"Perhaps his wound troubles him again," suggested Mr. Whittier.

"Whatever the reason, it is at his own request that he is now ignorant of the combination. No one knows that but Wheatcroft and I. The letters themselves I wrote myself, and copied myself, and put them myself in the envelopes I directed myself. I don't recall mailing them myself, but I may have done that too. So you see that there can't be any foundation for your belief, Wheatcroft, that somebody had access to our bids."

"I can't believe anything else!" cried Wheatcroft, impulsively. "I don't know how it was done--I'm not a detective--but it was done somehow. And if it was done, it was done by somebody! And what I'd like to do is to catch that somebody in the act--that's all! I'd make it hot for him!"

"You would like to have him out at the Ramapo Works," said Paul, smiling at the little man's violence, "and put him under the steam-hammer?"

"Yes, I would," responded Mr. Wheatcroft. "I would indeed! Putting a man under a steam-hammer may seem a cruel punishment, but I think it would cure the fellow of any taste for prying into our business in the future."

"I think it would get him out of the habit of living," the elder Whittier said, as the tall clock in the corner struck one. "But don't let's be so brutal. Let's go to lunch and talk the matter over quietly.

I don't agree with your suspicion, Wheatcroft, but there may be something in it."

Five minutes later Mr. Whittier, Mr. Wheatcroft, and the only son of the senior partner left the gla.s.s-framed private office, and, walking leisurely through the long store, pa.s.sed into the street.

They did not notice that the old book-keeper, Major Van Zandt, whose high desk was so placed that he could overlook the private office, had been watching them ever since the messenger had delivered the despatch.

He could not read the telegram, he could not hear the comments, but he could see every movement and every gesture and every expression. He gazed from one speaker to the other almost as though he were able to follow the course of the discussion; and when the three members of the firm walked past his desk, he found himself staring at them as if in a vain effort to read on their faces the secret of the course of action they had resolved upon.

II

After luncheon, as it happened, both the senior and the junior partner of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. had to attend meetings, and they went their several ways, leaving Paul to return to the office alone.

When he came opposite to the house which bore the weather-beaten sign of the firm he stood still for a moment, and looked across with mingled pride and affection. The building was old-fashioned--so old-fashioned, indeed, that only a long-established firm could afford to occupy it. It was Paul Whittier's great-grandfather who had founded the Ramapo Works.

There had been cast the cannon for many of the ships of the little American navy that gave so good an account of itself in the war of 1812. Again, in 1848, had the house of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co.--the present Mr. Wheatcroft's father having been taken into partnership by Paul's grandfather--been able to be of service to the government of the United States. All through the four years that followed the firing on the flag in 1861 the Ramapo Works had been run day and night. When peace came at last and the people had leisure to expand, a large share of the rails needed by the new overland roads which were to bind the East and West together in iron bonds had been rolled by Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. Of late years, as Paul knew, the old firm seemed to have lost some of its early energy, and, having young and vigorous compet.i.tors, it had barely held its own.

That the Ramapo Works should once more take the lead was Paul Whittier's solemn purpose, and to this end he had been carefully trained. He was now a young man of twenty-five, a tall, handsome fellow, with a full mustache over his firm mouth, and with clear, quick eyes below his curly brown hair. He had spent four years in college, carrying off honors in mathematics, was popular with his cla.s.smates, who made him cla.s.s poet, and in his senior year he was elected president of the college photographic society. He had gone to a technological inst.i.tute, where he had made himself master of the theory and practice of metallurgy. After a year of travel in Europe, where he had investigated all the important steel and iron works he could get into, he had come home to take a desk in the office.

It was only for a moment that he stood on the sidewalk opposite, looking at the old building. Then he threw away his cigarette and went over. Instead of entering the long store he walked down the alleyway left open for the heavy wagons. When he came opposite to the private office in the rear of the store he examined the doors and the windows carefully, to see if he could detect any means of ingress other than those open to everybody.

There was no door from the private office into the alleyway or into the yard. There was a door from the alleyway into the store, opposite to the desks of the clerks, and within a few feet of the door leading from the store into the private office.

Paul pa.s.sed through this entrance, and found himself face to face with the old book-keeper, Van Zandt, who was following all his movements with a questioning gaze.

"Good-afternoon, Major," said Paul, pleasantly. "Have you been out for your lunch yet?"

"I always get my dinner at noon," the book-keeper gruffly answered, returning to his books.

As Paul walked on he could not but think that the Major's manner was ungracious. And the young man remembered how cheerful the old man had been, and how courteous always, when the son of the senior partner, while still a school-boy, used to come to the office on Sat.u.r.days.

