"I'm Kline of the secret service," he said gravely. "I'm sorry, Sammy, but I want you for that little job in Washington at the bureau--before you left on sick leave!"

Sammy Matthews struggled away from his mother's arms, pulled himself forward in his chair--and his tongue licked dry lips.

"What--what job?" he whispered thickly.

"You know, don't you?" the other answered steadily. He took a large, flat pocketbook from his pocket, opened it, and took out a five-dollar bill. He held this before the sick man's eyes, but just out of reach, one finger silently indicating the lower left-hand corner.

Matthews stared at it for a moment, and the hectic flush faded to a grayish pallor, and a queer, impotent sound gurgled in his throat.

"I see you recognise it," said the other quietly. "It's open and shut, Sammy. That little imperfection in the plate's got you, my boy."

"Sammy! Sammy!" sobbed the woman again. "Sammy, say you didn't do it!"

"It's a lie!" said Matthews hoa.r.s.ely. "It's a lie! That plate was condemned in the bureau for that imperfection--condemned and destroyed."

"Condemned TO BE destroyed," corrected the other, without raising his voice. "There's a little difference there, Sammy--about twenty years'

difference--in the Federal pen. But it wasn't destroyed; this note was printed from it by one of the slickest gangs of counterfeiters in the United States--but I don't need to tell you that, I guess you know who they are. I've been after them a long time, and I've got them now, just as tight as I've got you. Instead of destroying that plate, you stole it, and disposed of it to the gang. How much did they give you?"

Matthews' face seemed to hold a dumb horror, and his fingers picked at the arms of the chair. His mother had moved from beside him now, and both her hands were patting at the man's sleeve in a pitiful way, while again and again she tried to speak, but no words would come.

"It's a lie!" said Matthews again, in a colourless, mechanical way.

The man glanced at Mrs. Matthews as he put the five-dollar note back into his pocket, seemed to choke a little, shook his head, and all trace of the official sternness that had crept into his voice disappeared.

"It's no good," he said in a low tone. "Don't do that, Mrs. Matthews, I've got to do my duty." He leaned a little toward the chair. "It's dead to rights, Sammy. You might as well make a clean breast of it. It was up to you and Al Gregor to see that the plate was destroyed. It WASN'T destroyed; instead, it shows up in the hands of a gang of counterfeiters that I've been watching for months. Furthermore, I've got the plate itself. And finally, though I haven't placed him under arrest yet for fear you might hear of it before I wanted you to and make a get-away, I've got Al Gregor where I can put my hands on him, and I've got his confession that you and he worked the game between you to get that plate out of the bureau and dispose of it to the gang."

"Oh, my G.o.d!"--it came in a wild cry from the sick man, and in a desperate, lurching way he struggled up to his feet. "Al Gregor said that? Then--then I'm done!" He clutched at his temples. "But it's not true--it's not true! If the plate was stolen, and it must have been stolen, or that note wouldn't have been found, it was Al Gregor who stole it--I didn't, I tell you! I knew nothing of it, except that he and I were responsible for it and--and I left it to him--that's the only way I'm to blame. He's caught, and he's trying to get out of it with a light sentence by pretending to turn State's evidence, but--but I'll fight him--he can't prove it--it's only his word against mine, and--"

The other shook his head again.

"It's no good, Sammy," he said, a touch of sternness back in his tones again. "I told you it was open and shut. It's not only Al Gregor. One of the gang got weak knees when I got him where I wanted him the other night, and he swears that you are the one who DELIVERED the plate to them. Between him and Gregor and what I know myself, I've got evidence enough for any jury against every one of the rest of you."

Horror, fear, helplessness seemed to mingle in the sick man's staring eyes, and he swayed unsteadily upon his feet.

"I'm innocent!" he screamed out. "But I'm caught, I'm caught in a net, and I can't get out--they lied to you--but no one will believe it any more than you do and--and it means twenty years for me--oh, G.o.d!--twenty years, and--" His hands went wriggling to his temples again, and he toppled back in a faint into the chair.

"You've killed him! You've killed my boy!" the old lady shrieked out piteously, and flung herself toward the senseless figure.

The man jumped for the table across the room, on which was a row of bottles, s.n.a.t.c.hed one up, drew the cork, smelled it, and ran back with the bottle. He poured a little of the contents into his cupped hand, held it under young Matthews' nostrils, and pushed the bottle into Mrs.

Matthews' hands.

"Bathe his forehead with this, Mrs. Matthews," he directed rea.s.suringly.

"He'll be all right again in a moment. There, see--he's coming around now."

There was a long, fluttering sigh, and Matthews opened his eyes; then a moment's silence; and then he spoke, with an effort, with long pauses between the words:

"Am--I--to--go--now?"

