For an instant the situation was exceedingly tense. Hampstead was a very strong man, and his resentment at what seemed an insult put upon him with malice, was very hot. But good sense triumphed in the interval of thought which the officers diplomatically allowed.
"Oh, of course," he exclaimed with a gesture of submission, "you men are only cogs. Once the machinery of the law is put in motion, you must turn with the other wheels. Pardon my irritation, gentlemen, but the situation is unusual for me and rather hard. I feel the injustice and indignity of it very keenly."
"We appreciate your situation perfectly," said Assistant District Attorney Searle smoothly. "As you say, we are all of us cogs."
Yet the actual search of his person, once entered on, seemed to Hampstead to proceed rather perfunctorily, although at the same time he got from the faces and manner of all four an impression of something they were holding in reserve.
"What is this?" asked one of the detectives dramatically, holding up a long, narrow key with a red rubber band doubled and looped about the neck, which he had just extracted from the minister's pocket.
"That is the key to my safe deposit box at the Amalgamated National," replied Hampstead, naturally enough.
"Then," said Wyatt bluntly, "we've got to search that box."
The minister was instantly on his guard.
Some play of eyes between the four men, accompanied by a subtle change in the expression of their faces, warned him that they must have been apprised of the existence of this box and that the key was the real object of their personal search. Hampstead resolved hastily to defeat them.
"I decline to permit it," he declared shortly. "There
