“Think? we don’t think,” uttered Mr. Stuyvesant sharply. “He has been in the employ of the bank for twelve years, and we know him to be honest.”
“Yet he is the man who stole your bonds.”
“Impossible!”
“The very man.”
Mr. Sylvester stepped up to him. “Who are you, and how do you know this?”
“I have said my name is Cummins, and I know this, because I have wormed myself into the man’s confidence and have got the bonds, together with his confession, here in my pocket.” And he drew out the long lost bonds, which he handed to their owner, with a bit of paper on which was inscribed in the handwriting of the watchman, an acknowledgment to the effect that he, alone and unassisted, had perpetrated the robbery which had raised such scandal in the bank and led to the disappearance of Hopgood.
“And the man himself?” cried Bertram, when they had all read this. “Where is he?”
“Oh, I allowed him to escape.”
Mr. Sylvester frowned.
“There is something about this I don’t understand,” said he. “How came you to take such an interest in this matter; and why did you let the man escape after acknowledging his crime?”
With a quick, not undignified action, Cummins stepped back. “Gentlemen,” said he, “it is allowable in a detective in the course of his