cannot be figured out. It is certain and exact. It describes perfectly what wrongs are punishable as crimes, and exactly what elements must enter into each wrong in order to make it a crime. All right of discretion is taken from the trial court; the judge must abide by the law, and the law decides matters of this nature in no uncertain terms.”
“Surely,” interrupted Haines, beginning to appreciate the gravity of the situation, “old Allen can be sent to the penitentiary for this crime. He is a rank, out and out embezzler. He stole this money and converted it to his own use. Are you going to say that the crime of embezzlement is a dead letter?”
“My friend,” said the judge, “you forget that there is no equity in the criminal courts. The crime of embezzlement is a pure creature of the statute. Under the old common law there was no such crime. Consequently society had no protection from wrongs of this nature, until this evil grew to such proportions that the law-making power began by statute to define this crime and provide for its punishment. The ancient English statutes were many and varied, and, following in some degree thereafter, each of the United States has its own particular statute, describing this crime as being composed of certain fixed technical elements. This indictment against Moseby Allen is brought under Section 19 of Chapter 145 of the Code of West Virginia, which provides: ‘If any officer, agent, clerk or servant of this State, or of any county, district, school district or municipal corporation thereof, or of any incorporated bank or other corporation, or any officer of public trust in this State, or any agent, clerk or servant of such officer of public trust, or any agent, clerk or servant of any firm or person, or company or association of persons not incorporated, embezzle or fraudulently convert to his own use, bullion, money, bank notes or other security for money, or any effects or property of another person which shall have come to his possession, or been placed under his care or management, by virtue of his office, place or employment, he shall be guilty of larceny thereof.’
“This is the statute describing the offence sought to be charged. All such statutes must be strictly construed. Applying these requisites of the crime to the case before us, we find that Allen cannot be convicted, for the reason that at the time this money was placed in his hands he was not sheriff of Gullmore county, nor was he in any sense its agent, clerk, or servant. And, second, if he could be said to continue an agent, clerk, or servant of this county, after the expiration of his term, he would continue such agent, clerk, or servant for the purpose only of administering those matters which might be said to lawfully pertain to the unfinished business of his office. This fund was in no wise connected with such unfinished affairs, and by no possible construction could he be said to be an agent, clerk, or servant of this county for the purpose of its distribution or custody. Again, in order to constitute such embezzlement, the money must have come into his possession by virtue of his office. This could not be, for the reason that he held no office. His time, had expired; Jacob Wade was sheriff, and the moment Jacob Wade was installed, Allen’s official capacity determined, and he became a private citizen, with only the rights and liabilities of such a citizen.
“Nor is he guilty of larceny, for the very evident reason that the proper custodian, Wade, voluntarily placed this money in his hands, and he received it under a bona fide color of right.”
The Honorable Ephraim Haines arose, and brought his ponderous fist down violently on the table. “By the Eternal!” he said, “this is the cutest trick that has been played in the two Virginias for a century. Moseby Allen has slipped out of the clutches of the law like an eel.”
“Ephraim,” said the circuit judge, reproachfully, “this is no frivolous matter. Moseby Allen has wrought a great wrong, by which many innocent men will suffer vast injury, perhaps ruin. Such malicious cunning is dangerous to society. Justice cannot reach all wrongs; its hands are tied by the restrictions of the law. Why, under this very statute, one who was de facto an officer of the county or State, by inducing some other officer to place in his hands funds to which he was not legally entitled, could appropriate the funds so received with perfect impunity, and without committing any crime or rendering his bondsmen liable. Thus a clerk of the circuit court could use without criminal liability any money, properly belonging to the clerk of the county court, or sheriff, provided he could convince the clerk or sheriff that he was entitled to its custody; and so with any officer of the State or county, and this could be done with perfect ease where the officers were well known to each other and strict business methods were not observed. Hence all the great wrong and injury of embezzlement can be committed, and all the gain and profit of it be secured, without violating the statute or rendering the officer liable to criminal prosecution. It would seem that the rogue must be stupid indeed who could not evade the crime of embezzlement.”
The man stopped, removed his spectacles, and closed them up in their case. He was a painstaking, honest servant of the commonwealth, and, like many others of the uncomplaining strong, performed his own duties and those of his careless companion without murmur or comment or hope of reward.
The Honorable Ephraim Haines arose and drew himself up pompously. “I am glad,” he said, “that we agree on this matter. I shall sustain this motion.”
The circuit judge smiled grimly. “Yes,” he said, “it is not reason or justice, but it is the law.”
At twelve the following night Colonel Moseby Allen, ex-sheriff of the county of Gullmore, now acquitted of crime by the commonwealth, hurried across the border for the purpose of avoiding certain lawless demonstrations on the part of his countrymen,—and of all his acts of public service, this was the greatest.