CHAPTER XXIII

ON A NEW TRACK

With a quick motion Larry ripped the end off the envelope. A glance gave him the contents of the message. It was from his city editor, Mr. Ember, and read:

“Come back at once. Another bank clerk has skipped. He may be the real one.”

“Another clerk disappeared!” exclaimed Larry. “Say, this is getting to be worse than the fifteen puzzle. First Witherby drops out of sight, and, after a long chase, I find him, but he isn’t the one wanted. And I believe he told the truth, for everything he said fitted in. Now here’s another one gone. I wonder who he is, and what it means?”

But Larry knew he had no time for idle speculation. He hurriedly packed his valise, and caught the first train he could for New York. Before he left, however, he received a visit from the theatrical manager who had engaged Witherby. The manager confirmed all that the former bank clerk had said.

On his way to the metropolis Larry thought of many things. Among them was the possibility that, after all, Witherby might be the guilty one, in spite of what the manager had said.

“But what could I do?” asked Larry. “I had no proof, and I could not have him held. He could have walked out of the police station, as far as the theft charge was concerned. And by Jove! I’ve wired for Mr. Bentfield to come on to Chicago! I wonder if I can stop him from making a useless trip?”

It was a slim chance, but Larry took it. At the first place his train stopped he sent a message to the bank president, apprising him of the change in the situation, and telling him not to come on west. Fortunately, Mr. Bentfield had not started yet, in response to Larry’s first telegram, so the second one caught him, and he remained in New York.

“Well, who is missing now?” asked Larry, of the bank president on his arrival in the metropolis, after his trip from Chicago.

“One whom we least suspected,” replied the president. “One of our oldest and most trusted clerks, one who led a highly moral life, and was well up in church work. It is a great shock to all of us, for there is little doubt now but that he is the thief.”

“We thought Witherby was,” spoke Larry, with a smile, “but we were mistaken.”

“There can be no doubt in this case,” went on the bank president.

“Why not?”

“Because he left a note, confessing to the theft, before he went away.”

“Left a note!” cried Larry. “Where is it? Has the story come out? Did the _Leader_ get it?”

“No, but you will soon have it. I arranged with Mr. Emberg, in consideration of what you have done for us, to keep the matter of this clerk’s disappearance quiet, until you returned. You are to have the exclusive story, and----”

“And then I’m going to get on this new trail!” cried Larry. “I made a fizzle of the other one, but I won’t in this case. Where is the note? Who is the confessed thief?”

“Harry Norton, our chief clerk,” was the sorrowful answer of the president. “I would have trusted him as I would my own son, but the temptation was too much for him. Here is the note I found on my desk the other morning. That day Norton did not appear for work, and he has disappeared.”

He handed over a single sheet of paper. Larry read:

“Please have suspicions removed from all others. I alone am guilty. I took the million dollars, and hid the empty valise. I am going far away, so there is no use of pursuing me. I have the million--what is left of it--with me. I write this, so that no one else may be unjustly suspected, as I fear is now the case.”

It was signed with Norton’s name.

“What do you think of that?” asked the bank president.

“Well, it looks genuine,” admitted Larry, “especially as you say he has disappeared. But I am not so sure about what he says here, that pursuit is useless.”

“Do you think there is a hope of catching him?” asked the president eagerly.

“I’m going to make a big try,” replied Larry. “We have several things in our favor. I’m going to get right on this case, but first the story must go to my paper.”

“Certainly,” agreed Mr. Bentfield, and Larry hurried in, to write what proved to be another big “beat” in the bank mystery case. All the other papers were scooped.

“And now to get after Mr. Norton!” exclaimed Larry to his city editor, as the young reporter closed his desk on his typewriter.

“Have you any plan, Larry?”

“Not much of one. In the first place, I’m going out to Norton’s house, and see what I can learn. I want to get there before the other reporters over-run the place.”

Harry Norton lived in a modest, though well-built, house on Staten Island. He was a bachelor, and an aged sister kept house for him. As Larry was on his way to the home of the missing clerk, he went over the details of the robbery. He realized that Norton, as well as Witherby, had been in a position to take the valise filled with money, and substitute another filled with bricks for it. Though just how the exchange was made was not yet clear to him.

The first thing Larry noticed, on reaching the house, was a little pile of bricks in a side yard. He knew them at once as the same kind that had been in the valise. They were some left, of a quantity that had been used to repair a fireplace in the clerk’s home, he learned later.

“So here is where Norton got them,” he reasoned. “He could pick them up at his leisure, and no one would be any the wiser. He could bring them to the bank in a valise any time. So far so good!”

Larry found the aged sister in tears, for already she had heard of her brother’s disgrace. At first she would have nothing to say to the young reporter, but he finally prevailed on her to talk.

She could say little of consequence, however, and Larry was sure she knew nothing of her brother’s whereabouts.

On his way out of the house the young reporter saw something lying on a hall table. He picked it up, shoved it quickly into his pocket, and hurried away.

“I rather think, unless I get fooled again, that this will help me find the man with the million,” mused Larry.

As he passed down a side street he saw Peter Manton, his rival, going up to the house.

“Too late again!” said Larry to himself, with a smile.