Two days later, Henry Arnaud appeared among the throng of persons who were transacting business at the Middletown Trust Company. There, he presented a traveler's check of one hundred dollars denomination. Ferret was the man at the window, and while the teller was comparing the signatures on the check, Henry Arnaud watched him with piercing eyes.
As Ferret looked up, Henry Arnaud's keen gaze faded. Ferret saw nothing surprising in his appearance.
"All right, Mr. Arnaud," he said. "Glad to cash this for you. Will you be in Middletown long?"
"I expect to be here for several weeks," replied Arnaud.
"Glad you will be with us a while," said the teller pleasantly. "Come in any time. Consider this your bank while you are here. How will you have the money?"
"A fifty, a twenty, and the rest in tens," suggested Arnaud. Ferret counted out the amount.
Arnaud walked away from the window; then turned back. He noted that Ferret was busy with another customer, and that a line had formed by the window. So Arnaud stepped into the shorter line by Butcher's window.
"Let me have change for this ten, please," he said to the second teller. "A five and five ones—" Butcher complied with the request. He started to place the ten-dollar bill at the left of the window; then swung his hand over to the right and dropped it there.
Pocketing his money, Henry Arnaud strolled from the bank. He walked leisurely along the block, studying his surroundings. He came to the downtown corner, and turned up the side street, stopping to look in different windows.
His slow, purposeless gait eventually brought him to the funeral parlor. Here, Henry Arnaud chanced to glance up. In the window, he saw the tall, mournful form of Deacon, garbed in his habitual black.