He laughed sneeringly and stepped out of the door. Waiting a short time, the woman heard his step in the hall. Then she darted to the door, locked it, and leaned against it, panting.
“I’ve done it now,” she murmured. “Braman—Well, it serves him right!”
Corrigan stopped in the barroom and got a drink. Then he walked to the front door and stood in it for an instant, finally stepping down into the street. Across the street in the banking room he saw a thin streak of light gleaming through a crevice in the doorway that led from the banking room to the rear. The light told him that Braman was in the rear room. Selecting a moment when the street in his vicinity was deserted, Corrigan deliberately crossed, standing for a moment in the shadow of the bank building, looking around him. Then he slipped around the building and tapped cautiously on the rear door. An instant later he was standing inside the room, his back against the door. Braman, arrayed as he had been the night before, had opened the door. He had been just ready to go when he heard Corrigan’s knock.
“Going out, Croft?” said Corrigan pleasantly, eyeing the other intently. “All lit up, too! You’re getting to be a gay dog, lately.”
There was nothing in Corrigan’s bantering words to bring on that sudden qualm of sickening fear that seized the banker. He knew it was his guilt that had done it—guilt and perhaps a dread of Corrigan’s rage if he should learn of his duplicity. But that word “lately”! If it had been uttered with any sort of an accent he might have been suspicious. But it had come with the bantering ring of the others, with no hint of special significance. And Braman was reassured.
“Yes, I’m going out.” He turned to the mirror on the wall. “I’m getting rather stale, hanging around here so much.”
“That’s right, Croft. Have a good time. How much money is there in the safe?”
“Two or three thousand dollars.” The banker turned from the glass. “Want some? Ha, ha!” he laughed at the other’s short nod; “there are other gay dogs, I guess! How much do you want?”
“All you’ve got?”