The Banker and the Bear

by Henry Kitchell Webste

  “ By violence, Mr. Bagsbury, or by guile ? “

  Still John’s face was serious. “By guile,” he answered. “ It would take a squadron of cavalry to do it the other way. I’m going to try a bluff, or rather I’ve thought of a bluff that I want you to try. I don’t like that sort of thing, but nothing else will have any weight with those people out there. If we could give them a mathematical demonstration that their money was safe, they’d stay around to get it just the same. They’re like small children; they want an object lesson.

  “ When I met Dawson at lunch I arranged to get one hundred thousand from the Atlantic in currency. I want you to go and get it now and here’s where the bluff comes in bring it back as impressively as possible. That’s the whole trick ; we don’t need the money, but we do need the effect. I haven’t time to arrange the details, so I leave that in your hands. You have a pretty healthy imagination, and you ought to be able to get up something effective. You may find Dawson over at the Atlantic. If you do, he’ll have some ideas on the subject; but the whole business is in your hands. You get the idea, don’t you ? “

  “ I think so. Is there any danger of over- doing it of being too spectacular?”

  “ No,” said John ; “ you can pile it on as thick as you like.”

  “All right. I’ll work it up as well as I can. It’s getting pretty black overhead ; if I and the rain strike here at the same time, we ought to do the trick.”

  The rain set in before Jack was a block away from the bank. According to the morning paper it was only a shower ; but JohnBagsbury noted with pleasure that it had a downright, businesslike way about it, and a promise of plenty of endurance. By itself it had no evi- dent effect, but it was doubtless preparing the mind of the crowd in the street for the more enthusiastic reception of the object lesson that was soon to arrive.

  John stepped to the door of his office and called to Mr. Peters.

  “ I wish you’d have all the silver there is in the vaults brought out and piled in the tellers’ cages,” he said thoughtfully, “ and have the men bring it out one bag at a time and carry it as though it was heavy. It won’t be necessary to open any of the bags, but I think it will look well.”

  While John stood at the door watching to see that his order was being carried out according to the spirit as well as the letter, his eyes fell repeatedly on Curtin. The assistant cashier was moving uneasily about, doing nothing in particular, and seeming to find that difficult to do. He would halt before a window and gaze sullenly out at the rain, and then hurry impa- tiently back to his desk. Once he walked the whole length of the narrow passage between the cages and the vaults, with no other apparent purpose than being in the way ; for at the end of it he turned around and walked back. As he passed the door of the private office, John spoke to him.

  “Mr. Curtin, there’s no need of your staying any longer.”

  He turned a shade paler. “What do you mean? “ he asked.

  “ Nothing to get excited about,” said John, looking at him curiously. “ I thought from your manner that you were uneasy and anxious to get away, and I said that nothing need detain you. Mr. Peters will see to locking up the vaults.”

  “ I’d rather stay,” said Curtin, as steadily as he could. “ I didn’t understand you at first. I am uneasy I want to see the thing through to see something stop this run “ John nodded brusquely and turned away. He had no particular reason for thinking that Curtin was lying,but the air of essential untruthful- ness of the man made it difficult to believe him, even in a matter of no moment. Everything he did and the way he did it irritated John Bagsbury.

  There was nothing else to do, so the Banker sat down at his desk to await the arrival of the object lesson. Everything was ready. The rain was holding well, and the stacks of angular canvas bags behind thegratings seemed to be making an excellent impression on the file of depositors who were within the doors. But still the line was unbroken. All depended now on Jack Dorlin. It took him long enough, the Banker thought impatiently.

  But there ! The object lesson was coming at last. John could see nothing as yet, but the noise from the street told him. It was a very different noise from any other that had come through the window. The crowd, that big animal which had yelled a few hours back, was purring. The object lesson was slow to appear, but when it did “ Come in here, Jackson,” John called. “ Come here and look.”

  “ By the jumping Julius Caesar ! “ the cashier exclaimed, when he caught sight of it. “ He’s organized a street parade ! I wonder why he didn’t bring a brass band.”

  There was Jack Dorlin in front, marching with a gravity befitting the situation, bearing under his arm a bulky package secured by yards of heavy cord and splendid with red sealing-wax. And in single file behind him were nine other young men of assorted sizes, every one of them carrying a similar burden. As convoy, two to the man, guarding both flanks of the file with most impressive zeal, were twenty blue-coated policemen. There was some sort of lettering on each of the ten packages which the crowd seemed to be reading with great satisfaction.

