When Egypt Went Broke, Holman Day [free ereaders .txt] 📗

was intending to have a little play of my own with you at the hall to-night. I was going to look right past that Durgin boy, straight down into your eyes, when I came to a certain place in the play. I was intending to let the folks of Egypt know something, providing they all don't know it by now. This is what I have to say, and now I'm saying it to the only audience I care for:
"'Twere vain to tell thee all I feel,
Or say for thee I'd die.
Ah, well-a-day, the sweetest melody
Could never, never say one half my love for thee."
Then, after a moment, she escaped from his ardent embrace.
"Remember that, dearest," she called from the doorway.
"I'll remember it every time I start with a line of figures, you blessed girl. And then how my pencil will go dancing up the column!"
After she had gone he pulled the curtain cords, raising the curtains so that they covered the lower sashes; he did not care to be seen at his work by the folks who were on their way to the hall.
Squire Hexter, escorting Xoa, took the trouble to step to the window and tap lightly with his cane. He was hoping that the cashier would change his mind and go to the hall. He waited after tapping but Vaniman did not appear at the window. The Squire did not venture to tap again. "He must be pretty well taken up with his work," he suggested to Xoa when they were on their way. "That's where we get the saying, 'Deaf as an adder.'"
Oblivious to all sounds, bent over his task, Vaniman gave to the exasperating puzzle all the concentration he could muster.
The play that evening at Town Hall dragged after the fashion of amateur shows. The management of the sets and the properties consumed much time. There were mishaps. One of these accidents had to do with the most ambitious scene of the piece, a real brook--the main feature of the final, grand tableau when folks were trying to keep awake at eleven o'clock. The brook came babbling down over rocks and was conveyed off-stage by means of a V-shaped spout. There was much merriment when the audience discovered that the brook could be heard running uphill behind the scenes; two hobble-de-hoy boys were dipping the water with pails from the washboiler at the end of the sluice and lugging it upstairs, where they dumped it into the brook's fount. The brook's peripatetic qualities were emphasized when both boys fell off the top of the makeshift stairs and came down over the rocks, pails and all. Then there was hilarity which fairly rocked the hall.
For some moments another sound--a sound which did not harmonize with the laughter--was disregarded by the audience.
All at once the folks realized that a man was squalling discordantly--his shrieks almost as shrill as a frightened porker's squeals. Heads were snapped around. Eyes saw Dorsey, the municipal watchman, almost the only man of the village of Egypt who was not of the evening's audience in Town Hall. He was standing on a settee at the extreme rear of the auditorium. He was swinging his arms wildly; as wildly was he shouting. He noted that he had secured their attention.
"How in damnation can you laugh" he screamed. "The bank has been robbed and the cashier murdered!"


CHAPTER XIV
A BANK TURNED INSIDE OUT
When the skeow-wowed "brook" twisted the drama into an anticlimax of comicality, the players who were on the stage escaped the deluge by fleeing into the wings.
Vona had been waiting for her cue to join the hero and pledge their vows beside the babbling stream. After one horrified gasp of amazement, she led off the hilarity back-stage. Frank was in her mind at that moment, as he had been all the evening; her zestful enjoyment of the affair was heightened by the thought that she could help him forget his troubles for a little while by the story she would carry to him. Then she and the others in the group heard the piercing squeals of a man's voice.
"Somebody has got hystierucks out of it, and I don't blame him," stated the manager of the show. He grabbed the handle of the winch and began to let down the curtain. "I reckon the only sensible thing to do is to let Brook Number One and Brook Number Two take the curtain call."
Then Dorsey's shrill insistence prevailed over the roars of laughter in front; the young folks on the stage heard his bloodcurdling bulletin.
The manager let slip the whirling handle and the pole of the hurrying curtain thumped the platform. Vona had leaped, risking her life, and was able to dodge under the descending pole. For a moment, sick with horror and unutterable woe, she stood there alone against the tawdry curtain, as wide-eyed and white-faced as Tragedy's muse.
Men, women, and children, all the folks of Egypt, were struggling to their feet; the sliding settees squawked and clattered.
She saw Tasper Britt, fighting a path for himself, Starr following. Britt's face, above his blackened beard, was yellow-pale.
Panic was piling the people at the narrow rear doors; the weight of those who were rushing forward wedged all the mass at the exits.
"Vona!" called the manager, pulling at the edge of the curtain to give her passage. "This way! The side door."
The summons helped to put away her faintness; her strength came back to her. Her goal was the bank! In the frenzy of her solicitude for her lover she took no thought of herself.
