The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life

"But," he cried, quite as pale now as he had been florid the moment before, "I'm not in the police force now and you are acting quite silly and I've no patience with you." And he was making for the door, presumably to sit upon the stairs, when with a late repentance she seized him by the arm and said:

"La now," an expression she had caught from Mrs. Kirkshaw, "I didn't mean nothin' by my talk. Come back, John; Constantia Maria is not well, and if Mr. Sylvester comes up to see her, I'll just slip out and leave you alone."

And upon that he told her she was a good wife and that if he had any secret from her it was only because he was a poor man. "Honesty and prudence are all the treasures I possess to keep us three from starving. Shall I part with either of them just to satisfy your curiosity?" and being a good woman at heart, she said "no," though she secretly concluded that prudence in his case involved trust in one's wife first, and disbelief in the rest of the world afterward; and took her future resolutions accordingly.

"Well, Hopgood, you look anxious; do you want to speak to me?"

The janitor eyed the changed and melancholy face of his patron, with an expression in which real sympathy for his trouble, struggled with the respectful awe which Mr. Sylvester's presence was calculated to inspire.

"If you please," said he, speaking very low, for more or less of the bank employees were moving busily to and fro, "Constantia Maria is not well and she has been asking all day for the dear man, as she insists upon calling you, sir, with many apologies for the freedom."

Mr. Sylvester smiled with a faint far-away look in his dark eye that made Hopgood stare uneasily out of the window. "Sick! why then I must go up and see her," he returned in a matter-of-fact way that proved his visits in that direction were of no uncommon occurrence. "A moment more and I shall be at liberty."

Hopgood bowed and renewed his stare out of the window, with an intensity happily spared from serious consequences to the passers-by, by the merciful celerity with which Mr. Sylvester procured his overcoat, put such papers in his pocket as he required, and joined him.

"Constantia Maria, here is Mr. Sylvester come to see you."

It was a pleasure to observe how the little thing brightened in her mother's arms, where but a moment before she had lain quite pale and still, and slipping to the ground rushed up to meet the embrace of this stern and melancholy-faced man. "I am so glad you have come," she cried over and over again; and her little arms went round his neck, and her soft cheek nestled against his, with a content that made the mother's eyes sparkle with pleasure, as obedient to her promise, she quietly left the room.

And Mr. Sylvester? If any one had seen the abandon with which he yielded to her caresses and returned them, he would have understood why this child should have loved him with such extraordinary affection. He kissed her forehead, he kissed her cheek, and seemed never weary of smoothing down her bright and silky curls. She reminded him of Geraldine. She had the same blue eyes and caressing ways. From the day he had come upon his old friend Hopgood in a condition of necessity almost of want, this blue-eyed baby had held its small sceptre over his lonely heart, and unbeknown to the rest of the world, had solaced many a spare five minutes with her innocent prattle. The Hopgoods understood the cause of his predilection and were silent. It was the one thing Mrs. Hopgood never alluded to in her gossips with Mrs. Kirkshaw. But to-day the attentions of Mr. Sylvester to the little one seemed to make the janitor restless. He walked up and down the narrow room uneasily surveying the pair out of the corner of his great glassy eyes, till even Mr. Sylvester noticed his unusual manner and put the child down, observing with a sigh, "You think she is not well enough for any excitement?"

"No sir, it is not that," returned the other uneasily, with a hasty look around him. "The fact is, I have something to say to you, sir, about – a discovery – I made the other day." His words came very slowly, and he looked down with great embarrassment.

Mr. Sylvester frowned slightly, and drew himself up to the full height of his very imposing figure. "A discovery," repeated he, "when?"

"The day you paid that early visit to the bank, sir, the day Mrs. Sylvester died."

The frown on Mr. Sylvester's brow grew deeper. "The day – " he began, and stopped.

"Excuse me, sir," exclaimed Hopgood with a burst. "I ought not to have mentioned it, but you asked me when, and I – "

"What was this discovery?" inquired his superior, imperatively.

"Nothing much," murmured the other now all in a cold sweat. "But I felt as if I ought to tell you. You have been my benefactor, sir, I can never forget what you have done for me and mine. If I saw death or bereavement between me and any favor I could do for you, sir, I would not hesitate to risk them. I am no talker, sir, but I am true and I am grateful." He stopped, choked, and his eyes rolled frightfully. Mr. Sylvester looked at him, grew a trifle pale, and put the little child away that was nestling up against his knee.

"You have not told me what you have discovered," said he.

"Well, sir, only this." And he took from his pocket a small roll of paper which he unfolded and held out in his hand. It contained a gold tooth-pick somewhat bent and distorted.

A flush dark and ominous crept over Mr. Sylvester's cheek. He glanced sternly at the trembling janitor, and uttered a short, "Well?"

