Nor did the weeks which followed alter the situation. Jamieson reported to the bank officials that in his opinion there had been no robbery. Burton concurred. They had arrived at the definite conclusion that the money had never reached the bank. In answer to Cliff’s statement that it had, they admitted that Cliff believed so—but was in error. Cliff refused to be convinced, and thus established more firmly than ever in their minds the fact that he was innocent of complicity in the crime. It was the theory of Jamieson and Burton that in securing the unusually large amount of cash from the District Federal Reserve Bank to meet the heavy pay rolls of that particular day, a miscount had been made at the sending source and the checking up at the Third National had been faulty. True, the accounts of the Federal Reserve Bank showed no surplus of one hundred thousand dollars, but both Jamieson and Burton were optimistic that it would eventually come to light.
Cliff Wallace knew that he had been successful. No hint of suspicion had fallen upon him. The worst that had been said against him was that he had been careless in counting the money as it came into his vaults. He was sorrowful about that—ostentatiously so, just as he would normally have exhibited grief at any suggestion of inefficiency. The bank officials did not blame him. Most of them had climbed the ladder slowly and they were familiar with the nagging routine of the paying teller’s cage, the inevitable liability to error. Undoubtedly, they thought, the money would appear eventually. It was absurd to doubt Clifford Wallace. Two detectives had shadowed him meticulously. The orderly existence of the chief paying teller was unaltered. He went his way serenely.
To Wallace it seemed more than worth the trouble. Lying in the vaults of the City Trust was one hundred thousand dollars in cash, an amount sufficient to yield seven thousand income invested with moderate acumen. That meant leisure and ease for himself and Phyllis through life. He did not want anything more. He knew that he would never again be tempted to crime; not that he was morally opposed to it, but because it wasn’t worth the danger.
One hundred thousand dollars was adequate to their needs. He had planned this thing for two years. Now it had been worked successfully.
If it only wasn’t for Jim Hanvey, those wide-staring eyes. He couldn’t get away from those eyes, from the insolent indolence of the man, his apparent indifference to the mystery he was supposed to be solving. All day he lounged around the bank; ignorant, bunglesome, awkward, inactive. He inspected no books, asked no questions, exhibited no suspicion of Cliff Wallace. Yet Cliff felt those inhuman eyes focused upon him at all times. And that incident of Hanvey’s presence at the cage when he cashed Phyllis’ pay-roll check—that was fraught with deep significance.
“He suspects me,” proclaimed the chief paying teller to his accomplice. “He knows that I did it and is just trying to find out how.”
She held his hand between both of hers. “I’m afraid, Cliff. Horribly afraid.”
“If he’d only say something! I wish he’d arrest me.”
“Cliff!”
“I mean it. If he’d arrest me they’d prosecute, and they couldn’t possibly convict. They haven’t a thing on me. I’d be acquitted in jig time. Then he could go to the devil—Hanvey and those fish eyes of his. I’d be safe then—even if they found out later that I had done it.”
“You mean that you couldn’t be tried twice for the same offense?”
“That’s it.”
“Then why not induce them to—to prosecute?”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve tried it, but old Warren and Garet Jenkins are convinced that I’m innocent. Jamieson and Burton both believe the money never got to the bank. And Hanvey just sits around like a hoot owl at noon and does nothing. It’s Hanvey I’m afraid of. He knows! The only thing he doesn’t know is how!”
Two more weeks passed. Wallace’s hope that Hanvey would depart proved ill-founded. The big, awkward man was there at eight o’clock every morning, and there he remained until the books were closed at night. He spoke to nobody save in the most casual way. Every other employe of the bank came to take him for granted. They were interested in him at first, but later accepted him as they accepted the marble pillars which stubbed the lobby. He was big and lumbering and uncouth, and gradually they forgot his reputation as a bank detective.
But Clifford Wallace did not forget. In his eyes there had been born a hunted, haunted look. Hanvey’s flabby, rather coarse face had a hypnotic effect upon him. He found himself wondering what obliquitous15 course this man was pursuing, what method there might be in his madness of inactivity. He felt like an ill man who finds himself daily in the room with a coffin. Hanvey’s stolid demeanor generated an association of ideas that was irresistibly horrible.
