He entered a cigar store and bought a box of cigarettes. He took joy out of throwing away his asceticism. But when, on the street, he lighted a cigarette it made him so dizzy that he was afraid he was going to fall. He had to sit down on the curb. People gathered. He staggered to his feet and up an alley.
For hours he walked, making and discarding the most contradictory plans—to go to the bank and confess; to spend the money riotously and never confess.
It was midnight when he returned to his house.
Before it he gasped. The front door was open. He chuckled with relief as he remembered that he had not closed it. He sauntered in. He was passing the door of the living room, going directly up to his bedroom, when his foot struck an object the size of a book, but hollow sounding. He picked it up. It was one of the booklike candy boxes. And it was quite empty. Frightened he listened. There was no sound. He crept into the living room and lighted the lamp.
The doors of the bookcase had been wrenched open. Every book had been pulled out on the floor. All of the candy boxes, which that evening had contained almost ninety-six thousand dollars, were in a pile; and all of them were empty. He searched for ten minutes, but the only money he found was one five-dollar bill, which had fluttered under the table. In his pocket he had one dollar and sixteen cents. John Holt had six dollars and sixteen cents, no job, no friends—and no identity.
V
When the president of the Lumber National Bank was informed that John Holt was waiting to see him he scowled.
“Lord, I’d forgotten that minor plague! Must be a year since he’s been here. Oh, let him— No, hanged if I will! Tell him I’m too busy to see him. That is, unless he’s got some news about Jasper. Pump him, and find out.”
The president’s secretary sweetly confided to John:
“I’m so sorry, but the president is in conference just now. What was it you wanted to see him about? Is there any news about—uh—about your brother?”