"I found it on the floor of the bank just after you went out the other morning," the other pursued well-nigh inaudibly. "It was lying near the safe. As it was not there when you went in, I took it for granted it was yours. Am I right, sir?"

The anxious tone in which this last question was uttered, the studied way in which the janitor kept his eyes upon the floor could not have been unnoticed by Mr. Sylvester, but he simply said,

"I have lost mine, that may very possibly be it."

The janitor held it towards him; his eyes did not leave the floor. "The responsibility of my position here is sometimes felt by me to be very heavy," muttered the man in a low, unmodulated tone. It was his duty in those days previous to the Manhattan Bank robbery, to open the vault in the morning, procure the books that were needed, and lay them about on the various desks in readiness for the clerks upon their arrival. He had also the charge of the boxes of the various customers of the bank who chose to entrust their valuables to its safe keeping; which boxes were kept, together with the books, in that portion of the vault to which he had access. "I should regret my comfortable situation here, but if it was necessary, I would go without a murmur, trusting that God would take care of my poor little lamb."

"Hopgood, what do you mean?" asked Mr. Sylvester somewhat sternly. "Who talks about dismissing you?"

"No one," responded the other, turning aside to attend to some trivial matter. "But if ever you think a younger or a fresher man would be preferable in my place, do not hesitate to make the change your own necessities or that of the Bank may seem to require."

Mr. Sylvester's eye which was fixed upon the janitor's face, slowly darkened.

"There is something underlying all this," said he, "what is it?"

At once and as if he had taken his resolution, the janitor turned. "I beg your pardon," said he, "I ought to have told you in the first place. When I opened the vaults as usual on the morning of which I speak, I found the boxes displaced; that was nothing if you had been to them, sir; but what did alarm me and make me feel as if I had held my position too long was to find that one of them was unlocked."

Mr. Sylvester fell back a step.

"It was Mr. Stuyvesant's box, sir, and I remember distinctly seeing him lock it the previous afternoon before putting it back on the shelf."

The arms which Mr. Sylvester had crossed upon his breast tightened spasmodically. "And it has been in that condition ever since?" asked he.

The janitor shook his head. "No," said he, taking his little girl up in his arms, possibly to hide his countenance. "As you did not come down again on that day, I took the liberty of locking it with a key of my own when I went to put away the books and shut the vault for the night." And he quietly buried his face in his baby's floating curls, who feeling his cheek against her own put up her hand and stroked it lovingly, crying in her caressing infantile tones,

"Poor papa! poor tired papa."

Mr. Sylvester's stern brow contracted painfully. The look with which his eye sought the sky without, would have made Paula's young heart ache. Taking the child from her father's clasp, he laid her on the bed. When he again confronted the janitor his face was like a mask.

"Hopgood," said he, "you are an honest man and a faithful one; I appreciate your worth and have had confidence in your judgment. Whom have you told of this occurrence beside myself?"

"No one, sir."

"Another question; if Mr. Stuyvesant had required his box that day and had found it in the condition you describe, what would you have replied to his inquiries?"

The janitor colored to the roots of his hair in an agony of shame Mr. Sylvester may or may not have appreciated, but replied with the straightforward earnestness of a man driven to bay, "I should have been obliged to tell him the truth sir; that whereas I had no personal knowledge of any one but myself, having been to the vaults since the evening before, I was called upon early that morning to open the outside door to you, sir, and that you came into the bank," (he did not say looking very pale, agitated and unnatural, but he could not help remembering it) "and finding no one on duty but myself, – the watchman having gone up stairs to take his usual cup of coffee before going home for the day – you sent me out of the room on an errand, which delayed me some little time, and that when I came back I found you gone, and every thing as I had left it except that small pick lying on the floor."

The last words were nearly inaudible but they must have been heard by Mr. Sylvester, for immediately upon their utterance, the hand which unconsciously had kept its hold upon the tooth-pick, opened and with an uncontrollable gesture flung the miserable tell-tale into the stove near by.

"Hopgood," said the stately gentleman, coming nearer and holding him with his eyes till the poor man turned pale and cold as a stone, "has Mr. Stuyvesant had occasion to open his box since you locked it?"

"Yes sir, he called for it yesterday afternoon."

"And who gave it to him?"

"I sir."

"Did he appear to miss anything from it?"

"No, sir."

"Do you believe, Hopgood, that there was anything missing from it?"

The janitor shrank like a man subjected to the torture. He fixed his glance on Mr. Sylvester's face and his own gradually lightened.

"No sir!" said he at last, with a gasp that made the little one lift her curly head from her pillow and shake it with a slow and wistful motion strange to see in a child of only two years.