George Chard slept on the bank premises. The keys of the bank safes were kept by the manager during the day, but when he left the office for his private residence they remained in the custody of his junior. George made it a particular rule to see that his superior officer opened the safe in the morning.

The manager’s carelessness was a continual source of uneasiness to the young man, who had been brought up in the strict commercial school, where carelessness is down as the cardinal sin.

During banking hours the keys were sometimes left in the safe, sometimes hung upon the wall, and more often carried about loose in the manager’s pocket.

It happened one day, previous to the opening of the story, that while his assistant was absent from the office, a particular friend of the manager’s came in and invited him across the road for a drink.

The manager had been having a night, consequently the suggestion of a whisky and soda came at the right moment.

[143]

Without waiting to put on his coat, he stepped across the road with his friend.

As he passed into the bar parlour a little squat man, with a cast in his eye, entered the bank. He had not been long in the town, but he was full of religious zeal, and was always addressing the townspeople in order to save their souls.

He was standing with his back to the counter, devoutly whistling a hymn, when the manager re-entered.

The little man explained that the Lord had moved him to come and ask a small subscription towards his religious crusade. He was doing the Lord’s work, and the smallest remuneration from the Devil would be most thankfully received.

The manager donated a shilling, and the crusader, after piously promising that the shilling would be put to his dear brother’s credit in Heaven, picked up the hymn where he had left it and went out. His squint eye was elevated towards the insulators on the telegraph posts as he walked along the street, and a light of satisfaction gleamed therein. He might have been thanking Heaven for some fresh mercy or thinking out a scheme for wireless telegraphy.

Whatever his thoughts were, he carried in one hand a piece of wax, and on the wax was the newly-made impression of a key.

About a week later, George Chard in Assam silk and helmet paused at the door of the office. Although it had thundered and stormed up the river the night previously, it was a suffocating morning. The mercury[144] at Wharfdale stood already at ninety in the shade, and the vapoury atmosphere seemed to take all the energy out of one’s body.

George looked across to the islands in the river and hungered for the shade of their jungles, where the day might be worn through in comparative coolness.

A boat put out from the bank upstream, and he recognised Nora Creyton in a white frock and sun-bonnet rowing gently towards the point of the furthest island, whereon, as George knew well enough, she was used to spend many a hot forenoon under the fig trees with a book for company. George sighed drearily and entered the bank.

The manager came down and unlocked the safe.

Then occurred the crisis of the young man’s life.

Five hundred pounds in sovereigns laid upon the floor of the safe the night previously by the manager in the presence of his assistant, were no longer there!

The canvas bags containing the money had disappeared. Yet the door of the safe had certainly been locked.

The manager’s face expressed blank astonishment, anger, incredibility.

George Chard’s face was pale and anxious.

This was a serious matter. The manager’s influence might avert the anger of the directors from his own head, but would not it descend upon George?

Might he not be held responsible? He had slept upon the premises that night, as usual, and during that night the money must certainly have been removed.

These ideas flashed through his mind instantly, but[145] the thought that he might be directly accused of dishonesty had not yet occurred to him.

At first the two men had refused to credit their senses. They hurriedly unlocked the other safe, pulled out the ledgers, opened the drawers, counted their petty cash, which had not apparently been touched, and in a sort of forlorn hope checked their previous day’s figures.

The money was undoubtedly gone.

The manager sank into a chair and wiped his forehead with a trembling, nervous hand.

George went round the room, examined the fastenings of the windows, turned and re-turned the key in the lock of the outside door leading into the street.

“Whoever has done it,” he cried, “must have come in by the front way. They could not get through the back without me hearing them.”

“Let us see if there are any signs of footprints,” said the manager, going to the door.

The rain had obliterated Jean Petit’s tracks. He had come and gone like a cat in the darkness, opening both the outer doors and the safe noiselessly with his skeleton keys while George Chard slept soundly in the next room.

His accomplice had waited under the shadow of the river bank half a mile up stream, and the boat had taken them quietly away with the gold.

“If anybody came in,” mused the manager, presently, “they must have come in by the outside door.”

“If!” repeated George. “There can be no doubt about it!”

[146]

But the word had brought him a strange thrill of apprehension.

Good God! Was it possible?

He endeavoured to catch the manager’s eye.

“What do you mean by saying if?” he demanded suddenly.

The eye—it was always inclined to be shifty and uncertain under a direct look—remained averted.

“Nothing,” replied the manager, “only this is a very serious matter for——” he hesitated, and added, “for both of us?”

“Someone got in with a false key,” exclaimed George, positively, “unless——”

He stopped.

An idea had come to him.

“Unless what?” asked the manager.

It was his turn to look at George.

“Unless,” said George, injudiciously, “someone got in with the key of the door.”

“And opened the safe?” said the manager.

“With the key of the safe,” added George, meeting him square in the face.

The man was not guilty, as far as the direct robbery was concerned; but there were many little acts of carelessness which he would prefer should not come to the ears of the directors. He had the favour of the Inspector certainly, but a bank robbery is a bank robbery, and the fact remained that five hundred pounds had been removed from a safe of which he held the key, and the safe showed no signs of violence. But[147] George Chard had also had possession of the key at different times.

And the manager resolved inwardly that if suspicion fell on anyone, it would not be upon him. In his heart he probably believed that his subordinate was innocent, but in his heart he was also a coward.

“It is a deuce of a mess,” he observed presently, in a friendly tone, “but we must stick together.”

“Yes,” replied George, abstractedly.

“Our evidence,” the manager went on, watching the young man narrowly, “will have to tally.”

“What evidence?” asked poor George, whose mind was in a whirl.

“Any evidence we may have to give! There is bound to be an inquiry.”

“I will tell the truth,” cried the other. “I can do neither more nor less than that.”

The manager reflected. The telling of the truth meant possibly the telling of those certain acts of carelessness of whic............