Part 23

"Are you going to be sensible enough to make no trouble, or shall I have to call yonder officer?"

Mr. Middleton considered this quite a master stroke. By the assumption of a pretended authority over the neighboring policeman he would forestall any possibility of resistance and question as to what authority he represented. But he need have had no fears on this score. The doctors were too alarmed to do otherwise than submit to his pleasure, too thoroughly convinced that none but a detective could have had knowledge of the contents of the box. But Dr. McAllyn did attach a significance to what Mr. Middleton had said, a significance natural to one so well acquainted with the devious ways of the great city as he was.

"Well," he said, with a sardonic smile, "you needn't call in help. We stand pat. How much is it going to cost us?"

Then did Mr. Middleton perceive he was delivered from a dilemma, a dilemma unforeseen, but which even if foreseen, he could not have forearmed against. After he had arrested the doctors, how would he have disposed of them and the box containing Mr. Brockelsby? How could he have released the doctors and carried off the box in a manner that would not excite their suspicions? If he had, in pretended leniency and soft-heartedness told them they were free, the absence of any apparent motive for this action would have instantly caused them to suspect that for some unknown and probably unrighteous reason, he desired possession of the body of Mr. Brockelsby and thus would ensue a series of complications that would make the ruse of the arrest but a leap from the frying pan into the fire. But now Dr. McAllyn had supplied the motive.

"Sirs," said Mr. Middleton, with an air of virtue that was well suited to the character of the sentiments he now began to enunciate, "you deserve punishment. You have been taken in the act of committing a crime that is particularly revolting,--stealing a corpse. Dr. McAllyn, you have been apprehended in foul treason against friendship. You have stolen the body of a comrade. You have meditated cruel and shocking mutilation of this body, giving to the horror-stricken eyes of the frantic widow the mangled and defaced flesh that was once the goodly person of her husband, leaving her to waste her life in vain and terrible speculations as to where and how he encountered this awful death with its so dreadful wounds."

"It was for the sake of science," interpolated Dr. McAllyn, in no little indignation. "If from the insensible clay of the dead we may learn that which will save suffering and prolong existence for the living, well may we disregard the ancient and ridiculous sentiment regarding corpses, a relic of the ancient heathen days when it was believed that this selfsame body of this life was worn again in another world."

"I will not engage in an antiquarian discussion with you, sir, as to the origin of this sentiment. Suffice to say it exists and is one of the most powerful sentiments that rules mankind. You have attempted to violate it, to outrage it. However you may look upon your action, the penitentiary awaits you. Yet one can well hesitate to pronounce the word that condemns a fellow man to that living death. It is not the mere punishment itself. The dragging years will pass, but what will you be when they have passed? We no longer brand the persons of convicts, but none the less does the iron sear their souls and none the less does the world see with its mind's eye the scorched word 'convict' on their brows, so long as they live. In the capacity of judge, were I one, I might use such limit of discretion as the law allows in making your punishment lighter or heavier, but the disgrace of it, no one can mitigate. Therefore, that you may receive some measure of the punishment you deserve, and yet not be blasted for life, I will accept a monetary consideration and set you free."

"Oh, you will, will you?" said Dr. McAllyn. "How much lighter or heavier will you in your capacity as judge make this impost?"

"I will not take my time in replying to your slurs in kind. You, Dr. McAllyn, as the one primarily responsible, as the leader who induced Dr. Darst to enter this conspiracy, as the one most to be reproached, in that Mr. Brockelsby was your friend, as the one by far the most able to pay, you shall pay $1,200. Dr. Darst shall pay $200. This is a punishment by no means commensurate with your crime. By this forfeit, shall you escape prison and disgrace."

"Of course you know that I have no such sum as that about me," said Dr. McAllyn. "I will write you a check."

"I am not so green as I look," said Mr. Middleton, assuming an easy sitting posture upon the box containing the mortal envelope of Mr. Brockelsby. "You may dispatch Dr. Darst with a check to get the money for you and himself. You will remain here as a hostage until his return."

Accordingly, Dr. Darst departed and Mr. Middleton sat engrossed in reflection upon the chain of unpleasant circumstances that had forced upon him the unavoidable and distasteful rôle of a bribe-taker. Yet how else could he have carried off the part he had assumed? How else could he have obtained custody of Mr. Brockelsby? And surely the doctors richly deserved punishment. It was not meet that they should go scot free and in no other way could he bring it about that retribution should be visited upon them.

"It is all here," said Mr. Middleton, when he had counted the bills brought by Dr. Darst. "I shall now see that Mr. Brockelsby is taken back to the office whence you took him."

"Pardon me," said Dr. Darst, "how in the world did you know we took him from his office? How did you ferret it all out?"

