And those other things, the empty bottle, the sheet of note
paper with its scrawled confession--what about them? He returned with a
queer sort of hesitant indecision to the desk. He had no right of course
to touch them unless--
He shook his head sharply, as he pulled open the middle drawer of the
desk.
"Newspapers--publicity--rotten!" he muttered savagely. "One chance in
ten, and--ah!"
From the back of the drawer where it had been tucked in under a mass of
papers, he had extracted a little bundle of documents that were held
together by an elastic band. He snapped off the band, and ran through
the papers rapidly. For the most part they were bonds and stock
certificates indorsed by their owners, and evidently had been held by
the bank as collateral for loans.
And then suddenly Jimmie Dale straightened up, tense and alert. He had
no desire, very far from any desire to be caught here, or to figure
publicly in any way in the case. The street door had opened and closed
again. Footsteps, those of three men, his acute, trained hearing told
him, sounded on the stairs. Again there came that queer, hesitant
indecision as he stood there, while his eyes travelled in swift
succession from the bank's securities in his hand to the note on the
desk, to the empty bottle on the floor, to the white, upturned face of
the silent form huddled against the couch.
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