"Mr. d.y.k.eman wants you told about the suitcase," he said. "I'd like to have Knapp here when we go into that."

d.y.k.eman picked up the end of a speaking-tube and barked into it,

"Send those men in." In the moment's delay, we all sat uneasily mute.

Knapp came in with Anson. As they nodded to us and settled into chairs, two or three others joined us. Nothing was said about this filling out of the numbers, but to me it meant serious business, with Worth Gilbert its motive.

"Get it over, can't you?" I said, looking about from one to the other of the men, all directors in the bank. "I understand that Captain Gilbert met his engagement with you; was he short of the sum agreed?" Again Whipple shook his head.

"Captain Gilbert walked into the bank at exactly ten o'clock Monday morning. The uh--uh--unusual arrangement--contract, to call it so--that we'd made with him concerning the defalcation would have expired in a few seconds, and I think I may say," he looked around at the others, "that we should not have been sorry to have it do so. But he brought the sum agreed on."

I drew a great sigh of relief. Worth's bargain was complete; he was done with these men, anyhow. I was half out of my chair when Whipple said, sharply for him,

"Sit down, Mr. Boyne." And d.y.k.eman almost drowned it in his,

"Wait, there, Boyne! We're not through with you."

"There's more to tell," Whipple continued. "Captain Gilbert brought that eight hundred thousand cash and securities in a--er--in a very strange way."

"What d'you mean, strange way? airplane or submarine?" I growled.

"He brought it," Whipple's words marched out of him like a solemn procession, "in a brown, sole-leather suitcase."

"_With_ bra.s.s tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs," d.y.k.eman supplemented, and leaned back in his chair with an audible "Ah-h-h!" of satisfaction.

If ever a poor devil was flabbergasted, it was the head of the Boyne agency at that moment. I had a fellow feeling for that Mazeppa party who was tied in his birthday suit to the back of a wild horse. Locoed broncos were more amenable to rein than Worth Gilbert. So that was why he wanted that suitcase--"had a use for it," he'd put it; insisted on an order to be able to get it if I wasn't at my office; wanted it to shove back at these scary bank officials, with his own money for the payment inside. No wonder Whipple called him an "outlaw"!

"Get the idea, do you, Boyne?" Anson lunged at me in his ponderous way.

"The rest of us thought 'twas a poor joke, but Knapp and Whipple had both seen that suitcase before--and recognized it."

"Yes," said Knapp quietly. "It chanced I saw it go through the door that last day, when it had nearly a million of our money in it. And here it was--" his voice broke off.

"Certainly startling," c.u.mmings spoke directly at me, "for them to see it come back in Worth Gilbert's hands, with the same kind of filling, less one hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars. Of course, I didn't know the ident.i.ty of the suitcase until they'd given Gilbert his receipt and he was gone."

"Oh, they accepted his money?" I said, and every man in the room looked sheepish, except c.u.mmings who didn't need to, and d.y.k.eman who was too mad to. He shouted at me,

"Yes, we took it; and you're going to tell us where he got that suitcase."

"What have your own detectives--those you hired on the side--to say about it?" I countered on him, and saw instantly that the Whipple end of the crowd hadn't known of d.y.k.eman's spotters and trailers.

"Well, why not?" d.y.k.eman shrilled. "Why not? Who wouldn't shadow that crook? One hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars! Worked us like suckers--come-ons--!" he choked up and began to cough. c.u.mmings came in where he left off.

"See here, Boyne; we don't want to antagonize you. You've said from the first that this crime was a conspiracy--a big thing--directed by brains on the outside. Clayte was the tool. Whose tool was he? That's what we want to know." And Anson trundled along,

"These men who have been in the war get a contempt for law, there's no doubt about it. Captain Gilbert might--"

"No names!" Whipple's hand went up in protest. "No accusations, gentlemen, please; Mr. Boyne--this is a dreadful thing. But, really, Captain Gilbert's manner was very strange. I might say he--"

"Swaggered," supplied c.u.mmings coolly as the president's voice lapsed.

