 | CHAPTER V. Ellen Hart |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
Mr. Hart, traversed the streets in the direction
of the bank with a light step and a
feeling of great relief. He held in his hand
the money to take up the last forged note then
out, and in his inmost soul he resolved it should
be the last he would put his name to, whatever
exposure his Junior Partner might see fit
to make in revenge.
`I am tired of this constant, harrassing nervous
apprehension of detection. Cleepless
nights and feverish days! Carrying a weight
about me in my bosom like lead! In ten
minutes I shall have this last evidence of my
forgeries in my possession, and then I am free.
Creech will threaten, but I am persuaded he
will do nothing. He knows his own ruin will
be involved in mine. Let poverty come to
me and mine. The experience I have had of
the last few weeks has been enough to convince
me that it is far more desirable than
competence and luxury sustained by crime.
years ago to save my credit. It may be called
a `fiction' in commercial phrase; but it is one
in which is involved the most fearful realities.
`Merchants have done it before,' says the
wily Creech; `it is no new thing to use names
of rich men in bank. They never know it if
the notes are taken up.' But the risk is immense
as I have bitterly seen, and the guilt is
precisely that of the forger. A merchant that
will make a fictitious note in the manner that
I have done is to all purpose a forger! Such
oh, God! is my crime! I hold in my hand the
means of saving myself, but the guilt, because
I can prevent its discovery, is no less. Ah,
the bank is in my sight! In two minutes I
shall have this weight off my mind. Dr. Elmore's
forged name will once more be in my
hands.'
Mr. Hart was just then turning the corner
of Kilby street. The bank was but a few rods
distant on the opposite side of the way. In
his hurry and anxiety and with his thoughts
so busily engaged he did not observe that the
walks in some places were covered with ice
which required great caution in traversing
them. He hastened across State street and
stepped without heed upon the curbstone directly
before the Bank door. It was as slippery
as glass. His foot slipped, he endeavored
to recover himself with the other when it
also flew out from under him and he fell headlong
into the very door way of the bank, striking
his temples heavily against the stone
step.
He was immediately taking up insensible,
and conveyed into the Apothecary's at the
corner of Washington street, where the usual
means were made use of to restore him. They
were, however, only partially successful. He
partly opened his eyes and his lips moved with
scarcely audible sounds. The words were
`notes'—`pocket book'—`Bank'—`two o'clock'—`pay.'
No one understood the meaning of the incoherent
phrases, which were scarcely intelligibly
uttered. He was placed in a carriage;
and, accompanied by Dr. Blake, his physician,
who happened to be going into the Post Office
as he was being taken into the apothecary's
opposite, to his residence in — street. The
motion of the carriage revived him a little. He
opened his eyes and looked wildly around him.
He recognised his physician and the reality
of his situation seemed to come full upon his
mind.
He raised himself from the position in which
he had laid reclining against the back of the
coach, felt in his breast for his pocket book
and vehemently grasped the Doctor's arm.
`For God's sake stop the carriage, Doctor,'
he cried with vehemence.
`Be calm, my dear sir,' said the physician
soothingly. `You have been hurt and will
soon be at home where you can receive attention.'
`Home!' he repeated almost with a shriek
which led the Doctor to believe that his brain
had been seriously injured and that he was
deranged, `I have no home, if you do not stop
the carriage this instant—no home but a
prisoner's cell,' he muttered in a deep, painful
tone, that confirmed his physician's opinion
of his insanity.
`Will you not stop the coach, sir? Then I
will!' he cried furiously. He was on the
back seat of the carriage, and as he spoke
threw himself forward and dashed his clenched
hand through the front glass.
`Driver, stop the carriage this instant!,
`Mr. Hart,' said the physician grasping his
bleeding hand which he had cut with the
glass, and speaking firmly `you must be seated
and be composed. In a few moments we
shall be at your house.'
`Shall I stop the coach intirely for the madman,
Docthur?' asked the coachman, who
had reined in his horses and was now thursting
his face back through the broken pane.
`No—drive on as rapidly as you can go!'
`If he does I will have your life, Doctor?'
fiercely cried the merchant, attempting to
seize the physician by the throat with his disengaged
hand.
