When Egypt Went Broke Part 21

"Mr. Starr, this is no time to shout and bellow at this poor boy who has barely got his senses back," Vona protested, indignantly.

"You mustn't blame Mr. Starr, dear," said the cas.h.i.+er, patting her hand.

"Of course, he and Mr. Britt are much stirred up over the thing. I'm not trying to hide anything, gentlemen. You say you found me in the vault!

What is the condition of things in the bank?" He struggled and sat up straighter in the chair. He was showing intense anxiety as his senses cleared.

Examiner Starr, though present officially, was in no mood to make any report on bank conditions just then. "Vaniman, you'd better do your talking first."

"I'll tell all I know about it. I was working on the books, my attention very much taken up, of course. I felt a sudden shock, as I remember it.

Everything went black. As to what has been going on from that moment, whenever it was, till I woke up here, I'll have to depend on you for information."

"That's straight, is it?" demanded the examiner, grimly.

"On my honor, sir."

"There's a lot to be opened out and what you have said doesn't help."

"I wish I could help more. I understand fully what a fix I'm in unless this whole muddle is cleared up," confessed the cas.h.i.+er, plaintively. He had been putting his hand to his head. "I think I must have been stunned by a blow."

Starr, without asking permission, ran his hand over Vaniman's head. "No especially big lump anywhere!"

Vaniman spanned a s.p.a.ce on his head between thumb and forefinger. "I feel a particular ache right about there, sir."

"Britt, get down that lamp!"

The president brought the lamp from the hanging bracket and held it close to Vaniman's head while Starr carefully parted the hair and inspected. "There's a red strip, but it's not much swollen," he reported. "Of course, we know all about those rubber wallopers that--But this is not a time for guesswork. Now, Vaniman, how about this chloroform odor? Remember anything about an attempt to snuff you that way?"

"No, sir!"

"Why don't you wait until to-morrow and let Frank's mind clear up?"

Vona pleaded. She had been standing with her arm about the young man's shoulders, insisting on holding her position even when Starr crowded close in making his survey of the cas.h.i.+er's cranium.

"Young woman, the first statements in any affair are the best statements when there's a general, all-round desire to get to bottom facts," said the examiner, sternly.

"That's my desire, sir," declared Vaniman, earnestly. "But I have told you all I know."

President Britt had replaced the lamp in the bracket. He waited for a moment while Starr regarded the cas.h.i.+er with uncompromising stare, as if meditating a more determined onslaught in the way of the third degree.

Britt, restraining himself during the interview, had managed to steady himself somewhat, but he was much perturbed. He ventured to put in a word. "Mr. Starr, don't you think that Vona's idea is a good one--give Frank a good night's rest? He may be able to tell us a whole lot more in the morning."

Then the bank examiner delivered the crusher that he had been holding in reserve. "Vaniman, you may be able to tell me in the morning, if not now, how it happens that all your specie bags were filled with--not with the gold coin that ought to have been there, but with"--Starr advanced close to the cas.h.i.+er and shook a big finger--"mere metal disks!" He shouted the last words.

Whether Starr perceived any proof of innocence in Vaniman's expression--mouth opening, eyes wide, face white with the pallor of threatened collapse--the bank examiner did not reveal by any expression of his own.

"This is wicked--wicked!" gasped Vona.

"Young woman, step away!" Starr yanked her arm from Vaniman's shoulder and pushed her to one side. "Did you know _that_, Mr. Cas.h.i.+er--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 cas.h.i.+er 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. Cas.h.i.+er." 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sage?" 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 tried to open it--"

"Verily, ye were!"

The voice was deep and solemn. The sound jumped the four persons in Britt's office. Framed in the door of Britt's vault was Prophet Elias.

"How did you get in here?" thundered "Foghorn Fremont," first to get his voice.

"Not by smiting with the rod of Moses," returned the Prophet, considerable ire in his tone. "I pulled open the door of the bank vault and walked in."

"Britt, you'd better put up a sign of 'Lunatic Avenue' over that pa.s.sage and invite a general parade through," barked Starr. "I've had plenty of nightmares in my life, but never anything to equal this one, take it by and large!"

It was evident from President Britt's countenance that a great many emotions were struggling in him; but the prevailing expression--the one which seemed to embrace all the modifications of his emotions--indicated that he felt thoroughly sick. He gazed at the open door of his vault and looked as a man might appear after realizing that the presentation of a wooden popgun had made him turn over his pocketbook to a robber. "Walked in? _Walked_ in?" he reiterated.

The stress of the occasion seemed to have made the Prophet less incoherent than was his wont; or perhaps he found no texts to fit this situation. "I did not dive through your solid steel, Pharaoh! I used my eyes, after I had used my ears. Here!" His fists had been doubled. He unclasped his hands and held them forward. In each palm was one of the metal disks. "Your bank-vault door was trigged with these--wedged in the crack of the outer f.l.a.n.g.e. I saw, I pulled hard on the big handle--and here I am!"

"But the bolts--" Starr stopped, trying to remember about the bolts.

"The bolts were not shot. You were trying to push back what had already been pushed."

Starr began to scratch the back of his head, in the process tipping his hat low over his eyes. He turned those eyes on Vaniman. "Speaking of pus.h.i.+ng--of being able to push--" But the examiner did not allow himself to go any farther at that time. "Vaniman," he blurted, after a few moments of meditation, "I want you to volunteer to do something--of your own free will, understand!"

Vaniman, pallid again, was fully aware of the effect of this new revelation on his position, already more than questionable. "I'll follow any suggestion, of my own free will, sir."