“Have I thought?  Tut, tut, tut!  Do you think I’ve got a head like a six-year-old young-one—­or you?  Course I’ve thought—­and ’phoned, too.  But it didn’t do me any good.  Sylvester’s house is shut up and the old man’s gone to Boston, so the postmaster told me when I ’phoned and asked him.  Won’t be back for a couple of days, anyhow.  I remember he told me he was goin’!”

“Sho, sho! that’s too bad.”

“Bad enough, but I don’t think it makes any real difference.  I swear I had that money when I left Sage’s.  I came in here and then I went straight to the bank.”

“And after you got there?”

“Oh, when I got there I found no less than three men, not countin’ old Mrs. Emmeline Bartlett, in my room waitin’ to see me.  Nellie Hall—­my typewriter, you know—­she knew where I’d been and what a crank old Sage is and she says:  ‘Did you get the money, Cap’n?’ And I says:  ‘Yes, it’s in my overcoat pocket this minute.’  Then I hurried in to ‘tend to the folks that was waitin’ for me.  ’Twas an hour later afore I went to my coat to get the cash.  Then, as I say, all I could find was the two five hundred packages.  The four hundred one was gone.”

“Sho, sho!  Tut, tut, tut!  Where did you put the coat when you took it off?”

“On the hook in the clothes closet where I always put it.”

“Hum-m!  And—­er—­when you told Nellie about it did you speak loud?”

“Loud?  No louder’n I ever do.”

“Well—­er—­that ain’t a—­er—­whisper, Sam, exactly.”

“Don’t make any difference.  There wasn’t anybody outside the railin’ that minute to hear if I’d bellered like a bull of Bashan.  There was nobody in the bank, I tell you, except the three men and old Aunt Emmeline and they were waitin’ in my private room.  And except for Nellie and Eddie Ellis, the messenger, and Charlie Phillips, there wan’t a soul around, as it happened.  The money hasn’t been stolen; I lost it somewheres—­but where?  Well, I can’t stop here any longer.  I’m goin’ back to the bank to have another hunt.”

He banged out again.  Fortunately he did not look at his friend’s face before he went.  For that face had a singular expression upon it.  Jed sat heavily down in the chair by the bench.  A vivid recollection of a recent remark made in that very shop had suddenly come to him.  Charlie Phillips had made it in answer to a question of his own.  Charlie had declared that he would do almost anything to get five hundred dollars.

CHAPTER XVII

The next morning found Jed heavy-eyed and without appetite, going through the form of preparing breakfast.  All night, with the exception of an hour or two, he had tossed on his bed alternately fearing the worst and telling himself that his fears were groundless.  Of course Charlie Phillips had not stolen the four hundred dollars.  Had not he, Jed Winslow, loudly proclaimed to Ruth Armstrong that he knew her brother to be a fine young man, one who had been imprudent, it is true, but much more sinned against than sinning and who would henceforth, so he was willing to swear, be absolutely upright and honest?  Of course the fact that a sum of money was missing from the Orham National Bank, where Phillips was employed, did not necessarily imply that the latter had taken it.