Straight toward the cashier’s desk she went, and in his hands placed the satchel. His eyes smiled briefly into hers.
“Got back pretty quick this morning, Miss Robinson.”
She forced a smile. “Yes. Not much crowd at the bank. I did get back in a hurry.”
The bit of dialogue pleased her. The cashier had noticed specifically that her absence from the store had been of briefer duration than usual. He would remember that when the detectives made inquiry.
She seated herself at her typewriter. Beside her, on the battered oak desk, she placed the innocuous-appearing brown paper package, the package containing one hundred thousand dollars. She was horribly nervous, but apparently no one noticed anything unusual in her manner. The wall clock indicated the hour of 10:30. From then until noon she must work.
It was difficult. Her thoughts were focused upon the money before her. Once a clerk stopped by her desk to chat and his hand rested idly upon the package of money. She felt as though she must scream. But he moved away eventually. She breathed more easily.
At five minutes after noon she left the office for her lunch. With her went the package of money. She made her way to the City Trust and Savings Company, an imposing edifice of white marble nearly opposite the Third National. She entered the building and descended the broad stairway to the safety-deposit vaults, noticing with relief that there was an unusually large crowd there. She extended her key to the ancient man in charge.
“Two-thirty-five, please. Mrs. Harriet Dare.”
Mrs. Dare, now dead, had been Phyllis’ sister. Phyllis had access to the box. Too, she maintained in this bank a box in her own name, so that should official investigation progress to the point of examining the safety-deposit box of Phyllis Robinson, nothing to excite suspicion would be found. That was one of the strongest links in the safety chain that Cliff Wallace had welded.
The man in charge ran through his index and handed her a card to sign. Her hand trembled as she wrote her name: Phyllis Robinson. The old man took her key and his, unlocked the box and left her. There were a number of persons in the vault: One pompous gentleman ostentatiously clipping coupons from Liberty Bonds10 of fifty-dollar denomination; an old lady who had already locked her box and was struggling vainly to assure herself that it was thoroughly locked; a fair-haired clerk from a broker’s office assuming the businesslike airs of his employer; a half dozen others, each reassuringly absorbed in his own business. Phyllis took her box—it was a large one—and carried it into one of the private booths which stood just outside the vault door.
She placed the tin box and her package side by side on the mahogany shelf. A quick survey of the place assured her that she was not observed. She wondered vaguely why she was not. It seemed as though someone must know. But apparently no one did. Swiftly she transferred the hundred thousand dollars to the strong box. She was amazed to find herself computing financial possibilities when all the while she was frightened. It was an amount to yield seven thousand dollars a year carefully invested.11 Two persons could live comfortably on seven thousand dollars a year. And that meant every year—there’d be no diminution of principal. Nearly one hundred and fifty dollars a week. Every comfort and many luxuries assured. Freedom. Independence. Fear.
She returned the box to its compartment and emerged upon the street again. With the money put safely away a load had lifted from her shoulders. She felt a sense of enormous relief. The danger mark had been passed, the scheme appeared to have justified itself. But now her nerves were jangling as they had not been before. She was frightened, not so much for what the immediate future might hold as by the experience through which she had just passed. No longer was she keyed up by action. Retrospection left her weak and afraid. She knew that she couldn’t do it again; marveled at the fact that she had committed this act at all.
She ate a tiny meal at the dairy lunch which she patronized regularly. At 12:40 she returned to the office, where she threw herself into the grind of routine work, seeking forgetfulness and ease for her jangling nerves. But her thoughts were not on the letters she typed; they were at the bank with Clifford Wallace, chief paying teller.
Meanwhile Cliff’s inscrutable, rather hard face gave no indication of the seethe within him. He did his work with mechanical precision, counting large sums of money with incredible speed, checking and rechecking his payments, attending to his routine work with the deftness and accuracy that had won him this post.
There was in his manner no slightest indication that he had just engineered the theft of one hundred thousand dollars in currency. Never friendly at best, he was perhaps this day a trifle more reserved than usual; but even had his fellow workers noticed the fact they would have ascribed it to the abnormal pressure of work. It was seldom that three big pay rolls became due at one time. And the handling of such huge sums of money is likely to cause temporary irascibility in even the most genial of men.
The hour hand of the big clock on the marble wall crept to the figure two. A gong sounded. Immediately work was suspended at the long rows of windows. Then the little barred doors were dropped, the patrons of the bank drifted out gradually, and the bedlam of a busy day was succeeded by the drone of after-hours work—the clackety-clack of adding machines, the rustle of checks, the slamming of books, the clink of silver and gold.
