“Why didn’t you take care of that bullion, Jacobs?” demanded Bernritter.
“I did take care of it. I had just turned the bar out of the mold when you sent for me. I cooled it off and put it in the safe. When I went back to the laboratory, just now, the safe was open and the bar had disappeared.”
“It must have been some of the greasers who are filling the tanks,” hazarded McGowan.
“It couldn’t have been,” protested Jacobs. “The foreman told me, not more than a minute ago, that not one of them had left the work. They were all under his eyes.”
“It may have been the foreman himself,” suggested Bernritter.
“What!” scoffed McGowan; “Andy O’Connell? Not on your life! I’d stake all I’ve got on Andy, Jacobs,” and McGowan’s eyes glittered as he wheeled on the cyanid expert, “it’s up to you to explain this.”
“Do you think for a minute,” cried Jacobs, “that I’d——”
“I said it is up to you to explain. What I think hasn’t anything to do with it. Did you turn off the combination of the safe when you left the laboratory?”
“I—I think not,” was the hesitating response.
“Fact is, McGowan,” put in Bernritter, “I sent for Jacobs in a hurry. I was figuring out the returns of the cyanid-plant, and I needed the weight and fineness of that bar to complete my figures.”