The words seemed to ring absolute terror in the old lady's ears. She turned, and dropped to her knees on the floor.

"Mr. Kline, Mr. Kline," she sobbed out, "oh, for G.o.d's love, don't take him! Let him off, let him go! He's my boy--all I've got! You've got a mother, haven't you? You know--" The tears were streaming down the sweet, old face again. "Oh, won't you, for G.o.d's dear name, won't you let him go? Won't--"

"Stop!" the man cried huskily. He was mopping at his face with his handkerchief. "I thought I was case-hardened, I ought to be--but I guess I'm not. But I've got to do my duty. You're only making it worse for Sammy there, as well as me."

Her arms were around his knees now, clinging there.

"Why can't you let him off!" she pleaded hysterically. "Why can't you! Why can't you! n.o.body would know, and I'd do anything--I'd pay anything--anything--I'll give you ten--fifteen thousand dollars!"

"My poor woman," he said kindly, placing his hand on her head, "you are talking wildly. Apart altogether from the question of duty, even if I succeeded in hushing the matter up, I would probably at least be suspected and certainly discharged, and I have a family to support--and if I were caught I'd get ten years in the Federal prison for it. I'm sorry for this; I believe it's your boy's first offence, and if I could let him off I would."

"But you can--you can!" she burst out, rocking on her knees, clinging tighter still to him, as though in a paroxysm of fear that he might somehow elude her. "It will kill him--it will kill my boy. And you can save him! And even if they discharged you, what would that mean against my boy's life! You wouldn't suffer, your family wouldn't suffer, I'll--I'll take care of that--perhaps I could raise a little more than fifteen thousand--but, oh, have pity, have mercy--don't take him away!"

The man stared at her a moment, stared at the white face on the reclining chair--and pa.s.sed his hand heavily across his eyes.

"You will! You will!" It came in a great surging cry of joy from the old lady. "You will--oh, thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!--I can see it in your face!"

"I--I guess I'm soft," he said huskily, and stooped and raised Mrs.

Matthews to her feet. "Don't cry any more. It'll be all right--it'll be all right. I'll--I'll fix it up somehow. I haven't made any arrests yet, and--well, I'll take my chances. I'll get the plate and turn it over to you to-morrow, only--only it's got to be destroyed in my presence."

"Yes, yes!" she cried, trying to smile through her tears--and then she flung her arms around her son's neck again. "And when you come to-morrow, I'll be ready with the money to do my share, too, and--"

But Sammy Matthews shook his head.

"You're wrong, both of you," he said weakly. "You're a white man, Kline. But destroying that plate won't save me. The minute a single note printed from it shows up, they'll know back there in Washington that the plate was stolen, and--"

"No; you're safe enough there," the other interposed heavily. "Knowing what was up, you don't think I'd give the gang a chance to get them into circulation, do you? I got them all when I got the plate. And"--he smiled a little anxiously--"I'll bring them here to be destroyed with the plate. It would finish me now, as well as you, if one of them ever showed up. Say," he said suddenly, with a catch in his breath, "I--I don't think I know what I'm doing."

Mrs. Matthews reached out her hands to him.

"What can I say to you!" she said brokenly, "What--"

Jimmie Dale drew back along the wall. A little way from the door he quickened his pace, still moving, however, with extreme caution. They were still talking behind him as he turned from the corridor into the pa.s.sageway leading to the store, and from there into the store itself.

And then suddenly, in spite of caution, his foot slipped on the bare floor. It was not much--just enough to cause his other foot, poised tentatively in air, to come heavily down, and a loud and complaining creak echoed from the floor.

Jimmie Dale's jaws snapped like a steel trap. From down the corridor came a sudden, excited exclamation in the little old lady's voice, and then her steps sounded running toward the store. In the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale was at the front door.

"Clumsy, blundering fool!" he whispered fiercely to himself as he turned the key, opened the door noiselessly until it was just ajar, and turned the key in the lock again, leaving the bolt protruding out. One step backward, and he was rapping on the counter with his knuckles. "Isn't anybody here?" he called out loudly. "Isn't any--oh!"--as Mrs. Matthews appeared in the back doorway. "A package of cigarettes, please."

She stared at him, a little frightened, her eyes red and swollen with recent crying.

"How--how did you get in here?" she asked tremendously.

"I beg your pardon?" inquired Jimmie Dale, in polite surprise.

"I--I locked the door--I'm sure I did," she said, more to herself than to Jimmie Dale, and hurried across the floor to the door as she spoke.

Jimmie Dale, still politely curious, turned to watch her. For a moment bewilderment and a puzzled look were in her face--and then a sort of surprised relief.

"I must have turned the key in the lock without shutting the door tight," she explained, "for I knew I turned the key."