"I don't know, sir; he asked for you. I sent him to your office."
"That was the barber's boy."
Burnet bowed: he never wasted words; never left his desk to see a row or a military company, and would not have done so if an earthquake had torn up the pavement of State Street, so long as the banking-house of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. was undisturbed.
"Who else?" asked the banker.
"A man, sir."
"Who?"
"I don't know; he entered by your private door; the boy and the man went out together."
"Send for the safe people."
Burnet bowed, and retired. In half an hour two men from the safe manufactory appeared. They opened the iron door, and the banker turned pale when he found that his valuable papers had been abstracted. The three hundred and fifty dollars which "Mr. Hart" had taken was of no consequence, compared with the documents that were missing; for they were his private papers, on which other eyes than his own must not look.
The safe men fitted a new key, altering the wards of the lock, so that the old one would not open the door. What remained of the papers were secured; but those that were gone were of more importance than those that were left. Mr. Checkynshaw groaned in spirit. The threats of Mr. Fitzherbert Wittleworth seemed to have some weight now, and that young gentleman suddenly became of more consequence than he had ever been before. Fitz could not have stolen these papers himself, but he might have been a party to the act.