"Yes, I'm following you, Richard; it was hardly the right thing to do, but boys seldom think of such matters. You peeked through and saw—what."
Mr. Winslow had by this time become so excited that he caught hold of Dick's arm and actually gripped him as though he might be afraid the boy would suddenly decamp, and leave his thrilling story but half told.
"I saw Mr. Graylock. He was standing up and buttoning his coat nervously. I saw him turn his head and look around as though he fancied he had heard a noise. Perhaps I did kick a book that was lying on the floor; but he didn't look at that little knothole, only toward the door that led to the outside office. Then he sat down again. I could see that he was smiling as if pleased. Mr. Goodwyn came back just then, and I moved away."
The two looked at each other for a moment without another word being said.
Evidently the teller was allowing the information he had just received to soak in, where he could turn it around and begin to grasp the true significance of the incident.
"Dick, I believe, my boy, you have struck on the true secret of this mysterious robbery," the teller exclaimed. "It seems almost unthinkable that any man could descend so low as to plan such a diabolical thing, and then try as best he could to throw it on the shoulders of an innocent lad. If it turns out to be true nothing could be too severe a punishment for that rascal!"
"Then you don't blame me for thinking such a thing, sir? I was afraid you might laugh at me, or even worse, accuse me of inventing something that could never have happened. Oh! if you could only have seen the look on his face as he stood there buttoning his coat up, you would never forget it. I have dreamed of him every night since, and always with that terrible look in his eyes. But, Mr. Winslow, could a man do such a thing? I never heard of any one robbing himself before."
"Ah! you have a good deal to learn yet, my boy. It would not be the first time a clever and unscrupulous rascal laid a plan to have it appear as though he had been robbed, so that he could profit from the consequences. Mr. Graylock is in a bad box. His creditors are pushing him hard, and I think that to-morrow his house will be in the hands of the courts. He declares that he was holding those securities to prop up his business at the last hour; but Mr. Goodwyn has admitted to me that they would have been only a drop in the bucket; that the failure was bound to come. Now you can see what object he would have in taking the papers after they had been examined by the cashier; and in getting his envelope hurriedly in the vault without its being looked into again."
"Yes, that is what I thought, though I hardly dared put it into words, sir. You mean that when I saw him he was buttoning up his coat because he had hurriedly taken those negotiable securities from the package and thrust them in his pocket?" gasped Dick, trembling with the excitement.
"It could be easily done. Stop and consider, boy, almost immediately afterward, as if he feared lest the cashier might want to look at the contents of his packet again, he suggested that they be placed in the safe, and it fell to you to do this part of the work. Immediately his wicked mind must have conceived the idea of casting suspicion on you. In that way he would kill two birds with one stone, satisfy his feeling of vindictiveness toward you, and at the same time start suspicion in another quarter. I have no doubt he had covered his tracks well, and if one of his securities was offered for sale to a friend of his as he claims, it was so arranged that it could never be traced as coming from him. But even the most cunning of rogues usually overdo the thing. His savage desire to place the blame on you instead of some one else in the bank looks suspicious, and may be the rock on which he will founder."