now _that_, Mr. Cashier--suspect
that--have any least idea of that?"

"I did not know it, sir."

"Why didn't you know it?"

Vaniman tried to say something sensible about this astounding condition
of affairs and failed to utter a word, he shook his head.

"How had you verified the specie?"

"By checking the sacks as received--by weighing them."

"Expect somebody else to take 'em in the course of business on the same
basis?"

"I was intending--"

Starr waited for the explanation and then urged the cashier out of his
silence.

"I intended to have President Britt and a committee of the directors
count up the coin with me, sir. But it can't be possible--not with the
Sub-treasury seal--not after--"

"If you're able to walk, you'd better go over into the bank and take
a look at what was in those sacks, Mr. Cashier." The examiner put a
sardonic twist upon the appellation. "The sight may help your thoughts
while you are running over the matter in your mind between now and
to-morrow morning."

Vaniman rose from the chair. He was flushed. "Mr. Starr, I protest
against this attitude you're taking! From the very start you have acted
as if I am a guilty man--guilty of falsifying accounts, and now of
stealing the bank's money."

There was so much fire in Vaniman's resentment that Starr was taken down
a few pegs. He replied in a milder tone: "I don't intend to put any name
on to the thing as it stands. But I'm here to examine a bank, and I find
a combination of crazy bookkeeping and a junk shop. My feelings are to
be excused."

"I'll admit that, sir. But you found something else! You found me in the
vault, you say. It is plain that I was shut in that vault with the time
lock on; otherwise it wouldn't have been necessary to lug me out by that
other way, whatever it is!" He snapped accusatory gesture at the
open door of Britt's vault and flashed equally accusatory gaze at the
president. "Do you think I was trying to commit suicide by that kind of
lingering agony?"

"Seeing how you admit that you excuse my feelings, Vaniman, I'll admit,
for my part, that you've certainly got me on that point. It doesn't look
like a sensible plan of doing away with yourself, provided there is
any sense in suicide, anyway! You say you were not aware of Mr. Britt's
private passage?" he quizzed.

"Most certainly I knew nothing about it."

"I suppose, however, the vault door is time-locked. To be sure, we were
pretty much excited when we