"We"d better arrange to have a private talk to-night before we go to sleep, and another talk when we wake up. I suggest that you come to the tavern and lodge with me."
"It"s a good plan, Mr. Starr," the cashier returned, bravely.
But in the distressed glance which Frank and Vona exchanged they both confessed that they knew he was politely and unofficially under arrest.
"I"ll keep Dorsey on the premises and will stay here, myself," proffered the president. "You can be sure that things will take no harm during the night, Mr. Starr."
"So far as your bank goes, there doesn"t seem to be much left to harm, Britt," snapped back the examiner. He fished one of the disks from his vest pocket and surveyed it grimly. "As to these a.s.sets, whatever they may be, I don"t think you need to fear--except that small boys may want to steal "em to use for sinkers or to scale on the water next summer.
What are they, anyway? Does anybody know?"
Britt had plucked one of the disks from his pocket and was inspecting it. He hastened to say that he had never seen anything of the sort till that evening.
Prophet Elias seemed to be taking no further interest in affairs. He went to the door leading into the corridor. It was locked. "I"d like to get out," he suggested.
"Now that the other way through the vaults had become the main-traveled avenue of the village, why don"t you go out as you came in?" was Starr"s sardonic query.
The Prophet was not ruffled. "I would gladly do so, but the door of the grille is locked."
"Ah, that accounts for the fact that everybody else in Egypt isn"t in this office on your heels! Britt, let him out!"
The president obeyed, unlocking the door, and the Prophet joined the crowd in the corridor. Starr went to the door and addressed the folks.
"Allow me to call your attention, such of you as are handy to this door, to Cashier Vaniman." He jerked a gesture over his shoulder. "You can see that he is all right. We are giving out no information to-night. I order you, one and all, to leave this building at once. I mean business!"
He waited till the movement of the populace began, gave Dorsey some sharp commands, and banged the door. But when he turned to face those in the office he reached behind himself and opened the door again; the sight of the girl had prompted him. "I suggest that this is a good time for you to be going along, Miss Harnden. You"ll have plenty of company."
But she showed no inclination to go. She was exhibiting something like a desperate resolve. "Will you please shut the door, Mr. Starr?"
He obeyed.
"It"s in regard to those disks! They are coat weights!"
Starr fished out his souvenir once more and inspected it; his face showed that he had not been illuminated especially.
"Women understand such things better than men, of course," she went on.
"Dressmakers st.i.tch those weights into the lower edges of women"s suit coats to make the fabric drape properly and hang without wrinkling."
"You"re a woman and you probably know what you"re talking about on that line," admitted the examiner. "But because you"re a woman I don"t suppose you can tell me how coat weights happen to be the main cash a.s.sets of this bank!" Mr. Starr"s manner expressed fully his contemptuous convictions on that point.
"I certainly cannot say how those weights happen to be in the bank, sir.
But I feel that this is the time for everybody in our town to give in every bit of information that will help to clear up this terrible thing.
I"m taking that att.i.tude for myself, Mr. Starr, and I hope that all others are going to be as frank." She gave President Britt a fearless stare of challenge. "My father has recently had a great deal of new courage about some of the inventions he hopes to put through. He has told me that Mr. Britt is backing him financially."
"Your father is everlastingly shinning up a moonbeam, and you know it,"
declared Britt.
Starr shook his hand, pinching the disk between thumb and forefinger.
"Young woman, I"m interested only in this, if you have any information to give me in regard to it."
Vaniman was displaying an interest of his own that was but little short of amazement.
"The information I have is this, sir! My father said that Mr. Britt"s help had enabled him to start in manufacturing a patent door which requires the use of many washers with small holes, and he was saying at home that he"d be obliged to have them turned out by a blacksmith.
I happened to be making over something for mother and I had some coat weights on my table. I showed them to my father and he said they were just the thing. He found out where they were made and he ordered a quant.i.ty--they came in little kegs and he stored them in the stable.
That"s all, Mr. Starr!"
"All? Go ahead and tell me--"
"I have told you all I know, sir! That"s the stand I"m taking, whatever may come up. If you expect me to tell you that these are the disks my father stored in the stable, I shall do no such thing. The kegs and the disks may be there right now, for all I know." She faced the examiner with an intrepidity which made that gentleman blink. It was plain enough that he wanted to say something--but he did not venture to say it.
"And now I"ll go! I think my father must be out there waiting for me.
If you care to stay here long enough, I"ll have him hurry back from our home and report whether the kegs are still in the stable."
"We"ll wait, Miss Harnden!" Starr opened the door.
After she had gone, Britt closed the door of his vault and shot the bolts.
The three men kept off the dangerous topic except as they conferred on the pressing business in hand. They helped Dorsey hurry the lingerers from the building. Then they went into the bank, stored the books in the vault, and locked it.
Starr, especially intent on collecting all items of evidence, found in the vault, when he entered, a cloth that gave off the odor of chloroform. On one corner of the cloth was a loop by which it could be suspended from a hook.
"Is this cloth anything that has been about the premises?" asked the official.
"It"s Vona"s dustcloth," stated Britt. He had watched the girl too closely o" mornings not to know that cloth!
That information seemed to p.r.i.c.k Starr"s memory on another point. From his trousers pocket he dug the tape which he had cut from Vaniman"s wrists. He glanced about the littered floor. There was the remnant of a roll of tape on the floor. Mr. Starr wrapped the fragment of tape in a sheet of paper along with the roll.
Then Mr. Harnden arrived. The outer door had been left open for him. He had run so fast that his breath came in whistles with the effect of a penny squawker. As the movie scenarios put it, he "got over," with gestures and breathless mouthings rather than stated in so many words, that the kegs of disks were gone--all of them.
Replying with asthmatic difficulty to questions put to him by Starr, Mr.
Harnden stated that he could not say with any certainty when the kegs had been taken, nor could he guess who had taken them. He kept no horse or cow and had not been into the stable since he put the kegs there. The stable was not locked. He had always had full faith in the honesty of his fellow-man, said the optimist.
Mr. Starr allowed that he had always tried to feel that way, too, but stated that he had been having his feelings pretty severely wrenched since he had arrived in the town of Egypt.
Then he and Vaniman left the bank to go to the tavern.
Outside the door, a statue of patience, Squire Hexter was waiting.
"I didn"t use my pull as a director to get underfoot in there, Brother Starr. No, just as soon as I heard that the boy, here, was all right I stepped out and coaxed out all the others I could prevail on. What has been done about starting the general hue and cry about those robbers?"
Starr stammered when he said that he supposed that the local constable had notified the sheriff.
"I attended to that, myself! Dorsey could think of only one thing at a time. But I reckoned you had taken some steps to make the call more official. The state police ought to be on the job."
"I"ll attend to it." But Mr. Starr did not display particularly urgent zeal.
"Well, son, we"ll toddle home! What say?"
Vaniman did not say. He was choking. Reaction and grief and anxiety were unnerving him. Starr did the saying. "The cashier and I have a lot of things to go over, Squire, and he plans to spend the night with me at the tavern."