steamship ticket—­which you obtained yesterday while out at lunch by sending a district messenger boy with the money and instructions in a sealed envelope to purchase for you—­you went up to the Moynes’ flat in Harlem for the purpose of secreting them somewhere there.  You pretended to be much disappointed at finding Moyne out—­you had just come for a little social visit, to get better acquainted with the home life of your employees!  Mrs. Moyne was genuinely pleased and grateful.  She took you in to see their little girl, who was already asleep in bed.  She left you there for a moment to answer the door—­and you—­you”—­Jimmie Dale’s voice choked again—­“you blot on God’s earth, you slipped the money and ticket under the child’s mattress!”

Carling came forward with a lurch in his chair—­and his hands went out, pawing in a wild, pleading fashion over Jimmie Dale’s arm.

Jimmie Dale flung him away.

“You were safe enough,” he rasped on.  “The police could only construe your visit to Moyne’s flat as zeal on behalf of the bank.  And it was safer, much more circumspect on your part, not to order the flat searched at once, but only as a last resort, as it were, after you had led the police to trail him all evening and still remain without a clew—­and besides, of course, not until you had planted the evidence that was to damn him and wreck his life and home!  You were even generous in the amount you deprived yourself of out of the hundred thousand dollars—­for less would have been enough.  Caught with ten thousand dollars of the bank’s money and a steamship ticket made out in a fictitious name, it was prima-facie evidence that he had done the job and had the balance somewhere.  What would his denials, his protestations of innocence count for?  He was an ex-convict, a hardened criminal caught red-handed with a portion of the proceeds of robbery—­he had succeeded in hiding the remainder of it too cleverly, that was all.”

Carling’s face was ghastly.  His hands went out again—­again his tongue moistened his dry lips.  He whispered: 

“Isn’t—­isn’t there some—­some way we can fix this?”

And then Jimmie Dale laughed—­not pleasantly.

“Yes, there’s a way, Carling,” he said grimly.  “That’s why I’m here.”  He picked up a sheet of writing paper and pushed it across the desk—­then a pen, which he dipped into the inkstand, and extended to the other.  “The way you’ll fix it will be to write out a confession exonerating Moyne.”

Carling shrank back into his chair, his head huddling into his shoulders.

“No!” he cried.  “I won’t—­I can’t—­my God!—­I—­I—­won’t!”

The automatic in Jimmie Dale’s hand edged forward the fraction of an inch.

“I have not used this—­yet.  You understand now why—­don’t you?” he said under his breath.

“No, no!” Carling pushed away the pen.  “I’m ruined—­ruined as it is.  But this would mean the penitentiary, too—­”