  Straight through the crowd and up the steps came the procession, never once breaking its imposing formation till safe behind the rail in the bank. Then John read what was printed on the packages, “ Atlantic National Bank, $50,000.” Taking Jack by the arm, he marched him into his private office.

  “ You did that brown, Dorlin.”

  “ It was partly Mr. Dawson’s idea,” said Jack. “ Those packages were already sealed up. He painted the extra ciphers on them himself. I was afraid it would be a little stiff, besides being not quite accurate, but he said it would go down all right.”

  “Then you’ve only got fifty thousand there in all?”

  “ Yes, you see this is only the direct attack. The rest is with the flank movement,” said Jack ; “ it ought to be here by now. Oh, there it is ! “

  Jack reached the window just as a big, red, iron-grated American Express Company wagon pulled up before the bank and backed round to the sidewalk. Then he saw a wave of excite- ment go over the crowd when two men armed with Winchesters sprang down and ran to the rear end of the wagon.

  “ Hurrah for the other million ! “ came a voice from somewhere, and a crashing cheer from the crowd was the answer.

  It had been raining before in a plodding, commonplace fashion, but now the water began coming down in continuous streams instead of detached drops, and the crowd huddled a little closer to watch the men who splashed back and forth across the sidewalk carrying lumpy canvas bags into the bank.

  “ Ten thousand of it is in gold,” said Jack, “the rest is just about a ton of silver dollars. I thought you might want to open some of the bags.”

  They did open some of the bags, and poured streams of shining double-eagles over the count- ers.

  “You’d better pay in gold for a while,” John ordered the paying tellers.Then he went around and spoke to the men behind the receiv- ers’ windows.

  The next few people to reach the windows had very small amounts of money in the bank, and they departed, clinking their two or three pieces of yellow metal with great satisfaction. But presently there came a man whose account was more than a thousand dollars. Fifty double- eagles are not only heavy, their bulk, compared with the capacity of the average pocket, is con- siderable. The man gathered them up in a helpless sort of a way and tried with no great success to stow them inconspicuously about his person, while the crowd of depositors waiting their turn made derisive comments upon his plight. Finally, with the air of a man who has just made a momentous decision, he walked to the receiving teller’s window.

  “I believe I’ll put it back after all,” he said, “ I guess the bank’s safe enough.”

  “You can’t put it back to-night,” the teller answered politely. “ It’s too late, after three o’clock. The bank’s closed.” He had to say it twice before the man understood, and to save future explanations, perhaps, he said it loudly enough for all around to hear.

  “ But what a
m I going to do ? “ the man asked.

  “ I don’t know,” said the teller. “ Get your- self arrested,” called somebody in the crowd.

  For by that time it was a crowd, the line had melted away. They had not waited all those hours for their money with any intention of putting it back in the bank that night ; but to discover that they could not put it back, that the bank could not be induced to take it back that night, gave the matter a different color. A few of the more independent ones stepped boldly out of the line; then, after an irresolute half minute of staring at the great piles of coin and paper, the others followed, and men and women streamed sheepishly out through the wide open doors into the already empty street.

  “I’m going, too,” said John Bagsbury. “The show’s over. I’ve had enough.”

  Curtin looked as though he had had enough, too ; but he waited till all the money was safely put away, and he could lock up the vaults.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE FOURTH DAY

  THE time lock is not an old device, but it is already a necessity. Just as the invention of new and impenetrable armor for battle-ships has only produced new cannon or new projec- tiles which make necessary a still harder pro- tective shell about the ship, so has the increasing ingenuity with which banks guard their treasure been met by a corresponding advance in audac- ity and skill by those whose trade it is to rob the banks. An old-fashioned safe would be to a bank as useless a toy as one of Gustavus Adol- phus’s wooden cannon in a modern fort ; and a safe cracker of the past generation would be as helpless as John Bagsbury’s daughter Martha in the presence of a great Harvey ized-steel sphere with its electric apron burglar alarm, its half- dozen separate combinations, and its time-lock ticking away inside. The time-lock differs from other devices of the sort in this, that it is no.

  respecter of persons ; it makes no discrimination between Trojan and Tyrian, friend and enemy. It resides in a glass-covered box on the inner face of the door. You unlock the cover, turn the knob until the hand upon a dial points to a certain number, and push the door to, and it will not open again until that number of hours has elapsed.

  It had occurred to Melville Sponley that vaults which could not be unlocked would be as disas- trous to a bank as vaults which were empty ; and Curtin, carrying out his employer’s instruc- tions that afternoon, after John had gone away, had merely given the little knob in the glass box an extra twist.

