“There is to be an important meeting of the Directors today, and some of the gentlemen are already coming in. Mr. Sylvester is not accustomed to keep us waiting.”
“I don’t know, I am sure,” returned Bertram, remembering with an accession of uneasiness, the abruptness with which his uncle had left the entertainment the evening before.
“Shall I telegraph to the house?”
“No, that is not necessary. Besides Folger says he passed him on Broadway this morning.”
“Going down street with a valise in his hand,” that gentlemen quietly put in. Folger was the teller. “He was looking very pale and didn’t see me when I nodded.”
“What time was that?” asked Bertram.
“About twelve; when I went out to lunch.”
A quick gasp sounded at their side, followed by a hurried cough. Turning, Bertram encountered for the fifth time the eyes of Hopgood. He had entered unperceived by the small door that separated the inner enclosure from the outer, and was now standing very close to them, eying with sidelong looks the safe at their back, the faces of the gentleman speaking, yes, and even the countenances of the clerks, as they bent busily over their books.
“Did you ring, sir?” asked he, catching Bertram’s look of displeasure.
“No.”
The man seemed to feel the rebuke implied in this short response, and ambled softly away. But in another moment he was stopped by Bertram.