* * * *

Corrigan stopped in the barroom and got a drink. Then he walked to the
front door and stood in it for an instant, finally stepping down into the
street. Across the street in the banking room he saw a thin streak of
light gleaming through a crevice in the doorway that led from the banking
room to the rear. The light told him that Braman was in the rear room.
Selecting a moment when the street in his vicinity was deserted, Corrigan
deliberately crossed, standing for a moment in the shadow of the bank
building, looking around him. Then he slipped around the building and
tapped cautiously on the rear door. An instant later he was standing
inside the room, his back against the door. Braman, arrayed as he had been
the night before, had opened the door. He had been just ready to go when
he heard Corrigan's knock.

"Going out, Croft?" said Corrigan pleasantly, eyeing the other intently.
"All lit up, too! You're getting to be a gay dog, lately."

There was nothing in Corrigan's bantering words to bring on that sudden
qualm of sickening fear that seized the banker. He knew it was his guilt
that had done it--guilt and perhaps a dread of Corrigan's rage if he
_should_ learn of his duplicity. But that word "lately"! If it had been
uttered with any sort of an accent he might have been suspicious. But it
had come with the bantering ring of the others, with no hint of special
significance. And Braman was reassured.

"Yes, I'm going out." He turned to the mirror on the wall. "I'm getting
rather stale, hanging around here so much."

"That's right, Croft. Have a good time. How much money is there in the
safe?"

"Two or three thousand dollars." The banker turned from the glass. "Want
some? Ha, ha!" he laughed at the other's short nod; "there are other gay
dogs, I guess! How much do you want?"

"All you've got?"

"All! Jehoshaphat! You must have a big deal on tonight!"

"Yes, big," said Corrigan evenly. "Get it."

He followed the banker into the banking room, carefully closing the door
behind him, so that the light from the rear room could not penetrate.
"That's all right," he reassured the banker as the latter noticed the
action; "this isn't a public matter."

He stuffed his pockets with the money the banker gave him, and when the
other tried to close the door of the safe he interposed a restraining
hand, laughing:

"Leave it open, Croft. It's empty now, and a cracksman trying to get into
it