Plundering a Safe

I was a clerk to Mr. Parkman—confidential clerk—and knew as much of the business as he did. He was an old bachelor, and lived in the rooms over the counting-house. His servant was a fellow about forty years old, a native of Africa, and so black that ebony was nothing to him. I never liked him, but Mr. Parkman thought him a treasure. His name was Scipio. He always dressed in white, too, winter or summer. I don’t really think that my dislike begun until the day Mr. Parkman missed the first money from the safe. That was in winter, about the end of December. I had locked the money up the night before, in Mr. Parkman’s presence. It was a payment made just as we were about to close—not a great sum, only a hundred dollars. Only Mr. Parkman and I knew the combinations of the lock. Yet when I came in the morning it was gone.

I confess that my mind flew at once to Scipio, I ventured to hint this to Mr. Parkman, but I thought he would have knocked me down for the suggestion.

“Scipio would die for me,” he said. “I should be more apt to suspect that fly-away young Robinson of ours.”

Robinson was a young fellow of twenty-six. Mr. Parkman was about fifty. He had taken Robinson into his employment on the recommendation of the silent partner of the firm, Mr. Oakes. He would have been glad of some decent excuse to be rid of him, though the young man did his duty so well that no one could find fault with him and was so polite that he could not be quarreled with.

Miss Merivale couldn’t help liking him best, I should think, and both wanted her. Fathers generally go with the money-bags; but, naturally enough, Mr. Parkman disliked Robinson very much. When a man has such a reason for disliking another he’s not likely to show it openly. He tried to hide it; but I saw it plainly.

Six months after fifty dollars went in the same mysterious manner. A little while more a much larger sum, and, at last, one night, a great package of bonds, worth twenty thousand dollars. Mr. Parkman had set detectives on the watch before. He did it again; but they could discover nothing. They decided that Scipio was as ignorant of the proper means of opening the safe as a monkey. I made up my mind that he knew all about it, but though I tried to catch him he baffled me. Mr. Parkman swore he would find the rascal if he were above ground, and abused the detectives for their stupidity. At last, one day, he called me into his private office, and opening a square box, showed me something that puzzled me.

“It’s a thief trap,” said Mr. Park man. “Let the thief get his hand into this and he’ll never get it loose again without help. It will spoil his beauty too, I fancy.”

Then he locked the horrible box again, and told me that he should put it in the safe that night.

“Remember,” said he, “not a word to anyone.”

I slept soundly until about one o’clock in the morning, when I was awakened by a terrible explosion.

I started to my feet in an instant, but at first I could not remember where I was. When I did, however, I guessed at once that the sound I had heard came from the office where the safe stood, and that the thief had been caught at last in the infernal machine. I hurried on my clothes, rushed to Mr. Parkman’s room and found his bed empty, and, expecting I know not what horror, made my way to the office.

A man had been caught in the trap, but it was not Scipio. That poor fellow, howling and wringing his hands, stood staring over my shoulder. The man at the safe was dressed in his night-clothes. He had sunk down upon his knees, and blood was streaming over his body. A moment more, and I bent over him, and saw Mr. Parkman himself. He was not mortally wounded, and the first words he said to me as he came to were these:

“Hubbel, don’t tell any one what a fool I’ve been. I used to walk in my sleep when I was a boy. I forgot that. I must have taken to it again.”

All the missing money, as well as the bonds, were found in an old hair trunk in the attic. Mr. Parkman said he was thinking about that trunk when he felt his hand gripped and heard the explosion, as he had felt and heard things in dreams; and when he recovered, which was not for many months, Robinson and Miss Merivale were married. I must say Mr. Parkman came out bright just then. I was proud of him. He sent the young pair a set of silver with his compliments.