It was obvious that Hanvey suspected something, some one; equally plain that he did not suspect anyone else in that bank. It must be, then, that he did suspect Cliff. And then he commenced visiting Cliff’s cage.
He did it only a few times. His manner was friendly, almost apologetic. But he had a mean insinuating way of appearing at the cage door and rattling the knob. Cliff would whirl and find those dull inhuman eyes blinking slowly at him.
“Can I come in, Mr. Wallace?” And then once inside the cage: “Jest wanted to pass the time of day with you.”
Invariably, then, the same formula. A browsing around the tiny cage. A peeping into the money-stocked vault of the paying teller. “Gosh! That’s a heap of money.”
“Yes.” Cliff found himself on edge when Hanvey was in his cage.
“Never knew there was that much money in the world.”
Damn the man! Always obvious in his speech.
“Didn’t you?”
“Nope. Sure didn’t.”
Hanvey never mentioned the robbery. His indifference must be studied; all part of a net-spreading process. Cliff was frightened. He recalled the adage that a detective can err a thousand times and yet win; the criminal cannot afford to slip once. He regulated his daily life scrupulously. At the end of another month he again deposited his regular amount of savings. He saw to it that Phyllis did the same. But the strain was telling on him. His appetite had gone, dark circles appeared under his eyes. He wished daily that he’d be summoned into Warren’s office to face the thing out with Jim Hanvey. He knew they couldn’t convict, that they didn’t have a thing against him. Even the box in which reposed their hundred thousand dollars stood in the name of Mrs. Harriet Dare, Phyllis’ dead sister. Before her death Phyllis had been authorized in writing to be permitted to the box. Cliff had taken care that the box remained in the name of the estimable and defunct lady.
He became moody and depressed, obsessed with speculation as to what was happening behind the bovinely expressionless face of the detective. The man’s countenance was blank, but Cliff was no fool—he knew that it masked an alert mind. True, he’d seen no indication of that alertness, but he knew that it must be so. And Hanvey’s inactivity was telltale. Hanvey knew that he had done it, and was waiting with oxlike patience to discover how.
Sooner or later he’d learn. How, Cliff didn’t know. But no scheme is so perfect that it can stand the test of unflagging and unceasing surveillance. And when he did learn—Cliff shuddered. He knew full well what they did to crooked bank employes. Robert Warren would be hard in such a situation—very hard, merciless.
Then came another big pay-roll day, and Phyllis’ weekly visit with the modest check from her firm. This time Hanvey fell into line behind her. Cliff saw him coming, and his face blanched. Phyllis noticing his pallor turned and stared into the expressionless countenance of the big unkempt detective. The color receded from her cheeks, too, and her hand trembled visibly as she shoved her satchel through the little window of Cliff’s cage.
His fingers were trembling as he counted the money. He chatted with Phyllis, the effort being visible and unnatural.
The girl moved away and Hanvey looked after her trim blue-suited figure.
Then he turned his froglike eyes back to Cliff Wallace and blinked in that maddening way of his.
“Durned pretty girl.”
“Yes.” He was short, nerves ajangle.
“Friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
“Awful pretty girl.”
Hanvey moved away. Cliff staring after his waddling figure restrained with difficulty an impulse to scream. And when he left the bank that day he did something he had seldom done before in his life—he took a drink of whisky. Then he went to see Phyllis.
He was but a nervous shell of himself when he took her riding that night. He was a victim to nerves. Insomnia had gripped him—insomnia interrupted by a succession of nightmares in which he was hounded by a pair of glassy eyes which blinked slowly, interminably.
“It’s all off, Phyllis.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hanvey knows I did it. Sooner or later he’ll figure out how.”
“I thought—today—when he hung over the counter——”
“I’m afraid he’s about worked it out. We’re near the ragged edge.”
