It was filled almost to the brim with packages of bank notes, packed so tightly together that one could not have inserted a finger between them.
Merriwell could scarcely believe his senses. He rubbed his eyes in bewilderment and looked again. It was quite true. They were bank notes—mostly yellow-backs—and from the way they were packed together they must represent a tremendous sum.
Where had they come from? What were they doing there? The thought of the bank robbery at Hartford flashed into his mind, and at the same instant the kneeling man raised his head and revealed to Merriwell’s amazed gaze the face of Archie McCormick, ghastly white, sweat dewed, the eyes wide and shining, and the pale lips trembling spasmodically.
CHAPTER XII
IN THE SILENT NIGHT.
Dick could not take his eyes off the face of his friend, drawn, pale, stamped with the print of some vital emotion. What did it mean? What could it mean? Why had Archie stolen down here in the dead of night? Where had the money come from?
These, and a dozen other questions, equally unanswerable, flashed through his half-dazed mind in the brief interval before the fellow kneeling on the hearth could move a finger. McCormick was gazing straight at the door, and Dick half expected him to call his name. It did not seem possible that the man could be so blind as not to see who was watching him through the crack.
Then he saw that Archie was absolutely oblivious to his surroundings. His eyes were cloudy and unseeing. He was not walking in his sleep, but his mind was so concentrated on some problem that he was blind to all outward things.
Presently he uttered a shuddering sigh and reached slowly for the stone slab which lay close at hand.
Dick waited until he had replaced it over the hole and was leaning forward for a handful of ashes to dust into the cracks, and then softly made his way back to the hall and upstairs.