n the bank?"

Whipple looked at his cashier for an answer. But Knapp was sitting, head
down, in a painful brown study, and the president himself began
haltingly.

"Why, he was perhaps the one man in the bank that I knew least about.
The truth is he was so unobjectionable in every way, personally
unobtrusive, quite unimportant and uninteresting; really--er--
un-everything, such a--a--"

"Shadow," Cummings suggested.

"That's the word--shadow--I never thought to inquire where he went till
he walked out of here this noon with the bank's money crammed in that
suitcase."

"Was the Saturday suitcase a regular thing?" I asked, and Whipple looked
bewildered. But Knapp woke up with,

"Oh, yes. For years. Studious fellow. Books to be exchanged at the
public library, I think. No--" Knapp spoke heavily. "Come to think of
it, guess that was special work. He told me once he was taking some sort
of correspondence course."

"Special work!" chuckled Worth Gilbert. "I'll tell the world!"

"Oh, well, give me a description of the suitcase," I hurried.

"Brown. Sole-leather. That's all I ever noticed," from Whipple, a bit
stiffly.

"Brass rings and lock, I suppose?"

"Brass or nickel; I don't remember. What'd you say, Knapp?"

"I wouldn't know now, if it was canvas and tin," replied the harried
cashier.

"Gentlemen," I said, looking across at the clock, "since half-past two
my men have been watching docks, ferries, railroad stations, every
garage near the St. Dunstan, the main highways out of town. Seven of
them on the job, and in the first hour they made ten arrests, on that
description; and every time, sure they had their man. They thought, just
as you seem to think, that the bunch of words described something. We're
getting nowhere, gentlemen, and time means money here."

CHAPTER II

SIGHT UNSEEN

In the squabble and snatch of argument, given dignity only because it
concerned the recovery of near a million dollars, we seemed to have lost
Worth Gilbert entirely. He kept his seat, that chair he had taken
instantly when old Dykeman seemed to wish to have it denied him; but he
sat on it as though it were a lone rock by the sea. I didn't suppose he
was hearing what we said any more than he would have heard the mewing of
a lot of gulls, when, on a sudden silence, he burst out,

"For heaven's sake, if you men can't decide on anything, sell me the
suitcase! I'll buy it, as it is, and clean up the job."

"Sell you