, for all I know." She faced the examiner
with an intrepidity which made that gentleman blink. It was plain enough
that he wanted to say something--but he did not venture to say it.

"And now I'll go! I think my father must be out there waiting for me.
If you care to stay here long enough, I'll have him hurry back from our
home and report whether the kegs are still in the stable."

"We'll wait, Miss Harnden!" Starr opened the door.

After she had gone, Britt closed the door of his vault and shot the
bolts.

The three men kept off the dangerous topic except as they conferred on
the pressing business in hand. They helped Dorsey hurry the lingerers
from the building. Then they went into the bank, stored the books in the
vault, and locked it.

Starr, especially intent on collecting all items of evidence, found
in the vault, when he entered, a cloth that gave off the odor of
chloroform. On one corner of the cloth was a loop by which it could be
suspended from a hook.

"Is this cloth anything that has been about the premises?" asked the
official.

"It's Vona's dustcloth," stated Britt. He had watched the girl too
closely o' mornings not to know that cloth!

That information seemed to prick Starr's memory on another point. From
his trousers pocket he dug the tape which he had cut from Vaniman's
wrists. He glanced about the littered floor. There was the remnant of a
roll of tape on the floor. Mr. Starr wrapped the fragment of tape in a
sheet of paper along with the roll.

Then Mr. Harnden arrived. The outer door had been left open for him. He
had run so fast that his breath came in whistles with the effect of
a penny squawker. As the movie scenarios put it, he "got over," with
gestures and breathless mouthings rather than stated in so many words,
that the kegs of disks were gone--all of them.

Replying with asthmatic difficulty to questions put to him by Starr, Mr.
Harnden stated that he could not say with any certainty when the kegs
had been taken, nor could he guess who had taken them. He kept no horse
or cow and had not been into the stable since he put the kegs there. The
stable was not locked. He had always had full faith in the honesty of
his fellow-man, said the optimist.

Mr. Starr allowed that he had always tried to feel that way, too, but
stated that he had been having his feelings pretty severely wrenched
since he had arrived in the town of Egypt.

Then he and Vaniman left the bank to go to the tavern.