An evening newspaper lay open on the table. Jimmie Dale's eyes fixed for
an instant on a glaring headline, then travelled slowly around the
little room--one of the St. James' Club's private writing rooms--and
came back to the paper again. The failure of that night, the Pippin's
death, the stir and publicity, the stimulus given to police activity,
had, it seemed, in no way acted as a deterrent upon the sinister
ingenuity which, he made no doubt, was likewise the author of the
mysterious crime that to-night was upon every tongue in the city--the
murder of one of New York's most prominent bankers under almost
incredible circumstances, and the coincident disappearance of a number
of documents which were vaguely hinted at as being of international
importance and of priceless worth. The crime had been committed in broad
daylight, in mid-afternoon, in the banker's private office, and within
call of the entire staff of the bank. No one had been seen either to
enter or leave the office during an interval of some fifteen to twenty
minutes, previous to which time it had been established by one of the
staff that the banker was engaged in his usual occupation at his desk,
and at the expiration of which he had been discovered by the cashier
lying dead upon the floor, his skull fractured by a blow that had
evidently been dealt him from behind, the desk in disorder as though it
had been hurriedly searched, and the papers, known to have been in the
banker's possession at that time, gone.
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