The young vice-president left the detective captain, Manager Wade, the haggard old Somers, and two great lawyers, and drew Witherspoon away into Randall Clayton's deserted rooms.
"Where did you drop from?" curtly demanded Ferris. "I've been some months in Europe," simply said Witherspoon, now wearing the oily mask of his profession. "I arrived on the 'Fuerst Bismarck' to-day, and was going to take to-night's train West. But some fellows of my college 'frat' had fixed up a 'surprise banquet' for me at the Hoffman.
"So, after all they had to tell me to hold me over, I was just opening my accumulated mail, when by accident I picked up an extra. I thought poor Clayton was away on a summer vacation."
"He's away on a devilish long one!" snarled Ferris. "Took French leave with a quarter of a million. Who, in God's name, would have taken him for a thief!" The mournful ring of Ferris' voice almost deceived his secret adversary; but Ferris was, in secret, pondering over the Detroit dispatch to the absent Clayton, which he had opened and secreted.
"This man knows nothing," decided the wary Ferris, for Witherspoon's face was frankness itself.
Jack looked around at two men vigorously working away at a huge safe standing in the corner. "They're now opening Clayton's safe," bitterly said Ferris. "Of course, there will be nothing found there. No! It's either a case of secret gambling, mad Wall Street plunging, or a crazy woman intrigue."
"What do the detectives say?" soberly queried the Detroit lawyer. "Case of sharp thief, got three days' start of us by clearing out Saturday at eleven. I've suspended that old fool, Somers, for trusting such a deposit to one man alone! It's a crushing disgrace to the New York management. I shall sweep it all away as soon as I can get Hugh's orders. I'll take charge myself, now!
"I suppose you go on to Detroit at once. We are readjusting our whole freight schedules!"
"Yes," gravely said Witherspoon, "unless I can help you here. I'll telegraph my people at once. Will you telegraph Hugh and see if he might need me here? I suppose he will come on at once."
"I can hardly say," replied Ferris, caught off his guard. "He was to have met Clayton to-day, in Cheyenne!"