ully at his drooping mustaches. He was
rearranging the pieces on the mental chess-board. He had not yet asked
either of the questions he had come to ask. Without knowing the science
even by name, he was still enough of a psychologist to prepare the way
by leading the mind of the witness cleverly over the details of its own
memory picture.

"You say the hold-up made way for the lady here at the window: you saw
him do it?"

"Yes."

"Did any sign of recognition pass between them--anything to make you
think that they might be acquainted with each other?"

This was one of the two critical questions, and the teller took time to
consider.

"It's pretty hard to tag that with a definite 'yes' or 'no,'" he said,
when the memory-searching moment had passed. "He spoke to her; of that I
am quite sure, though I didn't hear what he said. She nodded and smiled.
She had a beautiful face, and I remember how it lighted up when he spoke
and stepped back."

"Then they might have been acquainted, you think?" Broffin said, adding
quickly: "Don't let the fact that she afterward tried to set the dogs on
him twist your judgment any. She might have known the man, and still be
unwilling, afterward, to shield the criminal."

Again Johnson took time to be accurate.

"I'll admit that my impression at the time was that they were
acquainted," he averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can't
bank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'After
you,' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge the
courtesy with the nod and the smile--any well-bred woman would. But you
can take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that they
had met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or in
hotels; that there was at least recognition on both sides."

Broffin was nodding slowly. It was not often that he made a confidant of
a witness, even in the smaller details of a case, but he evidently
considered the helpful teller an exception.

"I've been working around to that notion myself, by the smalls, as the
cat eat the grind-rock," he said. "I said to myself, Would he, with the
big pull-off still trembling on the edge--would he have held back for a
woman he didn't know? And if he _did_ know her, it would be a good,
chunky reason why he shouldn't crowd in and take his turn: he'd _have_
to make good or lose whatever little ante he'd been putting up in the
sociable game. Now one other little thin