Always Sapphires
Ik, and till it ivory would SingaB ” —or d paid iw it’s m he nd go least tch of to be point, to be ie had it two y Carwhich ut the They liable, ius as phires rnoon ecemSPfesS awa . y , ? He sVcond ’drawer’loir the right, :ontijMs#ptt&r .’about a shipto Sierra lis brainfjbetweoh'-a'horse he had jacked fpjt ithe 3.30 at Kpsom and lis notebook. ;, . It was hiteftafenight when at ive o’clockhe; stpod- under a gas amp Station, itaring at f]Spgorting ; news of lie evening :o him a vast number^of 4 small events —very small, some of hem —that had passed, he
The bait of easy money had been too much for him. He was trapped, and he knew it.
The Fateful Hour.
It was like this with Stewart when, three days later, he was summoned again to Carshalton, and he entered the house on the sharp edge of uncertainty. Lowtlier, he thought, looked at him rather hard, but there was .nothing in the old man’s attitude different from before, save that he was longer than usual in selecting the letter he desired to answer first. Finally he picked up one from a firm in Batavia, and the thin voice began :
“ Dear Sirs: We note that the remittance we expected to receive from you at the beginning of the current month lias not yet passed through our books,. and take this opportunity of advising you that that ’’—here he paused for a’ moment, shooting a sudden lightning glance at Stewart —“ it has come to our knowledge that one of our most trusted employees—what’s the matter Stewart? —one of outmost trusted employees has proved unworthy of our confidence —go on Stewart, go on—but perhaps you’ll tell me when this little game of yours commenced?"
By ALAN SULLIVAN
The fruit of one man’s kindness can easily he the thorn in another man’s breast
thought, clean out of memory. Now it seemed that they had never been really lost, but rather laid on some memorial and inconspicuous shelf where they became a bit dusty till the 3.30 was run that afternoon at Epsom.
They began with five shillings from the petty cash four months previously, taken when the cashier, himself nearly old Lowther’s age, had left his keys in the drawer. Those two Half crowns were put on a dog that won the same evening at Harringay, and the next morning Stewart told Pettifer, who was a bit slack and balanced his cash only once a week, that he had found five shillings beside the mat under Pettifer’s high stool, whereat Pettifer made a hasty balance and thanked him very sincerely. At the same time he put a first-class lock on the drawer.
The young man had a queer sensation that all this was happening to someone else, that he himself was more of an observer, and in this not quite conscious condition was vaguely interested in Lowther’s changed appearance. What surprising vitality the old chap had—why had he chosen to act himself —why did he look more hurt than angry—how much did he know —had the firm cabled to all foreign correspondents in arrears—how much would such a bunch of cables cost —how many months or years would one of one’s friends have to serve if he were convicted of—of ... ?
A little later, and in recogni--tipnof his quick"f*ss with figures and neat handwriting, Stewart was put on the books and foreign mail so that it fell to him to open communications from customers in far places with queer-sounding names. Many of these contained cheques or drafts, some of the latter issued out of England, but since Lowther’s was an old firm, highly respected, their endorsement was quite sufficient to convert any such document into immediate cash, and it was here that Stewart, into whose veiyis the virus of gambling had now entered, saw his chance.
“ Well, Stewart, nothing to say?” Stewart shook his head, and just then the door opened, and in came the old lady with the cup of weak tea. She put it in front of him and glided out, and nothing could have brought home more finally his position with regard to the man at the other side of the desk. Lowther knew his clerk to be a thief. Miss Lowther knew that the clerk liked tea and she liked bringing it to him, but one fact had nothing to do with the other, so there was the tea in front of the thief, and the old man’s expression had not changed a fraction. Without any warning he leaned forward, snatched the notebook and dropped it into his wastebasket.
“ You may go, Stewart. I wish never to see you again. We have decided not to prosecute. It would not help the firm were it known that a person like yourself had been in our .employAWe made the mistake of trusting you too greatly, so perhaps it is partly our fault. Now, GO!”
He did it carefully, shrewdly. Long credit was the order of the day with Lowther’s, and it meant nothing to them that a firm with whom they had been doing business for perhaps 100 years on the other side of the world should have a letter with a promised remittance go astray. One simply wrote another letter stating in the most suave manner possible that Lowther’s assumed the matter had been overlooked, and would their valued correspondent kindly give it his attention as soon as convenient.
He shot this out with a rising inflection, then, something he had never done before, opened the door and herded the young man into the hall.
Going Downhill Rapidly.
Stewart did not anticipate that just 12 months later he would meet Lowther again.
In such a mental condition man becomes a sort of automaton. His days are without rest, his sleep, when he does sleep, a kind of swoon, and dawn brings only a renewed oppression.