Pencil in hand, Cliff Wallace checked over the money in his vault. Paying Tellers Numbers Two, Three and Four made their reports first. Then Wallace gave his attention to his own cash. The door of his cage was open, so that the cages of the four paying tellers were temporarily en suite. Behind Wallace’s back the door of the cash vault gaped. The vault itself was part of his cage, its contents Wallace’s responsibility. He worked swiftly and expertly. And then, a few minutes before 4:30 o’clock, he presented himself before Robert Warren, president of the Third National. He was nervous and ill-at-ease. In his left hand he held a paper covered with figures. His face was expressionless, unless one was sufficiently keen to observe the hunted, haunted look in his cold blue eyes. Here was the crisis. He pulled up a chair and seated himself, after having first closed the door of the president’s office.
“Mr. Warren”—his voice was steady and incisive, giving no hint of the emotional strain under which he labored—“I have just checked over the cash. I am precisely one hundred thousand dollars short.”
The president’s swivel chair creaked. The gentleman strangled on a puff of cigar smoke. His big, spatulate hands came down on the polished mahogany desk surface with a thump. His eyes widened.
“You—you are what?”
“My cash is one hundred thousand dollars short.”
The statement appeared to have difficulty in penetrating.
“My dear Mr. Wallace—that is impossible! An exact amount?”
Cliff was more at ease. It was a scene he had rehearsed a hundred times, and it was developing just as anticipated.
“I realize the impossibility, sir. But it is nevertheless a fact.”
Robert Warren’s face hardened slightly. He regarded his chief paying teller with a critical, speculative glance. Wallace returned look for look. The president spoke:
“Please explain yourself, Mr. Wallace. Am I listening to a statement or a confession?”
“A statement, sir.”
“H’m!” Warren was himself again. Only superficially was the man genial. He had cultivated geniality as a business asset. Basically he was utterly emotionless. He realized that the thing to which he gave ear was of vital import, and as that realization hammered home, his demeanor became intransigently frigid. “H’m! A statement?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your cash is—er—an even one hundred thousand dollars short?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How does that happen?”
“I’m trying to find out myself.”
“You are quite sure?”
“Ce
rtainly, sir. I would not have come to you had I not been sure.”
Silence. Again that clash of eyes. “This puts you in an exceedingly awkward position, Mr. Wallace. Personally.”
“I understand that, sir.”
“One hundred thousand dollars is a great deal of money.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The responsibility is absolutely and exclusively yours.”
“I realize that.”
“Its loss cannot but be due to carelessness on your part.”
“That is probably true.”
“Probably?”
“Yes, sir. I am not certain about any phase of this—this—unfortunate situation.”
Warren lighted another cigar. “Of course the bank will not lose. You are bonded. I must notify the bonding company immediately.”
“Of course.”
The younger man’s poise seemed to get on the nerves of the bank president. For once in his life he had come into contact with a man more unemotional than himself. His fist pounded the desk suddenly.
“Damn it! Wallace, what does it all mean?”
“That that amount of money has disappeared, sir.”
“One hundred thousand even?”
“To the dollar.”
“When did you notice the loss?”
“Just a few minutes ago, sir—when I checked over the cash.”
“You rechecked?”
“Twice.”
“Have you been alone in your cage all day?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“You only believe?”
“I can’t make a too positive statement. The cages of the other paying tellers open into mine. Almost every day the door between my cage and theirs is open for a little while. It is possible that that was the case at certain times today.”
“You are not positive?”
“No, sir.”
“But you believe that the door was open—in the regular course of the day’s work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you believe that one of your assistants took that money?”
Wallace’s face twitched, ever so slightly. “No, sir.”
“No?”
“Even if my door had been open, Mr. Warren, I don’t believe they would have had a chance to take that much money.”
“But—but, Wallace—there are only four men in this bank who could have taken it—provided it was taken; yourself and your three assistant paying tellers.”
“I realize that.”
“And you say that you don’t believe they could?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m! Do you realize the inevitable conclusion?”
“That if they didn’t, I did?”
“Exactly.”
“Yes, sir, I realize that.”
“Yet you say that you did not.”
“Of course.”
Robert Warren showed a flash of irritation. “You seem damned unexcited.”
“I don’t believe this is any time for me to become excited, sir.”
Robert Warren rose. “Come with me, young man. We’ll lock the doors of the bank and check every cent of cash we have. There must be some mistake.”
“I sincerely hope so, sir.”
A careful check-up showed plainly that there was no mistake. One hundred thousand dollars had disappeared from the bank during the course of the day’s business. It was gone. The three assistant paying tellers were nervous and excited. The cashier, a nervous, wiry little man, rushed around the bank like a chicken suddenly bereft of its head. The bank’s private detective, a portly, unimaginative individual, strutted around the empty lobby trying to look important and succeeding not at all. He believed it incumbent upon him to detect something or somebody, felt that the weight of the world suddenly had descended upon his shoulders. But his brain worked in a single unfortunate channel. His attempts at deduction led invariably into the cul-de-sac of “It just couldn’t happen.”
