CHAPTER XXV
TOM’S PROMOTION—CONCLUSION
NEVER had a trolley car seemed to travel so slowly as did that one from the Back Bay section, in which the three anxious ones rode. But finally they reached their destination. As they hurried into the lobby of the hotel they were met by Mr. Keen.
“Well?” asked Mr. Boise anxiously.
“We caught them just in time,” replied his partner. “They had engaged a cab, and had tickets to New York, when I appeared on the scene with an officer, and placed them under arrest.”
“Where are they now?”
“Safe in a room, with a policeman on guard. I thought that better than taking them to the station house, as I believe they will confess, and make restitution. They are both badly frightened.”
This proved to be the case. All the bluster had gone from Mr. Sandow, and his wife was no longer the sneering woman she had been. She was weeping in one corner of the room as Dr. Spidderkins and his friends entered.
“So, this is the way you repay me for my kindness to you both, is it?” the aged physician exclaimed.
“Oh, Lemuel, forgive me!” pleaded his sister-in-law. “I don’t know why we did it! But you had so much money and we didn’t have any.”
“I would always have provided you with a comfortable home,” went on the doctor. “But now I will compel you to give up what you stole, and I will turn you out of my house.”
“We’ll—we’ll give it all back, Lemuel,” promised Mrs. Sandow. “We didn’t spend much of it. That lawyer got some, but the rest we have.”
“Yes; Eli Cutler is as guilty as we are,” added Mr. Sandow. “Why don’t you arrest him?”
“Perhaps we will,” replied Mr. Boise. “But are you now ready to turn over to Dr. Spidderkins all that you took belonging to him?”
“I suppose so,” mumbled Sandow.
“If they do I think it would be better to avoid the notoriety of an arrest and prosecution,” suggested the lawyer to his client.
Dr. Spidderkins nodded, and thus the matter was arranged. Sandow turned over to the lawyer certain valuable papers, bonds and mortgages which he had managed to secure from the doctor, chiefly through that old gentleman’s forgetfulness about business details. The scheming couple had also secured considerable cash, by the simple process of making the doctor make out checks twice for the same bill. The second checks they kept for themselves.
“There will be no prosecution, in case you leave Boston and never return,” said Mr. Boise, when the details had been completed, and most of Dr. Spidderkins’ stolen fortune had been restored to him. “Do you agree to that?”
“We have to, I suppose,” remarked Sandow.
He and his wife left the Parker House, taking their baggage with them. The police officer escorted them to the depot—to see that they took the train.
“Now that this disagreeable business is over, I think I can return to my home and my books,” remarked Dr. Spidderkins. “I suppose you will deal with Mr. Cutler?”
“I do not think there will be a chance,” replied Mr. Boise. “I fancy he is far enough away from here by this time.”
After events proved that he was, for he sailed for England with his ill-gotten gains, which, however, were much smaller than they would have been, had not Tom heard that mysterious message going over the wire, and acted as he did. Mr. Leeth also disappeared, but he had secured only a small sum.
“I can not tell you how much I am indebted to you, for what you have done for me, Mr. Boise,” went on the doctor. “If it had not been for you I would be a poor man to-day, and I could never buy any more choice books.”
“Don’t thank me; thank Tom. He is the hero on this occasion,” replied the lawyer, looking at the telephone boy. “He engineered all this, and, by revealing to me the duplicity of my partner, enabled me to act in time to save your wealth. Had it not been for Tom we never could have succeeded.”
“That’s so,” agreed the doctor heartily. “I had nearly forgotten that. Oh, what shall I do about my treacherous memory? But I’ll not forget you, Tom. I am a little tired over this excitement, but I will call on you this evening, and properly express my appreciation. Where do you live?”
Tom gave him the address, the physician writing it down on the fly-leaf of a book, as the best place for such an important memorandum.
“You need not report back to the office, Tom,” said his employer. “I fancy you have done enough for one day.”
“Thank you,” replied our hero, as he left the hotel and went home.
It seemed that Mrs. Baldwin, and Tom’s Aunt Sallie would never finish asking questions about what had happened, when Tom told them the occurrences of the day.
“And to think that you did the most part,” exclaimed his aunt.
“Oh, well, it just happened so,” replied Tom, who was nothing if not modest. “I guess the telephone did the most part. That’s a wonderful invention.”
They were talking in the small sitting-room after supper that evening, when there came a knock on the door.