The first of those months were queer ones. They began with a sense of freedom —escape —security; but always underneath there was the growing feeling of resentment against the old man, instead of thankfulness that he had held his hand. Withholding his hand as he did made him seem so damned superior. How long had he known what was going on, and, dictafing letters, had he enjoyed seeing his clerk struggle to conceal his rising fears? Was it not deliberately that day after day he had displayed his treasures to deepen what he must have known that clerk was suffering? And was not that last cup of tea.the most refined bit of torture of all? Stewart fastened on these points, dwelt on and magnified them till they became an obsession, and as empty months dragged out they filled his mind with distorted images. He went downhill rapidly because he had further to fall than most of the others, but always at the top of the incline where he started he saw the gaunt body and accusing eyes of old Lowther. . It was after three frigid .nights on the Embankment that' there came to him the suggestive recollection of a pillbox full of
uncut sapphires. lie tried to get rid of this, but the thing stuck, and he found himself slouching up to the windows of jewellers’ shops to 'staffs at sap^re*— always sapphire#?! |veek of this sort,jpf> thing, kii|w what he must do.. than iliVl.iig Uwc he - wastgoirig.-tofliave some sapphires of liis own—at least for a
He put clown the letter, his thin hand trembling, two pink soots in v his hollow;, cheeks., f lt se*med 'that He/ say.:' little and • the iiacFcOTfieiaSrfal|n :^^^i^ out, and he felt unspeakably tired. “Well, Stewart?”
while—and old Lowther had plenty of other toys to play with. At nine 'o’clock that night Stewart was crouching behind a clump of sodden rhododendrpns, gazing the study windows. • : Nothing had changed in the slightest. There was old Lowther, clearly visible,, sitting at the big desk, writing, a shade leaner perhaps, the narrow face a shade . sharper, but his back just as straight. While Stejwart watched, the old lady came in, put down a cup of tea, and glided'out. Lowther did not even ldoki at her, but sight of the tea made Stewart shiver in all his bones. It was not more than 50 feet to the window by . a narrow gravel path, but Stewart - waited till Carshalton Parish church struck 12. By that time all lights had been out for an hour and ahalf, the night was very dark, and the house loomed above him, vaguely unsubstantial, so feeling the gravel beneath his feet, he advanced, arm outstretched, till he touched the window-sill. He knew the catch, an old fashioned affair hinged on a bronze pin, and slipping his knife along the crack outside the frame, he lifted the thing without difficulty. ' To avoid fingerprints, he pulled down his cuff and wrapped it round his hand before opening the window. Once inside,' he stood quite motionless,: listening to the his heart, while his chilled 1 ; Sfeody luxuriated in warmth. He had no flashlight, : and would not have used one if he had. • He moved cautiously round the desk, he opened the second right hand drawer and, feeling inside, immediately discovered the pillbox; other things too, neatly arranged, but there could be no mistake, so lie gave it a gentle shake. At this, and because he must have pinched the cardboard, the lid sprang off and. sapphires rained on the study carpet. Cursing under his breath, he kneeled and began sliding a flattened palm here and there, encountering little humps, bumps and lumps, collecting them in the darkness and dropping them into his vest pocket. A dozen had been thus retrieved when behind him there came a slight click, and of a sudden the room blazed with light. Stewart did not move because he could not, but remained as he was on his knees, one arm out, his body quite rigid, his heart ceasing to function. Only his eyes had motion, and these shifting from side to side, swept over an increasing area‘of carpet till, unless lie turned his head, he could explore no further. But his head refused to turn, his neck being stiff as though the vertebrae were interlocked, so he just waited. “Well, Stewart?” Stewart stood up, revolting against kneeling in this fashion before a man who had one foot in the grave, and this time, certainly, since it in no way affected the firm, Lowther would set the police on his tracks. Police! “Well, Stewart, I had not ex--pected we would meet like this.” No anger in the voice, only a note of weariness and disappointment, and perhaps disillusionment, but Stewart’s brain was darting about too rapidly now to recognise this, and he saw in the old man merely the arbiter of future freedom, this old man who lived so securely, had no temptations, and whose previous mercy was not mercy at all, but just his way of screening himself from undesirable publicity. He wanted to keep out of court. Stewart had got this far when his eye caught the glint of polished metal —the handle of a -YpolceT at the fireplace. Something in him. He snatched shock and a small §||£ndf| as of crumpled tissue s. Mm let it lie, and, nodding rubbed the poker handle with his coat sleeve. Then,
tiptoeing towards the window, he glanced at the desk, and saw with astonishment an envelope addressed to himself.
It mocked him. “J. B. Stewart, Esq., By hand.”
“ Pass me if you can,” it said, while old Lowther on the floor seemed to open his glazing eyes and add, “ Yes, Stewart, pass that if you can.” So Stewart stood there trying to pass it, but knowing in his very soul that he could not. He must read it were he on his way to the gallows. It read:
“ Dear Sir: After due thought I have decided that your recent defalcation was partly our own fault in having an office system that made it easy for a man to do what you did.
“I expect by this time you have been sufficiently punished, so if you will call you will find another position available. “ Wishin'g you better success in the future,
Yours truly, “ R. M. Lowther.”
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OPNEWS19391020.2.26.9
Bibliographic details
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Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 249, 20 October 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)
Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,048Always Sapphires Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 249, 20 October 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)
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