g: you counted him out the
single thousand in small bills first, you said: then what happened?"

"Then I went to the vault."

"And when you came back, the young woman was gone?"

"Oh, yes; she went while Mr. Galbraith was handing me his check."

"She left before you started for the vault?"

"Yes."

"You didn't notice whether she said 'Good-by' or 'Thank you,' or
anything like that, I reckon?"

"No."

"But she might have, and you not see it?"

"Yes; she might have."

"All right; then we'll go on," Broffin continued, and the time having
arrived for the putting of the second critical question, he planted it
fairly. "You opened the wicket and passed the money out to the hold-up.
He took it and backed to the door--this nearest door. Mr. Galbraith
tells me he gave the alarm as quick as he could draw his breath. How
much time did the fellow have before somebody went after him?"

Johnson's answer was gratifyingly prompt.

"You might say, no time at all. There were a number of people in the
bank--perhaps a dozen or more--standing around waiting their turns at
the different wickets. I should say that every single one of them made a
rush for the doors, and I remember thinking at the time that the fellow
couldn't possibly get away."

"Yet he did get away; made his drop-out so neatly that none of the
rushers got to the doors soon enough to catch a sight of him?"

"That is the curious fact. Not a man of them saw him. They all told the
same story. The sidewalk wasn't crowded at the time: we are on the sunny
side of the street, and as you see now, the crowd is on the other side
in the shade. Yet the fellow had vanished before the nimblest one of
them got to the doors."

Broffin drew a deep breath and nodded slowly. The added details were
fitting the new theory to a nicety. In conversation with the president
he had previously marked the fact that the robber had claimed to be
starving.

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson; I reckon that's all for this time," he said to
the teller, and a minute later he was buying a cigar of the little
Gascon proprietor of the restaurant next door to the bank.

"You have an excellent memory, I've been told, Monsieur Pouillard," he
said, at the lighting of the cigar. "Do you recollect the day of the
bank robbery next door pretty well?"

The Gascon shrugged amiably. "_Vraiment_, M'sieu' Broffin; it ees not
possib' that one forgets."

"It was rather late for breakfast, and not quite late enough