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180 used that for his personal expenses since. The amount which Wassaquam now desired to pay the bills was much more than Alan had on hand; but that amount was also much less than the eleven hundred dollars which the servant listed as cash on hand. This, Wassaquam stated, was in currency and kept by him. Benjamin always had had him keep that much in the house; Wassaquam would not touch that sum now for the payment of current expenses.

This sum of money kept inviolate troubled Alan. Constance Sherrill's statement that, for her family at least, to keep such a sum would have been unusual, increased this trouble; it did not, however, preclude the possibility that others than the Sherrills might keep such amounts of cash on hand. On the first of the month, therefore Alan drew upon his new bank account to Wassaquam's order; and in the early afternoon Wassaquam went to the bank to cash his check—one of the very few occasions when Alan had been left in the house alone; Wassaquam's habit, it appeared, was to go about on the first of the month and pay the tradesmen in person.

Some two hours later, and before Wassaquam could have been expected back, Alan, in the room which had become his, was startled by a sound of heavy pounding, which came suddenly to him from a floor below. Shouts—heavy, thick, and unintelligible—mingled with the pounding. He ran swiftly down the stairs, then on and down the service stairs into the basement. The door to the house from the areaway was shaking to irregular, heavy blows, which stopped as Alan reached the lower hallway; the shouts continued still a moment more. Now that the noise of pounding did not