Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/160

134 ten thousand 'windows' and five hundred 'doors'!" He put that paper aside also, glanced through the rest and arose.

"I asked Mr. Gordon to bring his son to the bank with him this morning, Mr. Howell," he said to his client, seriously. "If he is there now please have him come in. And, also, please send for," he glanced again at the name on the first paper he had put aside, "Byron Ford!"

Gordon had not yet come; but the door opened a moment later and a young man of about twenty-five, dapper and prematurely slightly bald, stood on the threshold. "Ah, Ford!" said Howell, "Mr. Trant asked to see you."

"Shut the door, please, Mr. Ford," Trant commanded, "and then come here; for I want to ask you," he continued without warning as Ford complied, "how you came to be preparing to enter Mr. Howell's safe?"

"What does he mean, Mr. Howell?" the clerk appealed to his employer, with admirable surprise.

"For the past month, Ford," Trant replied, directly, "you have been trying to get the combination of the safe. Several times you probably actually got it, but couldn't make it out, till you got it again this week and at last you guessed the key to the cipher and young Gordon gave you the means of reading it! Why were you going to that trouble to get the combination if you were not going to rob the bank?"

"Rob the bank! I was not going to rob the bank!" the clerk cried, hotly.