“You're a bank man—you had the run of the premises—you had a chance to know the general style of his ways! What do you guess he did with it?”
“I'm sticking to the truth—and what I actually know. I'm not guessing.”
“Not even when you say he took the money?”
“I didn't see him take it. But he had a private entrance to the vault. Everybody was so determined to plaster the guilt on to me that no move was made against Britt on account of that back door of his. I was railroaded by perjurers—and Britt was the captain of 'em.”
“There's a corner on 'most everything these days, but it's really too bad for a man like Britt to have a corner on so much valuable knowledge,” sighed the short man.
And the tall man sighed and agreed.
Mr. Wagg was catching up. With the appearance of a man who had been running and was out of breath he panted, “What's—what's gong to be done about it?”
Vaniman made no suggestions. Having cut the knot of his own entanglement where these men were concerned, he felt no spirit of alacrity about inviting them farther into his personal affairs; he realized that he had merely shifted the course of their dogged pursuit of that money. In spite of his feelings toward Britt, he was dreading what might come from the disclosures he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to involve him more wretchedly.
“Vaniman, suppose you take command and give off your orders,” said the short man.
“I haven't any sensible plans. I admit that. I have been so pestered and wrought up by the everlasting bullyragging about the devilish money that I haven't had a chance to figure out a way of getting at the man who has ruined me,” Vaniman complained. He strode to and fro, snapping his fingers, revealing his sense of helplessness.