The bank president was much interested in learning from Larry of the fact of the bricks being so near the place where Witherby boarded.
“It certainly is a clew, Larry, and it might be bad evidence against him, in court,” the bank president said. “But, I’m afraid it’s too slender to warrant an arrest.”
“I think so, too, but I also think that it would be worth while to have Witherby more closely watched than any other of your employees.”
“Yes, I agree with you, and I’ll order it done. Oh, I do wish this mystery was solved! It isn’t so much the money loss, though that is serious enough, as it is that our whole bank system is demoralized by this crime hanging over our heads. Hurry up, Larry, and win that twenty thousand dollars reward!”
“I wish I could, Mr. Bentfield. We’ll see what keeping a watch on Witherby brings out.”
Close “tabs” were kept on the suspected clerk for several days, but nothing new developed. In the meanwhile Larry had some news in his paper concerning the bank robbery, but it was not much. Some of the other journals, who had put special men on the case, took them off. The detectives were still at work, and several well-known criminals and bank thieves were arrested and put through the “third degree,” as it is called by the police, but nothing came of the examinations.
“I don’t believe the mystery will ever be solved,” said Peter Manton to Larry one day, when both were in police headquarters, after the arrest of a man on suspicion of knowing something of the big case. “I wish my paper would take me off this assignment, and put me on one with more life in it. Don’t you want to give up, Larry?”
“I do not! I’m going to solve this.”
“You never will,” declared Peter. And Larry, as he thought how tangled up the case was now, was not as hopeful as his words indicated.