midday
he shouted , but the Lieutenant had already disappeared . Quick as thought the cashier darted into the passage , and without waiting to unfasten the low door which separated the public and private rooms of the bank , leaped over it , and , bareheaded , gave chase . A British naval officer in uniform , rapidly overtaking a young woman , quite unconscious of his approach , followed by an excited , bareheaded man with a revolver in his grasp , was a sight which would quickly have collected a crowd almost anywhere , but it happened to be the lunch hour , and the inhabitants of that famous summer resort were in-doors ; thus , fortunately , the street was deserted . The naval officer was there because the hour of the midday meal on board the cruiser did not coincide with lunch time on shore . The girl was there because it happened to be the only portion of the day when she could withdraw unobserved from the house in which she lived , during banking hours , to try her little agitating financial experiment . The cashier was there because the bank had no lunch hour , and because he had just witnessed the most suspicious circumstance that his constantly alert eye had ever beheld . Calm and imperturbable as a bank cashier may appear to the outside public , he is a man under constant strain during business hours .