"What have your own detectives--those you hired on the side--to say about it?" I countered on him, and saw instantly that the Whipple end of the crowd hadn't known of Dykeman's spotters and trailers. "Well, why not?" Dykeman shrilled. "Why not? Who wouldn't shadow that crook? One hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars! Worked us like suckers--come-ons--!" he choked up and began to cough. Cummings came in where he left off. "See here, Boyne; we don't want to antagonize you. You've said from the first that this crime was a conspiracy--a big thing--directed by brains on the outside. Clayte was the tool. Whose tool was he? That's what we want to know." And Anson trundled along, "These men who have been in the war get a contempt for law, there's no doubt about it. Captain Gilbert might--" "No names!" Whipple's hand went up in protest. "No accusations, gentlemen, please; Mr. Boyne--this is a dreadful thing. But, really, Captain Gilbert's manner was very strange. I might say he--" "Swaggered," supplied Cummings coolly as the president's voice lapsed. "Well," Whipple accepted it, "he swaggered in and put it all over us. There he was, a man fresh from the deathbed of a suicide father; that father's funeral yet to occur. I, personally, hadn't the heart to question him or raise objections. I was dazed." "Dazed," Dykeman snapped up the word and worried it, as a dog worries a bone. "Of course, we were all dazed. It was so open, so shameless--that's why he got by with it. Making use of his position as heir, less than forty eight hours after his father was shot." "After his father shot himself," Whipple's lowered tone was a plea. "After his father shot himself." "Huh!" snorted Dykeman. "If a man shoots himself, he's been shot, hasn't he? Hell! What's the use of whipping the devil round the stump that way? Boyne, you can stand with us, or you can fight us." "Boyne's with us--of course he's with us," Whipple broke in, his words a good deal more confident than his tone or the look of his face. "Well, then," Dykeman ground out, "when our thief of a teller splits that one hundred and eighty seven thousand with his man Gilbert--shut up, Whipple--shut up! You can't stop me--we're going to know about it. We'll get them both then, and send them across. And we'll recover one hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars that belongs to the Van Ness Avenue bank." "_Good_ night!" I got to my feet. "This lets me out. I can't deal with men who make a scrap of paper of their contracts as quick as you gentlemen do." "Stop, Boyne--you haven't got it all," Dykeman ordered me. "Yes, wait, Mr. Boyne," Whipple came in. "You haven't a full understanding of the enormity of this young man's action. Mr. Cummings has something to tell you which, I think, will--"