That was the reaction expressed by every bank employe who knew what had occurred. The thing was impossible. The paying tellers, who had worked in team preparing for the rush of the day, were all reasonably certain that the cash had been correct at the beginning of the day—as certain as they were that it was not now correct. Through it all Clifford Wallace worked with them. Tiny lines of worry corrugated his forehead. And when, at seven o’clock, it became evident that the money was positively gone and had disappeared probably during the course of the day’s business, the president, the cashier and Clifford Wallace retired to Warren’s office. The president and cashier were smoking. Cliff declined their proffered cigar.
“I never smoke, you know.”
“The point now is,” spoke Warren, checking off that particular point on his thumb, “that the money has disappeared and we must do something. The question is, what?” He turned his gaze upon Wallace. Cliff met the stare steadily and answered in a matter-of-fact voice:
“The obvious thing is to place me under arrest, Mr. Warren.”
“Obvious, of course.”
“But Mr. Warren”—it was the nervous little cashier—“you don’t believe Cliff stole that money, do you?”
“Certainly not, Mr. Jenkins. Of course I don’t. And equally of course I am not going to have Mr. Wallace placed under arrest.”
A flicker of triumph crossed Clifford Wallace’s face, to be followed instantly by his habitual stoniness of expression.
“I am perfectly willing, Mr. Warren—”
“It isn’t a case of willingness, Wallace. If I thought for a moment you were guilty—or even could be guilty—I wouldn’t hesitate. Not if you were my brother. But the thing is impossible. You’ve been negligent—probably; I’m not even sure of that. I understand banks well enough to know that a certain laxity of routine is naturally and excusably developed. It is my personal opinion that the money did not disappear from the bank. It either never was here or it is still here.”
“Yes, sir.” Cliff was calmly attentive.
“I am going to search every employe12 as he or she leaves the bank. That will insure its remaining here tonight. By tomorrow morning the bonding-company detectives and the representatives of the Bankers’ Protective Association will be here. Whatever action they care to take, Wallace, will be strictly up to them. Personally, I wish to take occasion to assure you of my confidence in your integrity and to express the belief that this is an explainable mistake of some sort, which will be set right tomorrow.”
“And you are not even going to keep me under surveillance tonight?”
“No.”
“Pardon me, sir, but I believe you are making a mistake. You will be criticized—”
“They can criticize and be damned to them.”
Wallace returned to his cage, where he busied himself arranging the shelves for the following morning. Then quite as usual he closed his vault doors, set the time lock, visited the washroom, and left the building after undergoing a thorough search. Once outside, his shoulders went back unconsciously. He knew that he had won. The very simplicity of his crime had caused it to be crowned with success.
But he did not allow his elation to strangle caution. Every move in the game had been thought out meticulously in advance. He did not deviate a hair’s breadth from his regular evening routine. He went to a cafeteria and ate a hearty meal, although the food almost choked him. At the desk he telephoned Phyllis Robinson.
“May I come to see you this evening, Phyllis?” He did that four or five evenings a week; they were secretly engaged.
“Yes.”
There was a distinct nuance of tremulous inquiry in her voice. It annoyed Clifford. They had threshed out every detail of this sort. She must keep a stiff upper lip, had promised not to betray any untoward interest in his comings and goings immediately following the robbery
. But that was just like a woman, making plain in the tone of her voice the vast relief she felt at knowing that he was free. Wallace didn’t like that. It was an indication of weakness, and weakness had no place in his elaborate scheme. Besides, he knew well that Robert Warren was no fool, realized that for all Warren’s protestations of belief in his integrity, the bank president already had a detective shadowing him. He had anticipated that and a good deal more. He had expected to spend this night in jail, and perhaps several others. Certainly under observation. This freedom caused elation, but brought about no lessening of caution.
At 7:45 he presented himself at the garage where he kept his modest little roadster, filled the tank with gas and drove down the street. This was a nightly ritual. Straight to the home of Phyllis Robinson he went; it was a rambling two-story structure set well back of a high-terraced front yard, its wide veranda blanketed cozily with honeysuckle—a modest place, one which had seen decidedly better days. Phyllis, an orphan, lived there with an aunt. The place was a boarding house. All very discreet and proper.
She greeted him in the hallway. He was irritated by the patent effort of her casualness. He directed their conversation, they chatted about innocuous nothings until they were safely out of the house and in his little car, headed into the country. This, too, was a not uncommon procedure. Cliff was well satisfied with himself. The most suspicious watcher could have found no food for speculation this night. His actions had been the normal actions of an innocent man. He was acting just as he would have acted had he been innocent of the theft of one hundred thousand dollars.
They mounted a gentle acclivity. The broad smooth highway dipped from the crest through a small woods. Overhead the full moon shone benignly over the valley, behind them the city, ringed about by furnaces and steel mills, gems of fire in the setting of silvered night. A red glow in the sky. The man at the steering wheel, calm and self-possessed, eyes focused on the ribbon of road ahead, thoughts busy with the epochal events of the day. Nor did he mention the subject uppermost in his mind until the girl spoke, spoke with a quaver in her voice as her hand closed tremulously about his.
Jim Hanvey, Detective Page 2