Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/145

Rh any of the employees of the bank, "the man alone in the cashier's room over there?" The psychologist pointed through the open door of the room at his right to the thin, strained figure bent far over his desk. He was the only one of all the men about the bank who seemed not to have noticed the stranger whom the acting-president had brought with him to inspect the safe.

"Yes; that is Gordon!" the president answered, caught forward quickly by something in the manner, or the posture, of the cashier. "But what is he doing? What is the matter with him now?" He hurried toward the old man through the open door.

Trant followed him, and they could see over the cashier's shoulder, before he was conscious of their presence, that he was arranging and fitting together small scraps of paper. Then he jerked himself up in his chair, trembling, arose, and faced them with bloodless lips and cheeks, one tremulous hand pressed guiltily upon the papers, hiding them.

"What is the matter? What are you doing, Gordon?" Howell said in surprise.

Trant reached forward swiftly, seized the cashier's thin wrist and lifted his hand forcibly from the desk. The scraps were five in number and upon them, as Gordon had arranged them, were printed in pencil merely meaningless equations. The first, which was written on two of the scraps, read:

The second, torn into three pieces, was even more enigmatical, reading: