There is your chance, Curtin. You know it is less than a ten-foot drop from that open window to the sidewalk. Once out there, you are safe enough. It will hardly be worth while trying to prove anything against you in a court of law; all you are afraid of is John Bagsbury. If you will be quick, he will not be able to get his hands on you again. He thought of all that. If he could have had one good drink of whiskey, he would have tried it; but as it was, he only took a hesitating step toward the window, and Dick saw. “Be careful, Jack!” she said. He turned quickly about and understood. “Do you feel that breeze too much, Mr. Curtin? Don’t move. I’ll close the window.” When he had closed and locked it, Dick was gone. “Thank you,” said Curtin. The narrowness of his escape from such a blunder made Jack uncomfortable, but exceedingly alert. He sat in John’s chair, and for what seemed to him half the morning his eyes at least never wandered from the man on the sofa. It was really a little less than half an hour before John Bagsbury came back into the room. He was still only the Banker, quick of speech and placid of mind. “Now, I’m ready to talk with you, Mr. Curtin. No--don’t go, Dorlin. We have arranged for what currency we need for the present, and there’ll be some experts here in a few minutes now, to see if they can do anything with the vaults.” “Are they going to run us again to-day?” asked Jack. “I don’t think so,” said the Banker, smiling. “Those people we saw were bringing their money back. They didn’t want it for more than one night.” He turned to Curtin. “Mr. Sponley is doing a good morning’s work,” he said. “He’s on the floor himself, and from the way it looks now he will beat Pickering inside of two hours. If he does that, of course they may run us again.” The Banker looked thoughtfully out of the window for a moment, then he continued: “You have done a good many questionable things, Mr. Curtin, since you came here six months ago, and you have done one or two things in the last day or two that are unquestionable. I am inclined to think that I can have you committed to prison for a considerable term of years. I think there is enough in what you told Hauxton Tuesday afternoon, and in your manipulating the time-locks yesterday, to accomplish that. But I’m not sure that I want to. I should gain nothing, not even the personal satisfaction for an injury. You’ve been acting on instructions, I suppose. I have still another hand to play with the man who gave you those instructions.” “He’ll beat you,” said Curtin, sullenly. “And I want you to act in my interest while I play it,” John went on evenly. “That course can’t be less to your advantage than the one you’ve been following. I want you now to answer some questions. When will those vaults come open?” “I don’t--” “The truth!” thundered John, moving forward, and Curtin went white. “Tell me the truth, Mr. Curtin.” “At twelve o’clock.”