"I cannot tell you that," said Mr. Middleton. "I shall take him back to the office. He will be found there later in the day, just as you found him. You are wise enough to make no inquiries concerning him, to watch for no news of developments. Indeed, to make in some measure an alibi, should it be needed, you had better leave town by next train for the rest of the day. If it were known you were with Mr. Brockelsby at any time, might it not be thought that you were responsible for the condition he was found in?"

The doctors boarded the very next train, and Mr. Middleton, serene in the knowledge that no one would disturb him now, had the box taken back and set up in the main office. A slight thump in the box as it was ended up against the wall, caused Mr. Middleton to believe that Mr. Brockelsby was now resting on his head, but he resolved to allow this unavoidable circumstance to occasion him no disquiet. Going to a large department store where a sale of portières was in progress, he purchased some portières and a number of other things. The portières he draped over the box, concealing its bare pine with shimmering cardinal velvet and turning it into the semblance of a cabinet. Lest any inquisitive hand tear it away, he placed six volumes of Chitty and a bust of Daniel Webster upon the top and tacked two photographs of Mr. Brockelsby upon the front. Confident that no one would disturb the receptacle containing his employer, he went into court and after a short but exceedingly spirited legal battle in which he displayed a forensic ability, a legal lore, and a polished eloquence which few of the older members of the Chicago bar could have equalled, he won a signal victory.

Although it was not his intention to set about restoring Mr. Brockelsby until an hour that would ensure him against likelihood of interruption, he returned to the office to see if by any untoward mischance anybody could have interfered with the box. To his surprise, he found Mrs. Brockelsby seated before that object of vertu with her eye straying abstractedly over the cardinal portières, the photographs of Mr. Brockelsby, the bust of Daniel Webster, and the volumes of Chitty.

"Oh, Mr. Middleton," exclaimed the lady. "Mr. Brockelsby did not come home to-day and they tell me he wasn't in court."

"No, he was not in court," said Mr. Middleton.

"Oh, where, oh, where can he be!" moaned Mrs. Brockelsby.

Mr. Middleton being of the opinion that this question was merely exclamatory, ejaculatory in its nature, of the kind orators employ to garnish and embellish their discourse and which all books of rhetoric state do not expect or require an answer, accordingly made no answer. He was, nevertheless, somewhat disturbed by the poor lady's grief and wished that it were possible to restore her husband to her instantly.

"Oh, I have wanted to see him so, I have wanted him so! Oh, where can he be, Mr. Middleton! I must find him. I cannot endure it longer. I will offer a reward to anyone who will bring him home within twenty-four hours, to anyone who will find him. Oh, oh, oh, oh! I will give $200. I will give it to you, yourself, if you will find him. Write a notice to that effect and take it to the newspaper offices."

This great distress on the part of the lady was all contrary to what Dr. McAllyn had said concerning her indifference to the absence of her spouse and caused Mr. Middleton to feel very much like a guilty wretch. As he wrote out the notices for the papers, he reiterated assurances that Mr. Brockelsby would turn up before morning, while the partner of the missing barrister continued her heartbroken wailing and the cause of it all was driven well-nigh wild.

"Oh, if you only knew!" she said, as Mr. Middleton was about to depart for the newspaper offices. "Day after to-morrow, I am going to Washington to attend a meeting of the Federation of Woman's Clubs. That odious Mrs. LeBaron is going to spring a diamond necklace worth two thousand dollars more than mine. Augustus must come home in time to sign a check so I can put three thousand dollars more into mine."

A great load soared from Mr. Middleton's mind and blithe joy reigned there instead.

"Mrs. Brockelsby, I'll leave no stone unturned. I'll bring you your husband before breakfast," and escorting the lady to her carriage and handing her in with the greatest deference and most courtly gallantry, he set forth for one of the more famous of the large restaurants which are household words among the elite of Chicago. Mr. Middleton had never passed its portals, but with fourteen hundred dollars in his pocket and two hundred more in sight, he felt he could afford to give himself a good meal and break the fast he had kept since the evening before, for in the crowded events of the day, he had found time to refresh himself with nothing more substantial than an apple and a bag of peanuts, or fruit of the Arachis hypogea.

As he sat down at a table in the glittering salle-à-manger, what was his great surprise and even greater delight, to see seated opposite, just slowly finishing his dessert--a small bowl of sherbet--habited in a perfectly-fitting frock coat with a red carnation in the lapel, the urbane and accomplished prince of the tribe of Al-Yam. Having exchanged mutual expressions of pleasure at this unexpected encounter, Mr. Middleton, overjoyed and elated at the successes of the day, began to pour into the ears of the prince a relation of the events that had resulted from the gift of the treatise of the learned hakim of Madras, which is in India. He told everything from the beginning to the end.

"In the morning," he said in conclusion, "I take Mr. Brockelsby home in a cab and get the two hundred dollars."