Britt had plucked one of the disks from his pocket and was inspecting it.  He hastened to say that he had never seen anything of the sort till that evening.

Prophet Elias seemed to be taking no further interest in affairs.  He went to the door leading into the corridor.  It was locked.  “I’d like to get out,” he suggested.

“Now that the other way through the vaults had become the main-traveled avenue of the village, why don’t you go out as you came in?” was Starr’s sardonic query.

The Prophet was not ruffled.  “I would gladly do so, but the door of the grille is locked.”

“Ah, that accounts for the fact that everybody else in Egypt isn’t in this office on your heels!  Britt, let him out!”

The president obeyed, unlocking the door, and the Prophet joined the crowd in the corridor.  Starr went to the door and addressed the folks.  “Allow me to call your attention, such of you as are handy to this door, to Cashier Vaniman.”  He jerked a gesture over his shoulder.  “You can see that he is all right.  We are giving out no information to-night.  I order you, one and all, to leave this building at once.  I mean business!”

He waited till the movement of the populace began, gave Dorsey some sharp commands, and banged the door.  But when he turned to face those in the office he reached behind himself and opened the door again; the sight of the girl had prompted him.  “I suggest that this is a good time for you to be going along, Miss Harnden.  You’ll have plenty of company.”

But she showed no inclination to go.  She was exhibiting something like a desperate resolve.  “Will you please shut the door, Mr. Starr?”

He obeyed.

“It’s in regard to those disks!  They are coat weights!”

Starr fished out his souvenir once more and inspected it; his face showed that he had not been illuminated especially.

“Women understand such things better than men, of course,” she went on.  “Dressmakers stitch those weights into the lower edges of women’s suit coats to make the fabric drape properly and hang without wrinkling.”

“You’re a woman and you probably know what you’re talking about on that line,” admitted the examiner.  “But because you’re a woman I don’t suppose you can tell me how coat weights happen to be the main cash assets of this bank!” Mr. Starr’s manner expressed fully his contemptuous convictions on that point.

“I certainly cannot say how those weights happen to be in the bank, sir.  But I feel that this is the time for everybody in our town to give in every bit of information that will help to clear up this terrible thing.  I’m taking that attitude for myself, Mr. Starr, and I hope that all others are going to be as frank.”  She gave President Britt a fearless stare of challenge.  “My father has recently had a great deal of new courage about some of the inventions he hopes to put through.  He has told me that Mr. Britt is backing him financially.”