“Well?” he said to Bethune, who had picked up Dick’s calculations.
“The figures are right; he’s only out in a small decimal.”
Stuyvesant took the papers and compared them with a printed form he produced from his pocket.
“They correspond with the tests the maker claims his stuff will stand, and we can take it that they’re accurate. Still, this doesn’t prove that Oliva stole the cement from us. The particular make is popular on this coast, and he may have bought a quantity from somebody else. Did you examine the bags on the mole, Brandon?”
“No,” said Dick, “I had to get my samples in the dark. If Oliva bought the cement, he must have kept it for some time, because the only man in the town who stocks it sold the last he had three months ago. The next thing is our storekeeper’s tally showing the number of bags delivered to him. I sat up half the night trying to balance this against what he handed out and could make nothing of the entries.”
“Let me see,” said Bethune, and lighted a cigarette when Dick handed him a book, and a bundle of small, numbered forms. “You can talk, if you like,” he added as he sharpened a pencil.
Dick moved restlessly up and down the floor, examining the testing apparatus, but he said nothing, and Stuyvesant did not speak. He was a reserved and thoughtful man. After a time, Bethune threw the papers on the table.
“François isn’t much of a bookkeeper,” he remarked. “One or two of the delivery slips have been entered twice, and at first I suspected he might have conspired with Oliva. Still, that’s against my notion of his character, and I find he’s missed booking stuff that had been given out, which, of course, wouldn’t have suited the other’s plans.”
“You can generally count on a Frenchman’s honesty,” Stuyvesant observed. “But do you make the deliveries ex-store tally with what went in?”
“I don’t,” said Bethune dryly. “Here’s the balance I struck. It shows the storekeeper is a good many bags short.”