“I’ll go,” said Tom, and when he opened the portal there stood Dr. Spidderkins.
“Does Tom Baldwin——” he began, when he saw the boy who had been of such service to him. “Why, of course, there you are,” he finished. “I guess I must have knocked at half a dozen houses. You see I wrote your address down in a book, and then I forgot what book I had written it in. But I called up Mr. Boise and, fortunately, he remembered it. I have come to thank you for what you did for me.”
“Come in,” invited Tom, and he ushered the guest into the modest sitting-room.
“This is my mother, Dr. Spidderkins,” he said, “and my aunt, Miss Ramsey.”
“Ramsey—Ramsey——” repeated the physician. “Why, I used to know a Ramsey family. Let me see, there was a Jeanette Ramsey—and a Sallie Ramsey—and—why, bless my soul—you’re Jeanette Ramsey, aren’t you?” and he looked at Tom’s mother.
“That was my name before I was married. But is this the Dr. Spidderkins that used to live in Lowell?”
“The very same. Bless my soul! I suppose I’ve grown so old you wouldn’t know me, but I’d remember you anywhere,” said the doctor gallantly, with a bow to the ladies. “Bless my soul! To think of meeting you again, after all these years. Tom, you young rascal, why didn’t you tell me your mother was Jeanette Ramsey, with whom I used to play when I was a boy, though I was ever so much older than she was?”
“You never asked me,” replied Tom.
The doctor spent a pleasant evening with his former friends, talking over old times.
“I heard Tom speak of a Dr. Spidderkins,” said Mrs. Baldwin, “but I did not know it was the one I used to know.”
“Well, well, this is a strange world,” mused the old gentleman. “But I am nearly forgetting what I came for, in the excitement of meeting you two ladies again. Tom, I want to show my appreciation of what you did for me. I understand from Mr. Boise that you want to study law. There is no better profession in the world. Now I am going to send you to college and then to a law school. I expect you to graduate with honors, and then you can look after my legal business for me, for I am getting to have such a bad memory that I need a guardian. Will you go, Tom?”
Tom was silent a moment. The offer was so unexpected that it nearly took his breath away. He had never dreamed of such advancement.
“Well,” asked Dr. Spidderkins, inquiringly, “I hope you don’t prefer being a telephone boy to becoming a lawyer?”
“Oh, no. If I could study law I think I would like it better than anything else.”
“Then you shall study law,” went on the doctor firmly. “It’s the least I can do for you, after you saved my fortune for me. After you graduate I shall see that you do not lack for practice.
“There is another matter. Now that the Sandows are gone I shall be all alone in that big house. That would never do. I need some one to look after me, or I would forget to eat. Won’t you come and take charge of the place, Mrs. Baldwin? I would pay you and Miss Ramsey well, and it would be a good home for Tom.”
It did not need much urging to have the two women give up their sewing work, which had paid very poorly of late, and accept the doctor’s offer. Within a week they were established in the Spidderkins mansion, and Tom had been entered at college, where he was to make a specialty of law.
One evening, not long after this, Tom was called to the telephone, in the doctor’s house. He heard a girl’s voice speaking.
“Is this Tom Baldwin?” she asked.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“I thought you were coming over to see my brother, and learn something about a telephone switchboard,” came back over the wire, followed by a jolly laugh.
“Oh, so I am. Why, it’s—it’s Minnie Renfield!” exclaimed Tom, as he recognized the voice of the central girl, who had done him such a good turn.
“Of course it is,” she replied. “When are you coming over?”
“I don’t need to learn about a switchboard any more,” replied Tom. “I’m going to study law. But I’m coming to see—your brother, just the same.”
Minnie laughed.
Tom went at the difficult study of law as he had done at learning how to operate a switchboard, and he did well. Soon after our hero left the law office, Charley Grove took his place, as the brokerage firm he was with failed, and Charley made a most efficient telephone operator.
As for Tom, when he graduated, and had to spend some time in a law office, before he could be admitted to the bar, he naturally selected the firm of Boise & Keen, for Mr. Cutler’s name was dropped after his flight.
To-day the firm is Boise, Keen & Baldwin, for Tom, in a few years, was made the junior member. He no longer lives in Dr. Spidderkins’ house, though his mother and aunt continue to reside there, for Tom is married, but I don’t believe you can guess who the young lady was. What’s that? Minnie Renfield, the telephone girl? Why, how ever in the world did you guess it, boys?
THE END