“Mr. Starr, this is no time to shout and bellow at this poor boy who has barely got his senses back,” Vona protested, indignantly.
“You mustn't blame Mr. Starr, dear,” said the cashier, patting her hand. “Of course, he and Mr. Britt are much stirred up over the thing. I'm not trying to hide anything, gentlemen. You say you found me in the vault! What is the condition of things in the bank?” He struggled and sat up straighter in the chair. He was showing intense anxiety as his senses cleared.
Examiner Starr, though present officially, was in no mood to make any report on bank conditions just then. “Vaniman, you'd better do your talking first.”
“I'll tell all I know about it. I was working on the books, my attention very much taken up, of course. I felt a sudden shock, as I remember it. Everything went black. As to what has been going on from that moment, whenever it was, till I woke up here, I'll have to depend on you for information.”
“That's straight, is it?” demanded the examiner, grimly.
“On my honor, sir.”
“There's a lot to be opened out and what you have said doesn't help.”
“I wish I could help more. I understand fully what a fix I'm in unless this whole muddle is cleared up,” confessed the cashier, plaintively. He had been putting his hand to his head. “I think I must have been stunned by a blow.”
Starr, without asking permission, ran his hand over Vaniman's head. “No especially big lump anywhere!”
Vaniman spanned a space on his head between thumb and forefinger. “I feel a particular ache right about there, sir.”