“You do? Come here, my son.”
The lad came up to the counter. He was a fine, wholesome-looking boy of about fifteen years of age, with a fresh complexion, blue eyes, and closely cut, light brown hair.
He bowed to the visitors and stood waiting for his father’s questions.
“You say you remember something about the twentieth of last August?”
“Why, I ought to, father, because it was something that happened unexpectedly that day that caused me to be promoted from being a mere ’prentice in the printing room to being your helper here.”
“Oh! Ah! Let me see! That was—yes—the day I took you into the office was the day Norton absconded, for his sudden desertion left me in the lurch. And so, Mr. Force,” said the editor, turning to his visitor, “I took my lad here, who had been learning to be a printer, on to help me. It was only as a temporary accommodation of myself to circumstances that I took him, for I intended to look up another assistant, but he proved himself so capable that I have kept him on ever since, and saved the expense of a journeyman.”
“Ah!” breathed Mr. Force, while Wynnette and Leonidas bent eagerly forward to listen for further developments of the mystery.
“Won’t the young lady take a chair?” said Mr. Purdy; for the party had been standing the whole time.
Leonidas drew the only chair in sight from the back of the passage between the counter and the wall, and Wynnette bowed, and seated herself.
“Could there have been any connection between the insertion of that fraudulent notice and the sudden flight of your foreman?” inquired Mr. Force.
“Looks like it,” said the editor, still being much puzzled. Then, turning to his son, he inquired:
“Obed, do you think you can throw any light on this mystery? You know what we are talking about, of course. You heard what this gentleman has been telling me.”
“Yes, father.”
“Well, do you remember anything more about the events of that day—the last that Norton was here?”
“Yes, father. And the more I think about it now, the better I understand things that I didn’t think much of at the time.”
“What were these things, Obed?”
“Yes!” involuntarily muttered Mr. Force. “What?”
Wynnette and Leonidas almost held their breath.
Obed told his story:
“You know, father, when the last paper was taken off the press that twentieth of August, Norton and I didn’t go to distributing the type, either of us, but both came into the front office at your call to help to fold and direct the papers, because the edition was a large one on account of the agricultural fair. You remember that, father?”
“Yes, now you remind me of it.”
“And when the papers were all dispatched it was nearly dark, and you went home, leaving Norton and myself to close up. The type was not distributed, but left, as it often was, till the next day.”
“Our paper is a weekly, as you, perhaps, know, sir,” interpolated the editor.
Mr. Force bowed.
The boy continued, now addressing the whole party:
“After father went out Norton said to me—and I remembered how surprised I was at his sudden kindness, though it did not arouse my suspicion of anything wrong—he said to me:
“‘You needn’t stop to-night, old man. I reckon I can clear up the counter and shut up the office.’
“So I went home to supper, and told father that Norton had let me off. You remember that, father?”
“Y-y-yes, now you remind me of it. But I don’t think I should remember it even now if the event were not marked by the fact that I never saw Norton from that night.”
“After supper,” continued the boy, “I went out to walk. The village street is always very gay on Saturday night. All the mill hands have got their week’s wages and are abroad, buying for Sunday, and the shops are gay. I stayed out just to see them until the custom began to drop off and the shutters to be put up. And then I started for home.”
“You needn’t think, sir, by that that my lad is the least bit wild. Obed is as steady as a lamp-post, but after being shut up in the office all day he must pull himself out a little by taking a walk, even though it is night. I tell him to,” Mr. Purdy explained.
“Quite right,” assented Mr. Force.
Obed continued:
“Now, father, comes the strange part, which I didn’t think much of at the time, but a great deal of now!”
“Go on, my boy.”
“When I came in sight of our printing office it was all closed up, the heavy shutters up and the iron bars across them; but I saw a glimmer of light through the chinks, and my first thought was fire, and I ran around to the back and climbed over the wall and looked through a hole that I knew was in the shutter of the back window, and there I saw——”
“Yes! yes!” exclaimed the editor, impatiently, as the boy had only stopped to clear his throat.
“There I saw Norton as busy setting type as if the making up of the paper was behindhand and he was working against time.”
“Ah!” breathed Abel Force.
“The gas jet was burning right in front of him, shining on his face and on his work so I could see him quite plainly. I thought maybe he had some job to do, and so it was all right; but just then a man came out of the shadows of the room somewhere and leaned over him.”
