Irene Simmons' eyes opened wide in astonishment, and her mouth formed a crimson O. Tumbling out of the safe came sheaf after sheaf of banknotes.
"Now do you believe me?" Peter asked triumphantly.
"Y—yes. What else can I believe? Are they real?"
He picked one of the bills up and looked at it closely. "It's real, all right. I started out in business as a bank teller, and I know how to tell a counterfeit. This is the real McCoy, all right."
"Well—well, my goodness!" was all Miss Simmons could say for a moment. Then, after the shock of seeing all that money had lessened a little, she asked: "What are you going to do with it, Peter?"
"The first thing I'm going to do," he said, "is return that fifty thousand dollars to Mr. Crabley. Here, help me gather this stuff up and sort it out into piles. We'll have to count it, too."
The girl pitched in willingly and began to sort the bills. Swiftly they separated it.
It was not until then that Peter Merton realized that the girl had called him by his first name. Was it the sight of all the money that had done it? Irene Simmons had never impressed him as the gold-digger type, but—
Peter shrugged and went on stacking the money.
When they had finished, Irene said: "There's not quite enough to pay back Mr. Crabley."