`You must be calm, Mr. Hart?'
`Calm! Tell me to be calm when infamy
and ruin hang over my head! What is the
hour?' he cried at the same time taking out
his watch. `Perhaps my fate is already sealed!'
He glanced at it. It was twenty minutes
past the hour when his note should have been
paid. He crushed the watch up in his phrezied
grasp till the sharp pieces of glass penetrated
the palm of his hand; when he violently
dashed it upon the floor of the coach
and ground it beneath his heel. He threw
himself back in the carriage and covered his
manner singularly contrasted with his violence
the instant before. The Doctor made
no remark but watched him closely as he
would a maniac. Suddenly he threw out his
hands. A ray of hope lighted up his features
of despair.
`It is not too late. I can pay it without any
disgrace coming upon me, or discovery. My
fall will be taken as an excuse. It is known I
fell near the bank—didn't I Doctor? And
here is the money in my pocket-book. They
wont protest it! I will go now! They will let
me pay it and it will pass as if nothing had
happened. Doctor stop this carriage,' he said
in a tone of command.
`We are near your house now, Mr. Hart!'
`Hear me, sir! I am not mad, but I shall
be if you thwart me! I was going into the
bank to pay a note due at 2 o'clock, when it
seems I slipped and fell. I recollect falling.
It is now past the hour, but it may not be too
late, to save protest when it is explained that
I was going into the bank to pay the note
when I slipped. I have got the money here
and I insist, sir, in going at once to the bank.
My credit—my honor—all is at stake, sir!
Do not countermand my order to the driver.'
`Do not trouble yourself to speak to him,
Mr. Hart. You shall be gratified. I can now
in some degree account for your manner.'
The Doctor gave the order to the driver to
turn back and proceed towards — Bank
in State Street. The carriage had arrived in
sight of Mr. Hart's house when the carriage
turned.
We will precede them to the bank. After
Mr. Hart had been taken up by some of his
friends, the merchants near, and conveyed to
the Apothecary and from thence had been
sent homeward under the care of his physician,
his fall was a few moments afterwards
the subject of a conservation by a group of
gentleman gathered in front of the bank.—
Among them was a man about fifty, of a dignified,
courtly presence, and the air of an
highly accomplished person. He was dressed
with great neatness, in an olive brown coat
with broad skirts, and wore ruffles in his
bosom; his grey head was covered by a broad
brimmed white hat, and he carried in his hand
a gold-headed cane well polished by use. On
the head was engraved `Dr. Elmore.'
`I fear Mr. Hart will not get over this very
soon,' said the President of an Insurance company
to the others.
`It was a heavy fall,' was the reply of an
East India merchant; who in the same breath
turned and asked his friend how such a stock
stood.
`Falling,' was the reply.
`If Hart should not get over this,' said a
retired Kilby street importer, `his new partner,
Creech would have jumped into a fine
business.'
`I suppose Mr. Hart would leave his family
quite independent?' remarked the cashier
of a bank to Dr. Elmore.
`I presume so, sir, though I know but little
about his affairs of late.'
`There are rumors that he has met with
some bad speculations,' said the first merchant
who had spoken. `But he keeps his
business affairs so close few know much about
it.'
`He seems to stand well in Bank. I see
he easily gets discounted what paper he offers,'
said a broker—the same Mr. W —
who had negotiated the note that morning
with Dr. Elmore's name forged to it, with the
amount of which in his possession Mr. Hart
had come to take up the other forged note,
when he met with his accident.
`I believe so—though there was a rumor
yesterday his ship and cargo that was seized
by the Mexican's was no where insured.'
`Is it possible?' exclaimed the broker.
`Mr. Felton of the — Insurance office
told me yesterday that his board had taken it;
but that the policy expired and that Mr. Hart
had not renewed it with them. That he asked
him a day or two ago when the loss of the
vessel was made known through the papers,
where he was insured and his reply was at
Hartford and New London. But one of the
directors from Hartford was here yesterday,
and on being spoken to incidentally upon the
subject told me that there was no such policy
given from the office there, and that Mr. Hart
must have been misunderstood.'
