on the floor.

"Gone?" he echoed. "Gone? How can it have gone?"

"It has--the tray is empty," Eustace gasped in reply.

Harding looked from the tray to the open safe. His glance rested on the
drawer where the bank-notes were kept. He took hold of the handle and
pulled the drawer out.

It was empty.

In an inner recess, guarded by second-locked doors, the gold reserve was
kept. The night before the bags of gold had filled it to the doors.

Harding tried the handles. They held. The locks had not been forced.

"Have you the keys of the reserve?" he asked.

With shaking hands Eustace produced them and stood watching, as the
doors were unlocked and swung open.

The recess was as empty as the cash tray.

Dumbfounded, Harding turned to Eustace who, with his face ashen, stared
blankly at the empty recess. Then a wild light leapt in his eyes and he
seized the handle of a drawer in the counter where a loaded revolver was
kept lest at any moment an attempt was made to rob the bank during
office hours.

Harding sprang to his side and gripped his arm.

"Not that," he cried hoarsely. "Hang it, man, pull yourself together.
Think of your wife!"

"It's ruin--ruin for me. Better finish it," Eustace muttered.

Holding him back with one hand, Harding pulled the drawer open with the
other to take the revolver away. But the drawer was also empty.

"That has gone as well," he cried, letting go his hold of Eustace as he
stooped to peer into the drawer.

Eustace sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

"Oh, this is terrible--terrible," he moaned. "Terrible, terrible."

The door leading to the house was flung open and Mrs. Eustace faced
them.

"Charlie!" she exclaimed. "My rings and jewellery have vanished. The
cases are all empty. I am certain--why, what is the matter?" she broke
off to ask as she caught sight of her husband.

She glanced from him to Harding.

"What has happened?" she said wonderingly, as she advanced further into
the office.

Opposite the open doors of the strong-room she saw the empty cash tray
lying on the floor, the note drawer pulled out, the vacant space of the
reserve recess.

"Charlie!"

Her voice went to a shriek as the truth flashed upon her.

She rushed past Harding and flung herself on her knees beside her
husband, her arms around him, her face upturned to his.

"Oh, Charlie, Charlie! Whatever are we to do?" she cried.

"Shall I go over to the police-station? We had bet