Dale looked up from the paper. “Doctor Wells, darling,” she said in a listless voice. “He brought me over from the club; I asked him to come in for a few minutes. Billy’s just taking his coat.” She rose, threw the paper aside, came over and kissed Miss Cornelia suddenly and passionately—then before Miss Cornelia, a little startled, could return the kiss, went over and sat on the settee by the fireplace near the door of the billiard room.
Miss Cornelia turned to her with a thousand questions on her tongue, but before she could ask any of them, Billy was ushering in Doctor Wells.
As she shook hands with the Doctor, Miss Cornelia observed him with casual interest—wondering why such a good-looking man, in his early forties, apparently built for success, should be content with the comparative rustication of his local practice. That shrewd, rather aquiline face, with its keen gray eyes, would have found itself more at home in a wider sphere of action, she thought—there was just that touch of ruthlessness about it which makes or mars a captain in the world’s affairs. She found herself murmuring the usual conventionalities of greeting.
“Oh, I’m very well, Doctor, thank you. Well, many people at the country club?”
“Not very many,” he said, with a shake of his head. “This failure of the Union Bank has knocked a good many of the club members sky high.”
“Just how did it happen?” Miss Cornelia was making conversation.
“Oh, the usual thing.” The Doctor took out his cigarette case. “The cashier, a young chap named Bailey, looted the bank to the tune of over a million.”
Dale turned sharply toward them from her seat by the fireplace.
“How do you know the cashier did it?” she said in a low voice.
The Doctor laughed. “Well—he’s run away, for one thing. The bank examiners found the deficit. Bailey, the cashier, went out on an errand—and didn’t come back. The method was simple enough—worthless bonds substituted for good ones—with a good bond on the top and bottom of each package, so the packages would pass a casual inspection. Probably been going on for some time.”