But the president of the Security National shook his head, saying: "Bookkeepin' is all Choctaw to me. I saw one statement an' I thought 'liquid assets' meant that bottle of whisky Bell left in his desk."
"Mr. Gray," the auditor announced, when they were alone, "I wish you'd ask somebody else to take this job off my hands."
"Why?"
"Well, somebody else could probably do it better." There was a pause.
"I've known Bell Nelson all my life—"
"That is why I engaged you. You've been over these books before." Again there was an instant of silence, then into Gray's face there flashed a curious alertness. "Come!" he cried, sharply. "What is it?"
"I'm sorry to be the one to—" The auditor shrugged. "If you insist on an explanation, I suppose I shall have to tell you. Perhaps it's just as well, anyhow. They say figures don't lie, but you and I know better. I only wish they didn't."
"Have you caught them lying, here?"
"I have. And—it has made me rather ill. You'd better prepare yourself for a shock."
It was nearly an hour later that Gray telephoned to Senator Lowe, the bank's attorney, and to Bennett Swope, the latter being the only member of the board available at short notice. This done, he wrote a note to Henry Nelson. In spite of his effort to control his hand, it shook when he signed his name, and on second thought he destroyed the missive. There is something ominous about the written word. If Nelson grew suspicious, he'd never come.
Gray stepped into Gus Briskow's office and asked him to call the former vice-president, first, however, explaining exactly what he wished Gus to say. The ruse succeeded; then Gray returned to his own office. He drew a deep breath. Within him he felt a ferocious eagerness take fire, for it seemed to him that the day of reckoning had come. Henry's behavior was now easily understandable; the fellow was cringing, cowering in anticipation of a second blow. Well, the whip was in Gray's hands, and he proposed to use it ruthlessly—to sink the lash, to cut to the bone, to leave scars such as Henry had left upon him. Nor was that his only weapon. There was, for instance, Old Bell Nelson's honor. If coercion failed, there were rewards, inducements. Oh, Henry would have to speak! The Nelson fortune, or what remained for salvage from the wreck thereof, the bank itself, they were pawns which Gray could, and would, sacrifice, if necessary. His hunger for a sight of "Bob" had become unbearable. Freedom to declare his overwhelming love—and that love he knew was no immature infatuation, but the deep-set passion of a full-grown man—was worth any price he might be called upon to pay. Yes, Henry would speak the truth to-day or—for one of them, at least, there would be an end to the feud.