"You are not far wrong," said the young man wearily.
"Now, if you can aid me in tightening the cords about this woman, will not that furnish protection for yourself? For how can you be harmed if the person you fear is in prison?"
Filbon shook his head, and then compressed his lips. He was now sorry that he had admitted anything, and he cursed his want of backbone. And he thought, bitterly: "If I hadn't been a mean, spiritless wretch, I would never have got into this mess."
Nick knew the nature he had to deal with. He said quietly: "Listen to me a moment, and maybe you will find it advisable to change your mind. You are the bookkeeper and cashier of the manufacturing company of which Gabriel Leonard is president and John Dashwood is manager. You have been stealing from the company. The crime would never have been committed but for the evil prompting of a wicked woman, who, protesting love for you, would have cast you aside the moment she received the money she urged you to steal. To-night John Dashwood surprised your guilty secret. You had hidden the stolen money in the office, and you went there to get it, in pursuance of this woman's order. You did not get it, or, if you did, it was taken from you. Dashwood allowed you to go. His heart overflows with charity and—and I presume he knows your mother. As you left the elevator you saw the woman. You told her that the scheme had failed. She reproached you, cast you off. You then announced your intention to go home, get a revolver, and blow out your brains. What induced you to reconsider that determination?"
Luke Filbon had listened to this clear exposition of his case in sheer amazement. "No need to keep silent longer," he said, in a husky voice. "I'll tell you all."
But he did not at once begin his story.
For some time he sat without speaking, his eyes on the water. What thoughts passed through his mind the detective never guessed until his account with Filbon had been closed.
"This woman," he began, in a steady voice, "came to St. Louis a short time ago. I met her on the evening following her arrival here. It was at a Parisian beauty show, which has since been interdicted by the police. She was the star of the outfit, and my admiration seemed to please her. We had opportunity for a quiet confab, and she invited me to call upon her next day. I was fool enough to do so; and before I had been with her an hour she knew all about my affairs. I have never associated much with women of her class, and she exercised her powers of fascination so well that the next visit I promised to do all she wished me to do. I was infatuated, and when she painted in glowing colors a life abroad without work, a life that should be one long round of pleasure, I stood ready to furnish the means if such a thing were possible. She said we would require twenty thousand dollars, and proposed that I should steal that amount from the company. I could not see my way to the performance of such a thing. I told her that, though I was the cashier, there was never more than a few thousands in the safe on any one day, and that every afternoon, before the banks closed, the money in the safe was banked.
"She had thought of that, she said, and could suggest a way out of the difficulty. I could every day hold out something, say a few hundred dollars, as a rule, and more when the receipts should be unusually large, and cover up the shortage by falsifying the books. In this way the twenty thousand dollars could be withdrawn within thirty days. The plan seemed feasible, for I was fully trusted by Dashwood, and before the expiration of thirty days I had drawn out of the safe and secreted in the office twenty thousand dollars in bank-notes."
"Of course, you did not take the numbers?"