“Who was it? Col. Anglesea?” hastily demanded Abel Force.
Obed stared, and then replied, somewhat indignantly:
“Col. Anglesea? Not likely, sir.”
“What sort of a man was it?” inquired Mr. Purdy, by way of diversion from the Anglesea question.
“He was a gentleman, I should think, though,” said the boy, apologetically. “He was a rather short, stout man with a red face and light hair. I saw that much, for when he went up to Norton the gas jet shone on him also, and I could see him plainly. He spoke with Norton for a few minutes, and then went back somewhere into the darkness. I thought maybe it was some one who wanted some little job of labels printed and Norton was doing it for him. So I came away and went home.”
“Was that all?”
“Not quite. When we went to the office on Monday we found it closed, though it was Norton’s place to have opened it an hour before. Father and I opened it, and I went to the press to begin to distribute the type, and found——”
The boy stopped to clear his throat again.
“Yes, yes, what did you find, my lad?”
“Why, that the first two columns of the first page were distributed.”
“Oh!”
“I wasn’t surprised at that a bit, and I never thought anything else about it but that he—Norton—had already begun to distribute the type, and had got that far and stopped. The rest of the type looked just as it had been set. Father and I distributed the rest.”
“See how it is now, so far as the act goes; but I can see no motive for it,” said the editor.
“I do not know much about printing,” remarked Abel Force; “but was it not likely that on the Saturday night, when you and your son had gone home, leaving the press and the type just as the last copy of the paper had been taken from it, was it not possible that this man Norton may have distributed the type that had been set up for the report of the agricultural fair which had been struck off, and then set up this fraudulent obituary notice and substituted it for the distributed matter, and then struck off a few more copies of the paper?”
“Yes, sir; and that is just what has been done. But the motive, the motive, that’s what puzzles me,” exclaimed the editor.
“The motive was to spread a false report of Col. Anglesea’s death in America, where he had incurred some personal liabilities,” replied Mr. Force.
John Purdy stared.
“In America—Col. Anglesea—liabilities? I think you must be mistaken, sir.”
“Perhaps.” Mr. Force did not wish to get into a discussion; he wished to get information. “Have you any idea who the man could have been who was in your printing office on that night?” he inquired.
“Not the least in the world, sir, except that it was not Col. Anglesea. You take my word of honor for that.” Mr. Force bowed. He thought the boy’s description of the man who was in the office with the printer that night tallied perfectly with the personal appearance of Anglesea as he had known him, but he did not say so; he shunned disputes, so as to get facts.
“Where was Col. Anglesea at this time?” he inquired.
“Col. the Hon. Angus Anglesea, of Anglewood Manor, was at his home. He was soon after appointed deputy lieutenant of the county,” replied Purdy, with some vicarious dignity.
“Where is he now?”
“Abroad—traveling for his health, I think.”
“And—this man Norton, who must have set up the fraudulent obituary, where is he?”
“Nobody knows. He never returned to the office. I never saw him, or heard of him again. His was one of the cases of ‘Mysterious Disappearance,’ and as such it was noticed in all the local papers. All had different theories. The Middlemoor Messenger thought that he had been made away with by pitmen. The wretched pitmen get blamed for all the undiscovered crime in the county. They live mostly in darkness, and so people seem to believe that they ‘love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.’ But this is not so.”
“And no clew was ever discovered to the fate of Norton?”
“None, sir. You see he was a single man, without any near relations, and so the affair was soon forgotten.”
“Well,” said Abel Force, straightening himself up, “I thank you for the information you have given me, and the opportunity you have afforded us of comparing the fraudulent paper with that of the same date on your file. This is your mailing day, and I must not detain you.”
“Come in at any time, sir; we shall be glad to see you. Making any stay in this place, sir?”
“Thank you. No, only over the Sabbath. Good-day.”
“Good-day, sir.”
“Le,” said Mr. Force, as they re-entered the carriage, “we are on the track of the fraud, but need not pursue it in the direction of that man and boy. Now we will see what the tombstones have to tell us.”
“Where to now, maister?” inquired the driver, from his seat.
“To Anglewood Church, Anglewood Manor,” said Mr. Force.