She commenced to cry. “Cliff——”
“Don’t weep. It isn’t going to do us a bit of good. The man is driving me crazy. I tell you there’s only one thing to do.”
“And that is——”
“Confess.”
“Oh-h-h!”
He laughed bitterly. “Don’t worry. They’ll never know you had anything to do with it. You get the money out in the morning. Bring it to me just as it stands—wrapped in brown paper. I’ll carry it to old man Warren. I’ll offer to solve the mystery and see that the money is returned in exchange for a promise of immunity.”
“Will he keep his promise?”
“Absolutely. He’s that sort. He’d not prosecute anyway. It would injure the bank’s reputation. A bank always prefers to hush up this sort of thing. They prosecute only when it’s been very flagrant or when they have to secure a conviction so that the bonding company will be responsible for their loss. So, tomorrow——”
She rested her head briefly against his shoulder. “You’re right, Cliff. And I’ll be glad when it’s all over. So very, very glad. I’ve been afraid, dear.”
She delivered the money to him at eleven o’clock the following morning. It was Saturday; the bank closed at twelve. He saw the eyes of Jim Hanvey blinking accusingly at him through the morning, and found himself trembling. Suppose Hanvey should accuse him at this moment, when he was on the verge of confession?
Noon. The great doors of the bank were closed. Cliff locked his cage, tucked the brown paper package under his arm and closeted himself with the president. During the walk across the lobby he had felt the horrible knowing eyes of the detective fastened upon him, leechlike.
The scene with Robert Warren developed just as he had anticipated. The president readily promised immunity, the cash was produced and counted. Warren was shocked and genuinely grieved. He was considerate enough to refrain from questioning as to the identity of the accomplice, although Cliff felt that the man knew.
Of course, he said, Cliff could consider himself discharged. The matter would never become known; the bank sought no such notoriety. Mr. Warren trusted that this would be a lesson to Cliff; he was sure that conscience had wrung this confession from the young man. Cliff acted his part adequately.
But all the time his heart was singing. A load had been removed. His fear of Jim Hanvey had turned into a deep, passionate, personal hatred. He felt that he’d like to fasten his fingers in that fat, flabby throat.
He swung out of the president’s office. The loss of the hundred thousand dollars meant little as against the relief he experienced in the freedom from fear of those mesmeric, expressionless eyes. As he stepped into the lobby he felt them fastened upon him.
Cliff couldn’t resist the impulse. Pent-up emotion demanded expression in words. Cliff knew that he must tell this heavy-set, slow-moving man that he had been outwitted. He strode across the lobby and pulled up short before the detective.
“Well, Hanvey, you’re too late.”
The eyelids dropped slowly, then opened even more slowly. “Huh?”
“I beat you to it.” Cliff was gripped by a moderate hysteria. “I’ve fixed everything—for myself. You don’t get a bit of glory. And I wanted the satisfaction of telling you that I’ve known from the first you suspected me.”
Jim Hanvey’s fishy eyes opened wide, then narrowed. His fat fingers fumbled awkwardly with the glittering gold toothpick. His demeanor was one of bewilderment and utter lack of comprehension.
“What you talkin’ about, son? Suspected you of what?”
Cliff felt suddenly cold. There was a disquieting ring of truth in the drawling voice. Was it possible that this hulk of a man had not suspected him, that the confession had been unnecessary? His trembling hands sought the pudgy shoulders of the detective,
“You’ve been watching me and my cage, haven’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Well—why?”
The big man’s manner was genial, friendly. His dull round eyes blinked and his voice dropped discreetly. “Jest between us, son, I reckon there ain’t no harm in me explainin’. ’Bout three years ago Spade Gormon, cleverest forger in the country, pulled an awful neat job in Des Moines. Then he dropped outa sight. We ain’t heard nothin’ of him till headquarters got the tip he was operatin’ in this district. We knew good and well if he was he’d sooner or later try to slip a bum check over on this bank, it bein’ the biggest one hereabouts. So as I know Spade pretty well an’ personal, they sent me down here to loaf around until he showed up.”
