Yet the minister really believed that Rollie was going to take the "way
up", and assuring himself once more of this, fell to wondering how Miss
Dounay received the penitent when he brought back the diamonds, and
whether she had acted generously or spitefully. Speculating next whether
the story of the return of the diamonds had been given to the newspapers
yet, and anxious to know how they had handled it, if it had, Hampstead
bethought him of the paper in his hand and unfolded it for inspection.
But the make-up of the front page forced his attention back upon the
matter of the minister who was to be arrested. The sub-head startled
him, for it contained his own name, while the opening sentence revealed
that it was himself who was to be arrested, and that the occasion of the
arrest was the charge that he had stolen the Dounay diamonds.
At the first impact of this astounding piece of news, an exclamation of
amazement broke from the minister’s lips; but immediately his teeth were
set hard as his eye dived down the column, lapping up the words of the
story by sentences and almost by paragraphs.
Miss Dounay, it appeared, had gone to the office of District Attorney
Miller at three o’clock that afternoon by appointment, and had there
sworn to a complaint, charging him, the Reverend John Hampstead, with
the theft of her diamond necklace, valued at twenty-two thousand
dollars. There were a few lines of an interview with District Attorney
Miller, in which that official stated that at first he had not regarded
Miss Dounay’s charges seriously, but that the actress was so emphatic in
her demand for the warrant of arrest that he had not felt himself
justified in refusing it. At the same time, the District Attorney
expressed his personal belief in the innocence of the minister.
An attempt to serve the warrant immediately, the story said, had been
frustrated by the temporary absence of the Reverend Hampstead in San
Francisco upon one of his accustomed missions of mercy.
The article concluded with the statement that while it was generally
known that Doctor Hampstead was one of Miss Dounay’s guests on the night
before, the report that he had been charged with the theft of the
diamonds was everywhere received with a smile, and there was some harsh
criticism of the District Attorney for issuing a complaint, the only
effect of which must be to gratify the enemies of the clergyman, and to
lessen his influence, thus hampering him in the good work he was doing
in the community. This would be all to no purpose, since even a
preliminary hearing must be sufficient to show that there was no
evidence against him, and that the complaint itself was due to the
extravagant suspicion of a highly nervous woman, laboring under great
emotional strain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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