Paul had always delighted in the office, and the store, and the yard behind, and he had spent many a holiday there, and Major Van Zandt had always been glad to see him, and had willingly answered his myriad questions.

Paul wondered why the book-keeper's manner was now so different. Van Zandt was older, but he was not so very old, not more than sixty, and old age in itself is not sufficient to make a man surly and to sour his temper. That the Major had had trouble in his family was well known.

His wife had been flighty and foolish, and it was believed that she had run away from him; and his only son was a wild lad, who had been employed by Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co., out of regard for the father, and who had disgraced himself beyond forgiveness. Paul recalled vaguely that the young fellow had gone West somewhere, and had been shot in a mining-camp after a drunken brawl in a gambling-house.

As Paul entered the private office he found the porter there, putting coal on the fire.

Stepping back to close the gla.s.s door behind him, that they might be alone, he said:

"Mike, who shuts up the office at night?"

"Sure I do, Mr. Paul," was the prompt reply.

"And you open it in the morning?" the young man asked.

"I do that!" Mike responded.

"Do you see that these windows are always fastened on the inside?" was the next query.

"Yes, Mr. Paul," the porter replied.

"Well," and the inquirer hesitated briefly before putting this question, "have you found any of these windows unfastened any morning lately when you came here?"

"And how did you know that?" Mike returned, in surprise.

"What morning was it?" asked Paul, pushing his advantage.

"It was last Monday mornin', Mr. Paul," the porter explained, "an' how it was I dunno, for I had every wan of them windows tight on Sat.u.r.day night, an' Monday mornin' one of them was unfastened whin I wint to open it to let a bit of air into the office here."

"You sleep here always, don't you?" Paul proceeded.

"I've slept here ivery night for three years now come Thanksgivin',"

Mike replied. "I've the whole top of the house to myself. It's an illigant apartment I have there, Mr. Paul."

"Who was here Sunday?" was the next question.

"Sure n.o.body was here at all," responded the porter, "barrin' they came while I took me a bit of a walk after dinner. An' they couldn't have got in anyway, for I lock up always, and I wasn't gone for an hour, or maybe an hour an' a half."

"I hope you will be very careful hereafter," said Paul.

"I will that," promised Mike, "an' I am careful now always."

The porter took up the coal-scuttle, and then he turned to Paul.

"How was it ye knew that the winder was not fastened that mornin'?" he asked.

"How did I know?" repeated the young man. "Oh, a little bird told me."

When Mike had left the office Paul took a chair before the fire and lighted a cigar. For half an hour he sat silently thinking.

He came to the conclusion that Mr. Wheatcroft was right in his suspicion. Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. had lost important contracts because of underbidding, due to knowledge surrept.i.tiously obtained. He believed that some one had got into the store on Sunday while Mike was taking a walk, and that this somebody had somehow opened the safe.

There never was any money in that private safe; it was intended to contain only important papers. It did contain the letter-book of the firm's bids, and this is what was wanted by the man who had got into the office, and who had let himself in by the window, leaving it unfastened behind him. How this man had got in, and why he did not get out by the way he entered, how he came to be able to open the private safe, the combination of which was known only to the two partners--these were questions for which Paul Whittier had no answer.

What grieved him when he had come to the conclusion was that the thief--for such the house-breaker was in reality--was probably one of the men in the employ of the firm. It seemed to him almost certain that the man who had broken in knew all the ins and outs of the office. And how could this knowledge have been obtained except by an employee? Paul was well acquainted with the clerks in the outer office. There were five of them, including the old book-keeper, and although none of them had been with the firm as long as the Major, no one of them had been there less than ten years. Paul did not know which one to suspect.

There was, in fact, no reason to suspect any particular clerk. And yet that one of the five men in the main office on the other side of the gla.s.s part.i.tion within twenty feet of him--that one of those was the guilty man Paul did not doubt.

And therefore it seemed to him not so important to prevent the thing from happening again as it was to catch the man who had done it. The thief once caught, it would be easy thereafter for the firm to take unusual precautions. But the first thing to do was to catch the thief.

He had come and gone, and left no trail. But he must have visited the office at least three times in the past few weeks, since the firm had lost three important contracts. Probably he had been there oftener than three times. Certainly he would come again. Sooner or later he would come once too often. All that needed to be done was to set a trap for him.

While Paul was sitting quietly in the private office, smoking a cigar with all his mental faculties at their highest tension, the clock in the corner suddenly struck three.