"Well," Whipple accepted it, "he swaggered in and put it all over us.

There he was, a man fresh from the deathbed of a suicide father; that father's funeral yet to occur. I, personally, hadn't the heart to question him or raise objections. I was dazed."

"Dazed," d.y.k.eman snapped up the word and worried it, as a dog worries a bone. "Of course, we were all dazed. It was so open, so shameless--that's why he got by with it. Making use of his position as heir, less than forty eight hours after his father was shot."

"After his father shot himself," Whipple's lowered tone was a plea.

"After his father shot himself."

"Huh!" snorted d.y.k.eman. "If a man shoots himself, he's been shot, hasn't he? h.e.l.l! What's the use of whipping the devil round the stump that way? Boyne, you can stand with us, or you can fight us."

"Boyne's with us--of course he's with us," Whipple broke in, his words a good deal more confident than his tone or the look of his face.

"Well, then," d.y.k.eman ground out, "when our thief of a teller splits that one hundred and eighty seven thousand with his man Gilbert--shut up, Whipple--shut up! You can't stop me--we're going to know about it.

We'll get them both then, and send them across. And we'll recover one hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars that belongs to the Van Ness Avenue bank."

"_Good_ night!" I got to my feet. "This lets me out. I can't deal with men who make a sc.r.a.p of paper of their contracts as quick as you gentlemen do."

"Stop, Boyne--you haven't got it all," d.y.k.eman ordered me.

"Yes, wait, Mr. Boyne," Whipple came in. "You haven't a full understanding of the enormity of this young man's action. Mr. c.u.mmings has something to tell you which, I think, will--"

"Nothing Mr. c.u.mmings can say," I shut them off, "will alter the fact that I am employed by Captain Worth Gilbert at your recommendation--at your own recommendation--that I have been away more than a week on his business, and have not yet had an opportunity to report to him personally. When I've seen him, I'll be ready to talk to you."

"You'll talk now or never--" d.y.k.eman's shrill threat was interrupted by the shriller bell of the telephone. He yanked the instrument to him, and the "h.e.l.lo!" he cried into it had the snap of an oath. He looked up and shoved the thing in my direction. "Calling for you, Boyne," he snarled.

There was deathly stillness in the room, so that the whir of the great stones in the mill came to us insistently. I stood there, they all watching me, and spoke into the transmitter.

"This is Boyne."

"Hold the receiver close to your ear so it won't leak words." The warning wasn't needed; I thought I knew the voice. "Press the transmitter close to your chest. Listen--don't talk; don't say a word in reply to me. I'm in the telephone booth outside. I must see you just as soon as I can. I'll be at the Little Italy restaurant--you know, don't you? on Fisherman's Wharf--in ten minutes. If you can come, and alone, find me there. I'll wait an hour. If you can't come now, you _must_ see me this evening after working hours."

"I'll come now," I raised the transmitter to say, and quickly over the wire came the answer,

"I told you not to speak--in there! This is Barbara Wallace."

CHAPTER XVI

A LUNCHEON

I went away from there.

Looking about me, I had guessed that pretty much every man in the room believed that it was Worth Gilbert with whom I had been talking over the phone. d.y.k.eman's trailers would be right behind me. Yet to the last, Whipple and his crowd were offering me the return trip end of my ticket with them; if I would come back and be good, even now, all would be forgiven. I sized up the situation briefly and took my plunge, shutting the door after me, glancing across the long room to see that Barbara Wallace's desk was deserted. n.o.body followed me from the room I had just left. I walked quickly to the outer door.

Little Pete switched on his engine as I leaped into the car. My "Let her go!" wasn't needed to make him throw in his clutch, and give me a flying start straight ahead down the broad plank way of the Embarcadero.

Looking back as we hit the belt-line tracks, I saw a small car with two men in it, shoot out from one of the wide doorways of the plant; but as we rounded the cliff-like side of Telegraph Hill, my view of them was cut off. Things had come for me thick and fast. I felt pretty well balled up. But the girl had used secrecy in appointing this interview; till I could see further into the thing, it was anyhow a safe bet to drop them.