“I'm going over there,” said Miller, abruptly, and he hurried across in the wake of the big grocer. The miller followed him. On the other side of the street several people were curiously watching the bank door, and when Barnett went to it and grasped the handle and began to shake it vigorously they crossed over to him.
“What's wrong?” said a dealer in fruits, a short, thick-set man with a florid face; but Barnett's only reply was another furious shaking of the door.
“Why, man, what's got into you?” protested the fruit-dealer, in a rising tone of astonishment. “Do you intend to break that door down?”
“I will if that damned skunk don't open it an' give me my money,” said Barnett, who was now red in the face and almost foaming at the mouth. “He's back in thar, an' he knows it's past openin' time. By gum! I know more 'n I'm goin' to tell right now.”
This was followed by another rattling of the door, and the grocer's enormous weight, like a battering-ram, was thrown against the heavy walnut shutter.
“Open up, I say—open up in thar!” yelled the grocer, in a voice hoarse with passion and suspense.
A dozen men were now grouped around the doorway. Barnett released the handle and stood facing them.
“Somethin' s rotten in Denmark,” he panted. “Believe me or not, fellows, I know a thing or two. This bank's in a bad fix.”
A thrill of horror shot through Miller. The words had the ring of conviction. Alan Bishop's money was in bad hands if it was there at all. Suddenly he saw a white, trembling hand fumbling with the lower part of the close-drawn window-shade, as if some one were about to raise it; but the shade remained down, the interior still obscured. It struck Miller as being a sudden impulse, defeated by fear of violence. There was a pause. Then the storm broke again. About fifty men had assembled, all wild to know what was wrong. Miller elbowed his way to the door and stood on the step, slightly raised above the others, Barnett by his side. “Let me speak to him,” he said, pacifically. Barnett yielded doggedly, and Rayburn put his lips to the crack between the two folding-doors.
“Mr. Craig!” he called out—“Mr. Craig!”