CHAPTER XV. AT THE BANK.

It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when a touring car drew up in front of the Merchants’ & Miners’ Bank. There were five passengers in the automobile--four besides the driver.

The driver was Sanders, and beside Sanders sat Tibbits. In the tonneau were Dimmock, his daughter, and a young fellow who wore clothes that were a very poor fit and who seemed exceedingly nervous.

“Buck up!” admonished Dimmock to the young man. “Show what you’re made of now, Charley.”

“I’ll--I’ll do the best I can,” answered Charley.

“Let _me_ do the talking,” said Miss Dimmock.

The girl’s attire was scarcely better, in the matter of fit, than was Charley’s, but she wore her costume with an easy grace that made up for any of the other shortcomings.

“We’ll wait for you around the corner,” said Tibbits, as the girl and the young fellow got out.

There was a worried look on Dimmock’s face as the touring car left the front of the bank and moved slowly along the street.

“It’s a lot of trouble and risk we’re taking for ten thousand dollars,” he muttered.

“You’ve taken more trouble and risk for less, Dimmock,” said Tibbits.

“I have, yes,” admitted the other, his face gray with anxiety, “but never before have I asked Pearl to help me in such a matter. It will be the last time.”

“Bah!” sneered Tibbits.

Meantime, the girl and Charley had entered the bank. Charley’s nervousness had increased to a painful degree. The frosty blue eyes of the girl, observing his abstracted manner, led her to infer that Charley, so far from being a help, would prove a source of danger.

“You stay back here, Motor Matt,” she whispered, “and I’ll talk with the cashier alone.”

Charley was only too glad to receive a command of that kind. Leaning against a writing desk at the wall, he watched his companion as she boldly made her way to the railing behind which the cashier transacted his business. Something like admiration awoke in Charley’s soul--that is, if there can be anything admirable in such an attempt as the girl was about to make.

The long, yellow tresses had been cut from the girl’s head--a sacrifice demanded by the exigencies of the case.

The cashier, as it chanced, was busy with some one else. Calmly and patiently the girl waited. Finally the other customer went away, and the girl pushed respectfully up to the railing and stood under the sharp eyes of the bank official.

“What can I do for you?” asked the cashier briskly.

“This will explain, I think,” said the girl, presenting the colonel’s order for the bullion.

The cashier glanced at the order, then gave the girl a keen scrutiny.

“You are Joe McGlory, are you?” he queried.

“Yes.”

“Are you personally acquainted with the gentleman who sent you this order?”

“I am.”

It was a pity, indeed, that Dimmock should have forced his daughter into such a tangle of deception; and doubly a pity that one so young and fair could have played the despicable part so boldly, and given her false answers without a tremor, or a pang of conscience.

“Have you any other means of identifying yourself?” went on the cashier.

Here was the place where the supposed Motor Matt was to be used, but Charley had not proved equal to the part.

“I’m a stranger in town,” said the girl, “and I had supposed that order of the colonel’s was enough.”

“Our orders are to deliver the bullion upon the presentation of this demand. You understand, Mr. McGlory, that we are simply acting as trustees for Colonel Billings.”

The cashier looked at the paper reflectively. He had many important matters on his mind, matters in which hundreds of thousands were concerned, and two gold bars were a mere bagatelle.

Again he studied the girl. She met his eyes frankly.

“After all,” said the cashier, “this order lets us out. I will give you a receipt to sign, and while you are putting your name to it, I will have the bullion brought from the safe.”

He scribbled a few words on a pad of printed receipt blanks, tore off the top slip and handed it to the girl, nodding his head toward a writing desk. Pearl stepped to the desk, and the cashier pressed an electric call for one of the bank attachés.

The employee who answered the call brought with him a telegram.

“That message just came, sir,” said he, “and is marked ‘rush.’”

The cashier took the message.

“Get me that bag of bullion from the vault, Jenkins,” said he, tearing the end off the yellow envelope, “the two bars of gold from Colonel Billings, of Tucson, Arizona.”

“Very well, sir.”

Jenkins started. The cashier read the telegram at a glance. Not a line in his face quivered.

“Oh, Jenkins!” he called.

The clerk came back.

“Instead of getting the bullion,” said the cashier, in a low voice, “bring the bank policeman.”

Jenkins nodded and started of again, this time in a different direction.

“Here is the receipt, sir,” said the girl.

“Ah,” smiled the cashier, getting up and opening a wicket. “It will take some little time to get the bullion, Mr. McGlory, and you had better step into my private room and wait. Keep the receipt until you receive the gold. That is only business, you know.”

He led the girl across the open space in front of his desk, pushed ajar a door, and waved the girl into the private room; then, returning to his chair, he waited.

Meantime, Jenkins had found the bank policeman.

“Mr. Hamilton wants you at once, George,” said Jenkins.

Charley overheard the words, and he had already seen the cashier talking with Jenkins and ushering the girl into the private room. That was quite enough for Charley, and he left the bank in a hurry.

“What is it, Mr. Hamilton?” asked the policeman, leaning over the cashier’s railing.

The cashier handed up the message for the policeman to read.

“That sounds business-like, Mr. Hamilton,” said the policeman, dropping the message on the cashier’s desk.

“Very much so, George.”

“It’s from Stoughton, Massachusetts.”

“Yes.”

“If the order comes in here, we can arrest the man that brings it.”

“It has already been handed in, George. Here it is.”

A startled look crossed the policeman’s face.

“Was the bullion delivered?” he asked.

“Not yet. A young man who says he is Joe McGlory is in my private room. You know what to do. Take him out the side entrance so there won’t be a scene out front.”

The policeman passed through the wicket and entered the private room. The cashier turned, serene as ever, to give a greeting to one of the bank’s customers.

A call from the door of his private room caused the cashier to turn.

“Just a moment, Mr. Hamilton,” said the policeman.

The cashier stepped to the door, and the policeman took his arm and drew him inside.

The room was empty!

Then, for the first time, the cashier showed annoyance and concern.

“How do you suppose that happened, George?” he demanded.

The policeman pointed to an open window.

“I have always said, Mr. Hamilton,” he remarked, clinching a point that he had been hammering at for a long time, “that you ought to have bars across that window. All the other windows are protected, and that one should be. The fellow got out, dropped ten feet to the alley, and has escaped.”

“But why did he leave?” queried the cashier. “I am sure he didn’t learn anything from me.”

“Chaps of that sort are naturally suspicious. The mere fact that you asked him into the private room was enough.”

“See if there is any trace of him outside. He’s a youngish chap, seventeen or eighteen, I should say, rather effeminate in appearance, and wears----”

“I saw him when he came in, sir,” broke in the policeman. “It will be useless to hunt for him, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Anyhow,” and the cashier laughed as the policeman hurried away, “we’ve got the bullion.”

What was it that had aroused Pearl Dimmock’s suspicions? Only the secret workings of her own mind could reveal that point. Perhaps, at the last moment, her courage failed her, and she could not carry out the plan. This would be the charitable supposition.

Yet, be that as it may, the girl vanished, and even her sex remained a mystery to the cashier and the policeman. The telegram, sent from Stoughton by the motor boys, had fulfilled its mission. That the girl had escaped was, to them, an unimportant detail. The main thing was to foil Tibbits and keep the bullion.