Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/162

136 "Yes; and also that young Gordon did not steal the ten thousand dollars which was made up by his father," Trant assured.

"How can you be sure of that?" Howell charged.

"Send for Carl Shaffer, please!" Trant requested, glancing quickly at the second sheet he had put aside.

"What! Shaffer?" Howell questioned, as he complied.

"Yes; for he can tell us, I think—you can tell, can't you, Shaffer," Trant corrected, as, at Howell's order, a short, stout, and overdressed clerk came in and the door shut behind him, "what really happened to the twenty five-hundred-dollar bills which disappeared from the bank on September 29th? You did not know, when you found them in Gordon's waste-basket, that they were missed or—if they were—that they had brought anyone into trouble. You have never known, have you," Trant went on, mercilessly, watching the eyes which could no longer meet his, "that old Gordon, the cashier, thought he had surely locked them into the dispatch bag for his son, and that when the boy was dismissed a little later he was in disgrace and charged as a thief for stealing those bills? You have not known, have you, that a black, bitter shadow has come over the old cashier since then from that disgrace, and that he has had to mortgage his home and give all his savings to make up those twenty little slips of green paper you 'found' in his room that morning! But you've counted the days, almost the hours, since then, haven't you? You've counted the days till you could feel yourself safe and be sure that no one would call for them?