"Do you suspect me because you saw me trying to open the safe day before yesterday?" asked George, still speaking very calmly.
"Why, Ackerman, any sane boy would be willing to acknowledge that that was a very suspicious circumstance," replied Walker.
"Didn't you assure me that the thing had been explained to your entire satisfaction? I tell you in Murray's presence, as I told you once before, that he handed me the key, gave me the combination and sat there on his high stool and watched me while I was at work on the safe. Murray is that so or not?"
The chief clerk's face was a sight to behold. He was white to the lips and trembling so violently in every limb that he was obliged to place his hand against the bulkhead for support. He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, but no words came forth.
"Why don't you deny it to him as you did to me?" demanded Walker, while both he and the captain looked at the chief clerk in astonishment.
"I am too angry to say anything," replied Murray.
George was thunderstruck. "Am I to understand that you deny it?" he cried, as soon as he could speak.
"I do, most emphatically," answered Murray, whose courage began to return to him as soon as he heard the sound of his own voice. "There's not a word of truth in it."
"Didn't you give me the key and tell me to see if I could open the safe?" repeated George, who wondered if he were awake or dreaming.
"I never did. People who handle money are not in the habit"--
He never finished the sentence. All of a sudden George's right arm shot out with the force of a thunderbolt, Murray's head came in violent contact with the door, splitting one of the panels, and Murray himself sank helplessly to the floor. The young pilot, who now began to have a very dim idea that he was the victim of a deeply laid plot, was thoroughly aroused, and he would have handled the schemer roughly indeed if the captain and Walker had not caught him in their arms and held him fast.
"What a desperate wretch he is," thought the second clerk, who did not know which to wonder at the more--the cool assurance of the guilty boy, or the power of the arm that had so quickly and easily made a "spread eagle" of his superior. "He looks as innocent as a lamb."