Cliff Wallace’s hands dropped limply to his sides. It was hard to understand. “Then you weren’t even working on my case?”
“No, I wasn’t workin’ on your case. An’ if you went an’ confessed anything, you probably done yourself an awful dirty trick. Far as I’m concerned, son, I ain’t even been interested in your case since I got an inside tip it had been dropped.”
* * *
9 A payroll of $1,250,000 in 1923 is the equivalent of over $75 million in 2020. Samuel H. Williamson, “Purchasing Power Today of a US Dollar Transaction in the Past,” MeasuringWorth, 2020, https://www.measuringworth.com.
10 Liberty Bonds were bonds first sold by the US government during World War I, and buying them became a patriotic duty for many Americans. The fourth issue of the bonds, in 1918, had an interest rate of 4.25 percent per annum, and the bonds matured in 1938. In 1934, the government called the bonds but defaulted on its obligation to redeem the bonds in gold. Although the bonds were paid in full in US currency, the significant devaluation of the dollar (that is, what a dollar would buy, which, according to statisticians, dropped to less than seventy cents) meant that in real economic terms, millions lost a large part of their investment.
11 The equivalent of an annual wage of over $400,000 in 2020, clearly a decent living (Williamson, “Purchasing Power,” Measuring Worth, 2020). A 7 percent investment return was considered quite reasonable as recently as 2010; in 2020, with incredibly low interest rates, most portfolio managers are satisfied with 4 to 5 percent, well ahead of inflation.
12 Now an uncommon spelling for “employee.”
13 Cold, emotionless.
14 Early automobiles—including the Ford Model T, introduced in 1908 and sold as late as 1927—had hand throttles rather than gas pedals.
15 Mentally or morally perverse or aberrant; off-kilter.
Homespun Silk
Jim Hanvey was not at all the type of man one envisions when the word “detective” is mentioned. He was immoderately large and shapeless and his cheap ready-made clothes flapped grotesquely about the ungainly figure. Above a collar of inconsequential height but amazing circumference arose a huge head which contai
ned a face of incarnadined16 complexion, scant and unkempt hair, pendulous jowls and twin chins. His lips were large and loose, ears flappy, and his eyes——
The eyes were the outstanding feature of Jim Hanvey’s topography. They were strikingly inexpressive; great sleepy orbs of fishy hue, impressing one with the idea of sightlessness. It seemed impossible that those eyes were capable of vision. They sat glassily in the red pudgy face beneath a hedge of overdeveloped brows. And Jim’s blinking—as a matter of fact, he didn’t blink; he yawned with his eyelids. An interminably slow process of drooping the lids over the dull-gray eyes, of holding them shut for a moment, and then of uncurtaining them with even more maddening deliberation.
Jim emerged heavily from the dilapidated taxicab which screeched to a halt before the ornate portals of the Hanover Apartments. He turned hesitantly toward the taxidriver, who made no effort to conceal the vastness of his contempt. “How much I owe you, son?”
The meter was consulted—a mere matter of form. “Dollar forty.”
Jim Hanvey whistled in protest as he counted out one wrinkled dollar bill, a quarter, a dime and a nickel. Then as he waddled into the Hanover he shook his head slowly. “Dollar forty! Holy smokes! An’ I thought I knew every professional crook in America.”
He walked uncertainly through the cheaply magnificent lobby. The ebony lad at the switchboard eyed him insolently. Jim paused, toying with a gold toothpick which hung suspended from a watchchain of hawserlike17 proportions.
“Mr. Arthur Sherwood in?”
“Yeh. Who wants to see him?”
Hanvey’s bushy eyebrows arched in surprise. “Why, me, of course.”
“Who you is?”
“Hanvey is my name. Mr. James Hanvey.”
“Huh!” The boy plugged in viciously, and then, into the transmitter: “That you, Mistuh Sherwood?…There’s a guy down here wants to see you.…Says his name is James Hanvey.…Yeh! Hanvey.…All right, suh.” He turned back and vouchsafed his information grudgingly.
Jim Hanvey, Detective Page 4