He could not bear even to think of going home, for he now had no home! Therefore he went to Central Park and walked aimlessly about until his unaccustomed muscles compelled him to sit down. There he sat, thinking! After three hours he had grown sufficiently calm to believe himself when he called himself a fool for being jealous. Having convinced himself of his folly, he clutched eagerly at every opportunity to close his own ears to the whisperings of his own doubts. At length he went to his house, dressed as usual, and went to the Cosmopolitan Club to dine.
IX
A few minutes after Ashton Welles left his office, stabbed to the soul by the poisoned paragraphs of Society Folk Jemingham sought Stewardson and told him he had decided to send some more gold-dust to the Assay Office. His own attendant, a young man, dark-haired and blue-eyed, who properly answered to the name of Sheehan, accompanied him. Stewardson, whose nerves had not recovered from the shock of Mr. Welles's behavior, decided that he, also, would go to the vaults.
“I want ten boxes sent to the Assay Office,” said Jemingham.
“Certainly, sir,” said the superintendent of the vaults, very obsequiously. To show how eager he was to please, he asked, “Any particular boxes, Mr. Jemingham?”
Immediately a half-formulated suspicion fleeted across the mind of the second vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company. How did they know what those boxes contained? How did they know that all of them were full of Yukon gold? How did they know anything about this man or about his treasure—his alleged treasure?
Almost immediately afterward, however, he reproached himself. Why, the man had deposited over a million—the proceeds of twenty of the boxes!
“Oh, take any ten,” said Jerningham—“the first ten. They are the easiest to take out.”
“The last ten!” said Stewardson, hastily, obeying an impulse that came upon him like a flash of lightning.
Jerningham turned and asked: “Why the last ten? They are away back, and—”