Chapter X: A Tangled Skein

Ex-Judge Lawrence glanced at the card which the office boy handed to him. “Miss Dallas Worthington,” he read aloud; “I don’t know her, and I am very busy. Did she state the object of her call?”

“Yes, sir; she said it was about the case of Owen Sheridan.”

The lawyer nodded. “Oh, yes, I recall the name now. Ask her to step right in, Robert.

“You are Mr. Sheridan’s fiancée, I believe, Miss Worthington?” he said, as the girl entered the room. “Please be seated. You have come, I presume, to ask me what I think about this unfortunate case?”

“Yes,” said the girl. “Do you think that there is any chance of his being guilty?”

“Well,” said the lawyer, with a smile, “that’s hardly a proper question to ask an attorney concerning his client. What do _you_ think?”

“I feel sure that he is not,” the girl declared stoutly. “No matter what evidence they bring against him, I cannot believe that Owen could be a thief.”

“Humph!” grunted the judge, looking at her quizzically. “May I ask, Miss Worthington, how long you have known the young man?”

“About six months.”

“And previous to that time you never even heard of him--didn’t know that any such person as Owen Sheridan existed?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what makes you so sure that he couldn’t be a thief?” the lawyer demanded sternly. “Surely you cannot form a positive estimate of a person’s character in such a short period as six months?”

“If I had never met him before yesterday, I should be just as confident of his innocence,” declared the girl simply. “You only have to meet Owen once to realize that he is honest--that he isn’t the kind of fellow who could do anything mean or dishonorable.”

The lawyer’s face softened. “My dear young lady, I agree with you heartily,” he said. “I, too, took a great liking to the young man the very first time I saw him. I am not a man of quick impressions. Long experience has taught me that appearances are sadly deceiving, but there are some men whose personalities compel confidence and respect the minute you meet them. Owen Sheridan is one of these. I, too, am absolutely confident that he is innocent of this charge of robbing the mails. If I were not, I should not have undertaken his defense. I don’t take criminal cases as a rule, and never when I believe the accused to be guilty.”

“Then you believe that he is in no danger of--of being sent to prison?” asked Dallas, quickly.

The lawyer’s face grew very grave. “I am in hopes that young Sheridan’s personality will impress the jury as favorably as it has impressed us; and, of course, I am going to do all I can to combat the sinister influences which I have reason to believe are back of his arrest; but, to be frank with you, Miss Worthington, I must admit that they have built up a startlingly strong case against him.”

The girl winced. “A strong case!” she repeated, in a tone of dismay.

“Yes. You see, they found the pawn ticket for the watch in his possession. The post-office inspectors who went to search his room are ready to swear that when they opened his trunk, which was locked, they found the pawn ticket inside.”

“But Owen didn’t pawn the watch,” declared the girl confidently. “Surely the pawnbroker----”

“The pawnbroker’s clerk has identified Sheridan as the letter carrier who came into the pawnshop in full uniform at three-thirty yesterday and pledged a gold watch for forty dollars,” said the lawyer, with a wry smile. “The watch has been identified by its owner as the one which was in the registered package.”

A cry of startled surprise escaped from Dallas. “The pawnbroker’s clerk must be mistaken,” she gasped.

“I agree with you,” said Judge Lawrence, “but at the same time he picked Sheridan out of a group of twenty other letter carriers without a second’s hesitation. That is bound to have great weight with a jury.”

The girl nodded in mournful assent, “Yes, I can see that. And what does Owen say, Mr. Lawrence? What explanation does he offer?”

“He denied that he was in a pawnshop at all yesterday.”

Dallas looked relieved. “Then I believe him. I am sure that pawnbroker’s clerk is lying, and so are those post-office inspectors. They are not telling the truth when they say they found the pawn ticket in Owen’s trunk. They must have put it there themselves in order to make a case against him.”

The lawyer shook his head. “I am sorry to say that I cannot entirely agree with you there, Miss Worthington. I think it quite likely that the pawnshop clerk is lying, as you say. I have already discovered that he is a friend of Jake Hines, a young man identified with Samuel J. Coggswell, who, I have reason to suspect, is behind this prosecution, or rather persecution, of your young friend.

“But as for the post-office inspectors,” he went on, “I believe they are telling the truth. I have known both of them personally for several years. They are square, honest, fearless men. Not even a politician as influential as Boss Coggswell could persuade them to do anything crooked. I am thoroughly convinced as to that. If they say they found the pawn ticket in Sheridan’s trunk, I am quite sure that such was the case.”