The others stopped to find their wraps. Vona ran down the street as she was, bareheaded, the ribbons of her stage finery fluttering. She was close behind the first arrivals at the open door of Britt Block. All the other portals were wide open, bank door and grille door. But the door of the vault was closed.
She thrust herself resolutely through the group of men and made a frenzied survey of the bank's interior. Her single quest was for Vaniman; he was nowhere in sight. The books of account were open on the desk, mute evidence for her that he had been interrupted suddenly.
She voiced demands in shrill tones, but the men had no information for her. She called his name wildly and there was no reply.
"I found the outside door open," said Dorsey, raucously hoarse. "I came in, and all was just as you see it."
"But you said that he--that Frank--" Vona pressed her hands against her throat; she could not voice the terrible announcement that Dorsey had made.
"Well, if it ain't that, what else is it?" insisted the watchman.
Then Tasper Britt arrived in the room, followed by the bank examiner; they entered, breathing heavily and running with the tread of Percherons.
"If it ain't murder and robbery, what is it, Mr. Britt?" Dorsey bawled, evidently feeling the authority was then on the scene and was demanding report and action.
"I don't know--I don't know!" the president quavered, staggering to the grille and clutching the wires with both hands in order to steady himself. He was palpably, unmistakably stricken with a fear that was overpowering him.
The outer office was filling; the corridor was being packed by the arriving throngs.
Examiner Starr took command of the situation. He noted the nickel badge on Dorsey's breast. "Officer, put every person except Mr. Britt out of this building!"
But Watchman Dorsey, though he commanded and pushed, was not able to make any impression.
"By my authority as bank examiner, I order this place cleared!" bellowed Mr. Starr. The folks of Egypt showed that they were greatly interested in the volume of voice possessed by "Foghorn Fremont," but they did not retreat. For that matter, the crowd in the room was thoroughly blocked at the door by the press in the corridor.
Starr's attention was wholly taken up by one individual for the next few minutes. Prophet Elias boldly advanced, after worming his way out of the throng; he pushed the examiner aside from the door of the grille and went into the inner inclosure. An intruder who was prosaically garbed would not have prevailed as easily as this bizarre individual with the deep-set eyes, assertive mien, and wearing a robe that put him out of the ordinary run of humanity. But Mr. Starr got back his voice and ordered the Prophet to walk out.
Elias turned slowly and faced Starr. The Prophet's feet were hidden by the robe and he came around with the effect of a window dummy revolving on a support. Starr bawled more furious demands.
But the Prophet did not lower his crest. "'Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.'"
Then the Prophet spatted his palm upon the legend on his breast and clacked a disdainful digit off the pivot of his thumb. Tasper Britt, even in his hottest ire, had been restrained in the past by some influence from laying violent hands on this peculiar personage. It was evident that Starr was controlled by a similar reluctance and that his forbearance was puzzling him. When the Prophet got down on his knees, Starr was silent; it looked as if this zealot intended to offer prayer--and the bank examiner did not care to earn the reputation of being a disturber of a religious gathering. But Elias doubled over and began to crawl around the room on his hands and knees, peering intently and cocking his ear and seeming to take much interest in his undertaking.
Until then, in the rush of events, in the haste of gathering at the scene of the tragedy, in the wild uncertainty as to what had happened, nobody had taken the time to study the details of the conditions in the bank inclosure.
Starr ordered Dorsey to stand in front of the grille door and keep out all persons. The examiner was obliged to urge Britt to unclasp his hands and follow him before the door was closed and locked against the crowd.
Vona had stumbled to a chair; she was staring about her, trying to control her horror and steady her mind so that she might comprehend what had happened. Under a stool she saw a crumpled coat; she leaped from her chair, secured it, and sat down again. It was Frank's office coat; both sleeves were ripped and the back breadths were torn. She held it forward in her shaking hands for the inspection of the bank examiner. But Mr. Starr was too intent on other matters to take heed of the pathetic proof of violence. He was particularly concerned with what he had found in one corner.
Literally, thousands of small metal disks were heaped and scattered there. Some of the disks had rolled to all parts of the room. The Prophet had been scraping up handfuls of them, inspecting them, and throwing them toward the corner where the main mass lay.
Starr picked up some of them. They were iron; each disk was perforated.
There were many canvas sacks near the heap of disks; the sacks were ripped and empty. Mr. Starr secured one of them. Its mouth was closed with the seal with which specie sacks are usually secured.
But Mr. Starr saw something else in the corner, an object at which he peered; the gloom made the results of his scrutiny uncertain. He stooped and picked up that object, making it the third of the trinity of exhibits. It was a large square of pasteboard, the backing of an advertising calendar. Starr carried it