He passed the paper across, and Dick examined it with surprise.
“You have worked this out already from the muddled and blotted entries! Do you think you’ve got it right?”
“I’m sure,” said Bethune, smiling. “I’ll prove it if you like. We know how much cement went into stock. How many molded blocks of the top course have we put down at the dam?”
Dick told him, and after a few minutes’ calculation Bethune looked up. “Then here you are! Our concrete’s a standard density; we know the weight of water and sand and what to allow for evaporation. You see my figures agree very closely with the total delivery ex-store.”
They did so, and Dick no longer wondered how Bethune, who ostentatiously declined to let his work interfere with his comfort, held his post. The man thought in numbers, using the figures, as one used words, to express his knowledge rather than as a means of obtaining it by calculation. Dick imagined this was genius.
“Well,” said Stuyvesant, “I guess we had better send for the storekeeper next.”
“Get it over,” agreed Bethune. “It’s an unpleasant job.”
Dick sent a half-naked peon to look for the man, and was sensible of some nervous strain as he waited for his return. He hated the task he had undertaken, but it must be carried out. Bethune, who had at first tried to discourage him, now looked interested, and Dick saw that Stuyvesant was resolute. In the meanwhile, the shed had grown suffocatingly hot, his face and hands were wet with perspiration, and the rumble of machinery made his head ache. He lighted a cigarette, but the tobacco tasted bitter and he threw it away. Then there were footsteps outside and Stuyvesant turned to him.
“We leave you to put the thing through. You’re prosecutor.”
Dick braced himself as a man came in and stood by the table, looking at the others suspiciously. He was an American, but his face was heavy and rather sullen, and his white clothes were smeared with dust.