Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/75

 love with a pretty face, and upon its possessor he squandered all his means and more. When Ralph returned to Raymond the woman wrote to him demanding money and a fulfillment of pledges. The former he had not; of the latter he had no thought, as he had become desperately enamored of Helen Hathaway. Unable to obtain satisfaction by a correspondence, the woman visited Raymond the afternoon of Memorial Day, registered as 'Isabel Winthrop,' and sent word to Ralph that a lady desired to see him. He went to her. The interview between the pair was not harmonious. Sounds of a quarrel came from the room, and once or twice the word 'money' was used. Half an hour or so from the time he entered the hotel Ralph left with a flushed countenance, first pledging the clerk to say nothing of his feminine caller.

"He has essayed promises with her, but something substantial is demanded to back them up. He must have money, but where is it to be secured? No use to apply to his father, that he well knows. The more he racks his brain the more desperate becomes the situation. Then a wild thought comes to him. The bank! There must be a large amount of money in the safe. The county bonds mature the next day. He knows, we will assume—perhaps the knowledge is accidental—the combination of the safe.

"Ralph returns to the hotel, and, with a calmness born of a desperate resolve, informs 'Isabel Winthrop' that he has arranged for the needed funds, and reiterates his promises for the future. As dusk comes on he leaves the hotel unobserved by the clerk, goes to the bank, opens the front door and locks it behind him, and proceeds to the cashier's office in the rear, wherein open the doors to the vault.

"As with a trembling hand he twists the combination of the vault he hears the sound of a key in the outer door. He springs to his feet and casts a startled glance about him. There is no egress from the room save by the way he came. Ah! The closet! He secretes himself in the dark closet at the farther end of the room, and at that instant Roger Hathaway enters.