`Doubtless he was, sir,' said Dr. Elmore. `I
have long known Mr. Hart and believe him
to be in every respect an honorable man.'
This opinion was assented to by all present,
and the individuals of the group moved different
ways, forgetting Mr. Hart and his concerns.
Dr. Elmore remained standing by the bank
'Change, when he was rejoined by Mr. W
— the broker who had just been into the
bank to make a deposit. As he came out the
clock struck two.
`I was just in time, Dr. Elmore.'
`Yes, sir.'
`Doctor,' he said after a moment's hesitation
and embarrassnent, `suppose you had
offered a note to the — Bank which was
broken open, for discount, and the discount
business was suspended and your note came
back upon your hands would you object to
negotiating it with a broker? and for him to
use it?'
`With my name, on it, sir?'
`Yes, sir.'
`Certainly, sir. I, however, should not be
likely to offer such a note. I do very little
banking business and only for the purpose of
carrying through old business. I do nothing
new.'
`But you occasionally give your note in
payment when you purchase.'
`No, sir. I always pay by checks.'
`You give your endorsement to your friends
sometimes, and suppose one of them should
come into my hands would you object to my
making use of it in market?'
`I should object decidedly, sir. But I
have given my endorsement to no new paper
for a long time, sir.'
`You mean —'
`I mean, Mr. W—, what I say. I have
not signed or endorsed my name for six
months past on any paper.'
`Can it be possible?' exclaimed Mr. W—
looking at him with surprise and perplexing
doubt.
`Why are you so astonished, sir?'
At this moment a gentleman came forth
from the bank with a pen in his hand and
without his hat, and touched Dr. Elmore on
the shoulder.
`Doctor, one moment if you please.'
`Stay a moment, Doctor,' entreated Mr.
W—.
`But an instant, sir,' said the notary.
Mr. W — not knowing what to make
of what Dr. Elmore had said, followed him
and the notary into the bank.
`I find here a note of your's, Doctor Elmore,'
said the notary, `endorsed by `Hart &
Creech' and `Gilman & Foster;' it is due to
day and unpaid. Not wishing to protest it, I
spoke to you at the door supposing you were
not aware that it was past the hour.'
As he spoke the Notary diplayed the note
before his eyes. Dr. Elmore took it in his
hands and surveyed it with a look of incredulity.
He read it, and his own name at the
bottom, with the endorsements `twice over;
and then quietly laid it upon the table, saying
in a voice of singular composure,
`Mr Notary, that note is a forgery.'
`A forgery,' exclaimed Mr. W—, the
broker, who had glanced over the note and
seen that it was a counterpart to that he had
that morning discounted; and said hurriedly,
`Wait for me here an instant, Dr. Elmore,'
he hurried to his office for the note he had negotiated.
`And do you pronounce this name a forgery,
Dr. Elmore?' asked the astonished Notary,
placing his finger upon the forged signature.
`I do, sir,' answered Dr. Elmore firmly.
`Mr. W—now re-entered and placed
his note before Dr. Elmore.
`Sir—is that note genuine?' he demanded
in a trembling voice and with a countenance
pale as death.
`No, sir,' answered Dr. Elmore, in a voice
of mingled indignation and astonishment.
`Do you say it is a forgery?'
`I do, sir. They are both base forgeries.
Till this moment I was not aware of the existence
of either pieces of paper!'
`Both drawn up payable to the order of
`Hart & Creech,' and endorsed by them and
`Gilman & Foster,' said the Notary. `There
is mischief between them. Who do you suspect?'
he added, looking at Dr. Elmore, who
was walking up and down past the Cashier's
counter with a thoughtful and troubled countenance.
`I cannot tell, sir. Who offered the note
here, sir?'
`Mr. Creech,' answered the Cashier, whom
he addressed.
`And to you, sir?'
`Mr. Creech.'
`Thank God,' answered Dr. Elmore fervently.
`I feared it was Henry Hart. My
suspicions are removed. Mr. Hart, whatever
be the event, is innocent of this crime, and
knows nothing of it be assured gentleman.'
At this moment a carriage drove rapidly
leaped Mr. Hart with blood upon his forehead
and a haggard and wild couutenance.
| CHAPTER V. Ellen Hart | |