Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/107

 covetous of the money. The time was drawing near when the annual examination of the savings bank was due. It was to have taken place in June. Then the discovery that many of the 'jackets' that should contain securities were empty was inevitable. But Cashier Hathaway was at the bank that night. The son may have been concealed in that closet, awaiting his opportunity. The cashier, no longer willing to permit the president's overdrafts, wrote that imperative note to Cyrus Felton. The latter visited the bank. An altercation ensued. Heated words were uttered. Hathaway may have discovered the loss of the securities. The president and cashier, old men both, engaged in a scuffle. Perhaps the president sought to wrest the key to the vault from the cashier's hands. At any rate, a struggle. Ralph Felton leaped from his hiding-place, and seizing the cashier's revolver, which he knew was kept in the desk, rushed to the assistance of his father. The fatal shot, and—father and son gazed in dismay at each other across the dead body of the faithful cashier. The rest is simple of explanation—the rifling of the vault and the subsequent flight of the son. Ashley, that is my revised theory of the murder of Roger Hathaway. What do you think of it?"

"It is worthy of your perspecuity, Barker, and in some respects it appears flawless. Yet—well, sometimes I have a sort of intuition that we are off the right track altogether. Ah, Barker, if we could but find that chap I saw in the bushes that morning, Ernest Stanley. Now that you have revised your theory, and in the light of recent developments, I feel more than ever that Stanley possesses the key that will unlock the inner doors of the mystery.

"However, that is neither here nor there, for Ernest Stanley has as completely vanished as though the earth had opened and swallowed him up. It is almost inexplicable."

"No stranger than the fading away of Derrick Ames and Helen Hathaway. You know we traced them to this city, and the most searching investigation by both the metropolitan police and our own men could not find them