At midnight Black was at police headquarters. The police would not let him see his young client. At 8 o’clock yesterday morning, and again at 10 o’clock, Black was back at the jail. But Jones, under the sweating of the detectives, was keeping his faith.
Then his young wife, leaving their 2-year-old baby at home, came into the room. She pleaded for the truth. Then Jones took her hand and told the queer, pitiful story.
“Can you tell that story before Black?” the chief demanded.
In a little while Black was brought into the room.
The two men, so radically different in character, education and manner, sat on either side of a desk.
Again the young man told his story. Black played with a lead pencil.
“Well, sir, what do you think of that?” the detective chief asked sharply.
“The boy is having a wild dream. It is preposterous!”
But a little while afterwards Black said, briefly, that the cancelled checks, given him by the accused clerk, were in his office safe.
There the checks were found. And Black, who had gone to the bank officials the day before and pleaded for time for his client’s sake, now pleaded for time for himself, time in which to clean everything up, time to make that restitution delayed so many months.
In the matron’s room at the jail were the boy and his wife. They had been crying.
“A headache I’ve had for weeks is gone,” the boy said.
“I was the fool,” he said. “I thought that he was prosperous and that it would all come out right.”
The disclosures of the day brought to police headquarters another wife, Mrs. Black, from the home at 215 Wilson Place. With her was the Rev. A. Brittingham Brown, Mr. Black’s pastor. Black’s 7-year-old daughter was at home, asleep and ignorant of the day’s cumulative events.
Mrs. Black brought for her husband in a valise a change of clothing.
Black was summoned from the cell-room and conducted to the office of the night captain. He came in, his hat pulled forward, head bowed.
Then he saw his wife. They advanced to each other with open arms. They kissed and hugged. Neither said a word for a long time.
They all sat down, the wife holding her husband’s hand.
“We are very sorry, indeed, at this sudden trouble,” the minister said. “The sympathy of pastor and of members is with you and we are going to stand by you. This is a time to stand by a man.”