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“That’s true, of course,” Mr. Whittier admitted; “but we are not sure that we are being underbid unfairly.”

“The Tuxedo Company have taken away three contracts from us in the past two months,” cried the junior partner; “we can be sure of that, can’t we?”

“We have lost three contracts, of course,” returned Mr. Whittier, in his most conciliatory manner, “and the Tuxedo people have captured them. But that may be only a coincidence, after all.”

“It is a pretty expensive coincidence for us,” snorted Mr. Wheatcroft.

“But because we have lost money,” the senior partner rejoined gently, laying his hand on Mr. Wheatcroft’s arm, “that’s no reason why we should also lose our heads. It is no reason why we should depart from our old custom of treating every man fairly. If there is any one in our employ here who is selling us, why, if we give him rope enough he will hang himself, sooner or later.”

“And before he suspends himself that way,” cried Mr. Wheatcroft, “we may be forced to suspend ourselves.”

“Come, come, Wheatcroft,” said the senior partner, “I think we can afford to stand the loss a little longer. What we can’t afford to do is to lose our self-respect by doing something irreparable. It may be that we shall have to employ detectives, but I don’t think the time has come yet.”

“Very well,” the junior partner declared, yielding an unwilling consent. “I don’t insist on it. I still think it would be best not to waste any more time–but I don’t insist. What will happen is that we shall lose the rolling of those steel rails for the Springfield and Athens road–that’s all.”

Paul Whittier had taken no part in this discussion. He agreed with his father, and saw he had no need to urge any further argument.

Presently he asked when they intended to put in the bid for the rails. His father then explained that they were expecting a special estimate from the engineers at the Ramapo Works, and that it probably would be Saturday before this could be discussed by the partners and the exact figures of the proposed contract determined.

“And if we don’t want to lose that contract for sure,” insisted Mr. Wheatcroft, “I think we had better change the combination on that safe.”

“May I suggest,” said Paul, “that it seems to me to be better to leave the combination as it is. What we want to do is not to get this Springfield and Athens contract so much as to find out whether some one really is getting at the letter-book. Therefore we mustn’t make it any harder for the some one to get at the letter-book.”

“Oh, very well,” Mr. Wheatcroft assented, a little ungraciously, “have it your own way. But I want you to understand now that I think you are only postponing the inevitable!”

And with that the subject was dropped. For several days the three men who were together for hours in the office of the Ramapo Iron and Steel Works refrained from any discussion of the question which was most prominent in their minds.

It was on Wednesday that the tall clock that Paul Whittier had broken returned from the repairer’s. Paul himself helped the men to set it in its old place in the corner of the office, facing the safe, which occupied the corner diagonally opposite.

It so chanced that Paul came down late on Thursday morning, and perhaps this was the reason that a pressure of delayed work kept him in the office that evening long after every one else. The clerks had all gone, even Major Van Zandt, always the last to leave–and the porter had come in twice before the son of the senior partner was ready to go for the night. The gas was lighted here and there in the long, narrow, deserted store, as Paul walked through it from the office to the street. Opposite, the swift twilight of a New York November had already settled down on the city.