“Then how did it get there?” demanded Dallas. “You say you believe in Owen’s innocence.”

“Somebody else put it there before the inspectors visited the house--somebody who is in this shameful conspiracy to railroad our unfortunate young friend to jail,” declared the lawyer grimly. “And I believe I know already who that somebody was.”

“You do!” exclaimed the girl eagerly.

“Yes. As I presume you are aware, Miss Worthington, Sheridan is not the only letter carrier who occupies a room at Mrs. O’Brien’s boarding house. A young man named Smithers, also employed at Branch X Y, lives at the same address. He has the bedroom next to Owen’s. He is a member of the Samuel J. Coggswell Association, and a close friend of Jake Hines, Coggswell’s confidential man.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Dallas breathlessly. “Then, of course, it was he who put the ticket in Owen’s trunk. He could easily have entered the room when Owen wasn’t there, and slipped the piece of pasteboard through a crack without opening the trunk at all.”

“Yes,” agreed the lawyer; “doubtless that is how the thing was done.”

He leaned back in his chair, and gazed up at the ceiling meditatively. “The whole wretched plot is perfectly clear to me,” he said. “I can see every step those rascals took. First they got a man to send that registered package from a downtown post office--a liquor dealer named Warren. I met him this afternoon, and one look at the fellow served to convince me that he is crooked. The box was empty, of course, when he sent it; there was no watch inside. The package was addressed to a saloon keeper on Sheridan’s route, and they timed the mailing of it so to make sure that it would arrive at Branch X Y during our friend’s tour.

“Then, at half past three,” he continued, “while Sheridan was on his way to deliver the package, one of Coggswell’s emissaries--probably Jake Hines--went to pawnshop on the letter carrier’s route, and pledged a watch--the watch which the perjurer, Warren, swears was in the registered package when he mailed it. The pawn ticket is next handed to Carrier Smithers, who is instructed to put it into Sheridan’s trunk, so that it will be there when the post-office inspectors come to search the room.”

“But why, if the inspectors are as honest as you say,” demanded Dallas, “should they so quickly have suspected Owen? Why should they have gone straight to his room and opened his trunk? Doesn’t that look significant?”

“A very sensible question, Miss Worthington. At first blush it does look significant, I must admit. But I have interrogated my friends, the inspectors, on that very point, and their explanation is satisfactory. They tell me that the reason they were so quick to suspect my client was because they learned that on that same day he had been trying unsuccessfully to borrow money from his friends at Branch X Y. Naturally that caused them to give him immediate attention.”

“And what does Owen say about this story that he was trying to borrow money?” inquired the girl anxiously. “Does he deny it?”

“No; on the contrary, he admits it,” replied Judge Lawrence, with a frown. “He was quite frank about the matter with the inspectors. He told them that he had a chance to buy a diamond ring at a great bargain yesterday. The ring was worth a hundred and twenty dollars, and its owner was willing to sell it for ninety. Owen had sixty dollars saved up, and tried to borrow the needed thirty from his fellow carriers. That was yesterday morning.”

“And he bought the ring last night,” sighed Dallas. “Where did he get the money? Hasn’t he explained?”

“Yes. He says that yesterday afternoon, when he had given up all hope of being able to raise the cash for the ring, he unexpectedly encountered a prosperous friend, a Boston man named Cowan, whom he had not seen for several years. Owen declares that Cowan loaned him the thirty dollars.”

“And he’s telling the truth, of course,” said Dallas. “Surely it ought to be easy to prove that, Judge Lawrence. All we have to do is to get this Mr. Cowan to corroborate Owen’s statement.”

The lawyer smiled sadly. “That is where fate has dealt our young friend a nasty blow. Sheridan is a most unlucky fellow. It ought to be easy, as you say, to get this man Cowan to corroborate his statement--but it isn’t.”

“Why not?” demanded the girl. “You don’t mean to say that he denies it?”

“Not quite as bad as that,” replied the judge, “but almost. Fifteen minutes ago, Miss Worthington, I telephoned to this man’s hotel--Owen told me where he was stopping. The clerk informed me over the wire that Mr. Cowan died this morning of heart disease. My client’s statement cannot be corroborated. Fate seems to be on the side of Samuel J. Coggswell and his rascally crew.”