"Just so. Who was the gentleman?"
"I don't know, sir; I didn't see his face."
"I was that gentleman."
"I didn't know it, sir. It was just half past two, and I wanted to be on time."
"Who told you I should not be back again?" demanded the banker more sternly than he had before spoken.
"Mr. Hart," replied Leo, who regarded his informant as excellent authority.
"Mr. Hart!" exclaimed Mr. Checkynshaw, staring into the bright eyes of Leo to detect any appearance of deception.
The banker prided himself upon his shrewdness. He believed that, if there was any person in the world who was peculiarly qualified to expose the roguery of a suspected individual, he was that person. In conducting the present examination he only wanted Derastus Clapp for the terror of his name, rather than his professional skill as a detective.
Mr. Checkynshaw believed that he had intrapped his victim. Mr. Hart could not have told Leo that the head of the house would not return to the office that day, for the very simple reason that Mr. Hart was dead and gone. The old style of the firm was retained, but the Hart was gone out of it. The boy was telling a wrong story, and the banker laid his toils for unveiling the details of a gigantic conspiracy. Fitz lived somewhere in the vicinity of High Street,—Mr. Checkynshaw did not know where, for it would not be dignified for a great man like him to know where his clerk resided,—and it was more than possible that Leo and he were acquainted. Very likely the innocent-looking youth before him was an accomplice of Fitz, who, since the disappearance of the papers, had really become a terrible character.
"Yes, sir; Mr. Hart told me," repeated Leo, who could not see anything so very strange in the circumstance.