The defendant refused to sell. Subsequently he reconsidered, and they took over his stock, excepting five shares which he retained for obvious reasons, and he was paid in cash forty-four thousand dollars for the remaining forty shares. Mr. Stevens already had purchased, at a much higher price, the fifteen shares belonging to James Hildebrand, Jr. The defendant was to retain the position of secretary and treasurer at a fixed salary of six thousand dollars a year. In brief--although the district attorney was a long time in getting it all out of Mr. Stevens--it was not until 1908 that the bomb burst and the company awoke to the fact that its treasury was being, or to put it exactly, had been systematically robbed of a great many thousands of dollars. Experts were secretly put to work on the books and after several weeks they reported that at one time the total shortage had reached a figure in excess of ninety-five thousand dollars, but that this amount had been reduced by the restoration of approximately fifty thousand dollars during a period covering the eleven months immediately preceding the investigation. It was established beyond all question that the clerks and bookkeepers in the office were absolutely guiltless, and, to the profound distress of the directors, the detectives employed on the case declared in no uncertain terms that there was but one man who could explain the shortage. That man was the former president of this old and reliable concern, James W. Hildebrand. To avoid a scandal and also to spare if possible the man they all loved and respected, Mr. Stevens was authorised by the other directors to effect a compromise of some sort whereby the company might regain at least a portion of the funds on the promise not to prosecute. The defendant, however, had got wind of the discovery, and, to the utter dismay of his friends, fled like a thief in the night. Mr. Stevens did not have the chance to see him. The defalcation was not made public for several weeks. An effort was made to get in touch with the fugitive, in the hope that he could be induced to return without being subjected to open disgrace, but he had vanished so completely that at first it was feared he had made way with himself. He was at the time a widower, his wife having died many years before. His son James was the only child of that marriage, and he was living--or rather dying, in Colorado. Private detectives watched the home and the movements of the son for some weeks, hoping to obtain a clue to the old man's whereabouts.