“I have lifted him,” the girl cried.  “Push back the door.”

Britt obeyed.  Then he and Starr took the unconscious cashier by shoulders and heels and carried him to the private office.

Britt’s office conveniences did not include a couch; the men propped Vaniman in the desk chair and Vona crouched beside him and took his head on her shoulder.

There were no visible marks of injury.  He gave off the scent of chloroform.  His wrists were crossed in front of him and were secured with a noose of tape.  Starr picked up shears from Britt’s desk and cut the tape.  “Where’s your doctor?  Get him in here.”

“He lives in another part of the town.  I didn’t see him at the hall to-night,” said Britt.  “I’ll send for him.”

But Vaniman began to show such promising symptoms that the president delayed the message.

There seemed to be magic in the touch of Vona’s caressing palm on the stricken man’s forehead; the words she was murmuring in his ear were stirring his faculties.  He opened his eyes and stared at her and at the two men, vague wonderment in his expression.

“What is it—­what has happened?” he muttered.

“That’s what we want to know,” said Starr.  “What did happen?  Who got afoul of you?”

“I don’t know.  Who brought me in here?”

“We got you out of the bank vault and brought you here by the way of Britt’s private passage.”

Vaniman seemed to find that statement unconvincing.

“He didn’t know about that passage,” stammered the president.  “I—­I never bothered to speak about it.  I suppose I ought to have told you, Frank.  That cement panel is a door—­with the handle on this side.”

The cashier shook his head slowly, as if giving up the attempt to understand.

“I guess the panel fits so closely that you never noticed it was a door,” Britt went on, with the manner of one trying to set himself right.  “I meant to tell you about it.”

“But what happened?” the examiner insisted.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Look here!  You must know something!”

“Mr. Starr, this is no time to shout and bellow at this poor boy who has barely got his senses back,” Vona protested, indignantly.

“You mustn’t blame Mr. Starr, dear,” said the cashier, patting her hand.  “Of course, he and Mr. Britt are much stirred up over the thing.  I’m not trying to hide anything, gentlemen.  You say you found me in the vault!  What is the condition of things in the bank?” He struggled and sat up straighter in the chair.  He was showing intense anxiety as his senses cleared.

Examiner Starr, though present officially, was in no mood to make any report on bank conditions just then.  “Vaniman, you’d better do your talking first.”

“I’ll tell all I know about it.  I was working on the books, my attention very much taken up, of course.  I felt a sudden shock, as I remember it.  Everything went black.  As to what has been going on from that moment, whenever it was, till I woke up here, I’ll have to depend on you for information.”