"Before I say anything else, Mr.—er—Braceway, I want to express to you not only my own gratitude but that of all the officers and directors of the Anderson National. You have, it seems, saved us from great trouble. As things are, they are bad enough. But you have enabled us to put our fingers on the—ah—situation almost in time."
He glanced at Jones.
"Briefly," the vice-president took up the statement, "it has been established, thus far, that Morley has stolen from the Anderson National the—"
Mr. Beale's composure broke down at this. He interrupted the subordinate's calm explanation:
"Stolen from the Anderson National! Think of that, sir! Of all the outrageous things, of all the unqualifiedly and absolutely incredible things! We have in our bank, on our payrolls, a thief, an unmitigated scoundrel!" He pushed back his chair and drummed on his knees. "We find that one of his thefts was seven hundred dollars, and another five hundred. We—I—trusted him, trusted him! And with what result?"
He slid his chair forward and bruised his fist by striking the desk with all his strength.
"And the crudity of his methods! Preposterous! The old trick of entries in pass-books and no entries in the records! He chose, for his own safety, depositors who carried large balances and were not apt to draw out anywhere near their total balance. It's the most abominable——"
Between the outbursts of the president and the cold, lifeless words of the vice-president, Braceway managed to elicit these facts: they expected to uncover more than the $1,200 shortage already established; when they could examine all the pass-books now out of the bank, the total would undoubtedly be found much larger; they demanded Morley's arrest at once; in fact, if the law had allowed it, they would have sent him to the scaffold within the next hour.
"Now," the detective reminded them, "he's also under suspicion of murder."
"My God!" spluttered Beale. "What do we care about murder? Hasn't he tried to murder this bank? Hasn't he assassinated, so far as he could, its good name? Get him! Put him behind the bars!"