"I'll admit that my impression at the time was that they were acquainted," he averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can't bank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'After you,' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge the courtesy with the nod and the smile--any well-bred woman would. But you can take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that they had met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or in hotels; that there was at least recognition on both sides." Broffin was nodding slowly. It was not often that he made a confidant of a witness, even in the smaller details of a case, but he evidently considered the helpful teller an exception. "I've been working around to that notion myself, by the smalls, as the cat eat the grind-rock," he said. "I said to myself, Would he, with the big pull-off still trembling on the edge--would he have held back for a woman he didn't know? And if he _did_ know her, it would be a good, chunky reason why he shouldn't crowd in and take his turn: he'd _have_ to make good or lose whatever little ante he'd been putting up in the sociable game. Now one other little thing: you counted him out the single thousand in small bills first, you said: then what happened?" "Then I went to the vault." "And when you came back, the young woman was gone?" "Oh, yes; she went while Mr. Galbraith was handing me his check." "She left before you started for the vault?" "Yes." "You didn't notice whether she said 'Good-by' or 'Thank you,' or anything like that, I reckon?" "No." "But she might have, and you not see it?" "Yes; she might have." "All right; then we'll go on," Broffin continued, and the time having arrived for the putting of the second critical question, he planted it fairly. "You opened the wicket and passed the money out to the hold-up. He took it and backed to the door--this nearest door. Mr. Galbraith tells me he gave the alarm as quick as he could draw his breath. How much time did the fellow have before somebody went after him?" Johnson's answer was gratifyingly prompt. "You might say, no time at all. There were a number of people in the bank--perhaps a dozen or more--standing around waiting their turns at the different wickets. I should say that every single one of them made a rush for the doors, and I remember thinking at the time that the fellow couldn't possibly get away." "Yet he did get away; made his drop-out so neatly that none of the rushers got to the doors soon enough to catch a sight of him?" "That is the curious fact. Not a man of them saw him. They all told the same story. The sidewalk wasn't crowded at the time: we are on the sunny side of the street, and as you see now, the crowd is on the other side in the shade. Yet the fellow had vanished before the nimblest one of them got to the doors."