Part 45 (2/2)

Mr. Monroe was as stoical as ever, but he greeted John with considerable more cordiality than had been his wont. ”They are all prospering,” he answered, as he glanced around the room.

John watched him closely, in a critical way, having in mind the telegram he had received the day previous from Mr. Jarney that said, ”Beware of Monroe.” John did not fully understand the meaning of this telegram; but he read its significance in the face of the man standing now before him, which, as he then looked at it, presented a mixture of tragedy, comedy, treachery and sculduggery. He saw these traits now in Monroe, not that his face had presented them to him on any other occasion, but the telegram had revealed to him too forcibly what he could not before comprehend. Why did Mr. Jarney send it, if the coming of Monroe was not for some insidious purpose? he asked himself.

”You do not often come to New York, Mr. Monroe--at least, not to this office,” said John, breaking the ice for a plunge into Mr. Monroe's perverseness toward a hateful silence.

”Not often,” he answered, extracting some papers from an inside coat pocket. He began deliberately to run over these papers, as if looking for a particular one. Finding one that seemed to meet his searching approval, he drew up a chair to a desk in the middle of the room and sat down, still very deliberately, with his eyes bent upon the paper that he held in his hand.

Concluding that Monroe was not willing to be communicative about his errand, John sat down at his own desk. Scrutinizing Monroe from a side view, he saw it was the same face that was so indefinable to him in his apprentices.h.i.+p in the head office; the same lengthened visage that then struck him so forcibly as that of a mountebank, clothed in undeserving power; the same white, wrinkleless skin that reminded him perpetually of a true portraiture of a ghost. John sat spell-bound, drawn irrisistably to this peculiarly eccentric man.

Monroe sat pouring over his papers, as if it had been his custom to come there every day and do the same thing, unbelievably composed in his manner. To John, there was a mephistophelean aspect about Monroe, as he sat at the desk, apparently in the throes of some abstruse problem that he could not readily make out. But, however, after awhile Monroe seemed to have reached a solution of what he was delving into, and directly turned and faced John, with his usual inane stare.

”Mr. Winthrope,” said he, with no change in the monotonous enunciation of his words, so precise did he give utterance to them, ”there seems to be an error in your accounts, which indicates a shortage in this office.”

”An error! A shortage!” gasped John, as if he had been stabbed from behind with a dagger.

”Yes;” answered Monroe very slowly, very mouse-like, very aggravatingly, ”a shortage--or an error.” He straightened up in his chair, after saying this, to see the effect of his a.s.sertion in John's countenance.

Recovering his composure in a moment or so, John drew down his eyebrows to a scornful straightness, and glared at his accuser. John was not very often convertable to such an exhibition of temper; but when his name and his honor were brought under reproach, his resentment became visibly uncontrollable.

”Do you mean, Mr. Monroe,” said John, looking straight into his gray-green eyes, ”that I am short in my accounts with this office?”

”That is my intimation,” replied the insinuating Monroe, opening his mouth squarely at the emphasizing of ”my”. ”I have been sent here to have a reckoning with you.”

The very bluntness of his statement was so monstrous to John, that he could not, for a short time, comprehend what it meant for him. The very essence of the a.s.sertion was too much for his grasp, so horrified was he for the few moments that he sat facing the serene detractor of his character. The very thought of such a crime was so contrary to his nature, that he was almost blind from the sensations of the blow coursing through him.

”Are you in earnest? or are you here to jest with me, Mr. Monroe?” asked John, rousing himself to face the inevitable.

”I am in dead earnest,” answered Monroe.

”Then you,” responded John, weighing his words, ”lie--or some one else--is lying--for--you.”

”Don't get agitated and go off half-c.o.c.ked,” said Monroe, in the same icy tone as before. ”I'll show to you, in due time, where you have been peculating.”

At first, John was on the point of taking physical issue with the challenger of his good name; but remembering the significant telegram from Mr. Jarney, and remembering also that he was at a disadvantage with Monroe over the question of fact, he subdued his pa.s.sionate feelings, and thought he would parley for time to await the coming of Mr. Jarney before long.

”Some one has been doctoring the books,” said John, smoothly, ”if there is an apparent defalcation. I know what I have been doing, Mr. Monroe.

My cash has balanced each day. My accounts in this office are straight, Mr. Monroe. I am straight, Mr. Monroe. You are crooked. And I will have no more from you till my superiors have been consulted.”

”Well, Mr. Winthrope,” responded Monroe to John's a.s.severation, ”I am the auditor of the firm for this office, and I am to be consulted first.

According to our books you are short. I was, therefore, sent here to have an accounting with you, and if I find that our books are correct and your accounts wrong, I am to have a warrant issued for your arrest.

Believe me, Mr. Winthrope, when I say that I find an error which indicates peculating on your part. I do not want to see your name blackened by an exposure that would naturally follow should I take it in my head to proceed against you. I have a free hand to act any way I choose, be that what it may. Now, I can fix this matter up for you so that no word of it will get out, and so that you can leave with money in your pockets, and mine, and no one will be the wiser. I can compromise the matter by you being reasonable. Will you be reasonable and enter into my scheme?”

John was surely astounded at this long speech of Monroe's. He studied a short moment. He did not want to compromise himself with Monroe in any scheme that, if he were guilty, would cover up the crime with which he was charged. If he was found to be responsible for any shortage, he was fully willing to take the consequences which arrest and exposure might entail, rather than attempt to clear himself of the blame, if blamable.

But not being guilty, as he had good reason to believe, he held that justice, unless mercilessly blind, would deal fairly with him. Moreover, he would be making a mistake if he did not draw Monroe out, and secure from him his plan of a secret compromise.

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