“Will the watchman die, Alec, d’you think?” whispered Billy, as they filed through the grilled door to the counting room.
“Don’t know. Hope not. Game old rooster. Good watchman, too,” said Turnbull, the mill-superintendent.
Lake turned on the lights. The wall-safe was blown open; fragments of the door were scattered among the overturned chairs.
In an open recess in the vault there was a dull yellow mass; the explosion had spilled the front rows of coin to a golden heap. Behind, some golden rouleaus were intact: others tottered precariously, as you have perhaps seen beautiful tall stacks of colored counters do. Gold pieces were strewn along the floor.
“Thank God, they didn’t get all the gold anyhow!” said Lake, with a sigh of relief. “Then, of course, they didn’t touch the silver; but there was a lot of greenbacks—over twenty-five thousand, I think. Bassett will know. And I don’t know how much gold is gone. Look round and see if they left anything incriminating, sheriff, anything that we can trace them by.”
“He heard poor old Lars coming,” said the sheriff. “Then, after he shot him, he hadn’t the nerve to come back for the gold. This strikes me as being a bungler’s job. Must have used an awful lot of dynamite to tear that door up like that! Funny no one heard the explosion. Can’t be much of your gold gone, Lake. That compartment is pretty nearly as full as it will hold.”
“Or heard him shoot our watchman,” suggested Thompson. “Still, I don’t know. There’s blasting going on in the hills all the time and almost every one was at the masquerade or else asleep. How many times did they shoot old Lars—does anybody know? Is there any idea what time it was done?”
“He was shot once—right here,” said Alec, indicating the spot on the flowered silk that had been part of his mandarin’s dress. “Gun was held so close it burnt his shirt. Awful hole. Don’t believe the old chap’ll make it. He crawled along toward the telephone station till he dropped. Say! Central must have heard that shot! It’s only two blocks away. She ought to be able to tell what time it was.”
“Lars said it was just before midnight,” said Clarke.