  That was no very difficult thing to do, nor, being done, to make a man afraid. Of course, they would know he had done it. He alone in the bank had the key to the box, save on occa- sions when he handed it over to Peters. And it was altogether likely that John Bagsbury would suspect him of having done it mali- ciously. But it would be impossible to prove such a suspicion as that ; the excuse was en- tirely plausible. The bank, on account of the run that day, had closed nearly three hours later than usual, and the assistant cashier, for- getting to take that into account, wound up the spring just as he was in the habit of doing, so that instead of opening at nine, the bolt would not fall out of place until twelve. They could never prove that he meant to do it.

  When Sponley had told him about it in the little room in the Eagle Caf6, the prospect of being able, with so small an act, to work John Bagsbury an injury, had pleased him. And even in doing it he enjoyed the feeling of guilty excite- ment that had come over him. He hated John, partly because of the various rascalities he had been practising upon the Banker in the past six months, partly because he did not dare hate Melville Sponley. His resentment of the insult the Bear had paid him at the Eagle bar was simply fuel to his eagerness to pass on the injury to John. The cream of the stratagem, what he licked his lips over as he rode home from the bank, was that there could be no proof, not a grain, that he had not merely made a very natural mistake.

  But for all that he was afraid. For no assign- able reason, at first, save that he was a coward; but soon his cowardice began suggesting reasons.

  He thought of a good many disquieting possibili- ties during the evening, and, later, in the restless hours while he slept or dozed, his dreams spun about them a tangle of frightful grotesques. Awake or asleep the Banker troubled him, pursuing him through his dreams in a hundred horrible shapes, and at his elbow when he waked out of them and lay, with the rigor of nightmare still in his muscles and the perspiration of fear on his skin, trying to console himself with the thought that there was nothing they could prove. There would be one unpleasant moment when the Banker would look at him, perhaps speak to him, but that would soon be over. If he could only brazen it out through that, all would go well.

  Much as he dreaded the day that was com- ing, he welcomed the light that announced it. At a, for him, ridiculously early hour, he dressed and ordered his breakfast. He stormed because it was not ready ; but when it was brought to him, he did not eat it, for in the interval he had got a morning paper, and had found there additional ground for his uneasiness.

  There was, as he had expected, a detailed account of the run, and it made rather good reading, ending, as it did, with a highly colored description of the coming of reinforcements. But he found more than he had bargained for in another column, whose head-lines made him cold and sick and hollow at the stomach, a re- port of an interview with John Bagsbury, which began with these words :

  “ The run on our bank to-day was not an acci- dent. It was deliberately provoked in order to bear the lard market. That is not a guess. I am speaking from knowledge.”

  John never took the trouble to be plausible. He did not arrange the truth to give it a lifelike appearance. When he made that statement, boldly, without argument or corroborative detail, to the half-dozenreporters who had gathered in his library, they believed him, and ninety per cent of the men who read the words in news- paper type next morning also believed.

  Curtin read the first sentence, then his eye glanced swiftly down the column, looking for his own name ; but there was small relief in the fact that he did not find it there. He was cer- tain that John Bagsbury’s words were not a bluff. So, wondering how much the Banker knew, more than he had told the reporters, Curtin allowed his breakfast to grow cold and to be taken away untasted. It was too early to go to the bank, but there was nothing else to do, and he could not keep still, so he set out down town.

  What followed is not pleasant, but it was inevitable. He could not get a seat in the ele- vated train, and the long jolting ride left him sick and giddy. He went directly to the bank, though it was far too early to go in, and after hesitating a while on the steps, he went away and wandered aimlessly about the streets. The people he passed stared at him, and he knew that his white face and uncertain walk gave them excuse enough. It would never do for John Bagsbury to see him looking like that. He needed something to stiffen him up for that morning’s work, so he turned into the nearest bar.

  A man with an empty stomach and a weak head must exercise great discretion in drinking Scotch whiskey, and Curtin knew it. He would only take a very little. It would have been for- tunate for him and for Melville Sponley if after he once started he had drunk himself to sleep, or to the police station. But he kept his prom- ise to himself, he took only a little.

  What wonderful stuff that liquid amber was !

  As he sipped it, he felt his sluggish blood stir- ring ; it was making a man of him. The fears of the night were gone far back into his mem- ory now; he could think of them and laugh. He was ready for whatever might happen at the bank. The moment of discovery would not disconcert him in the least. He took one more little drink, and then, with almost a swag- ger, he walked back to the bank. John Bags- bury might look at him now and be damned !

  Melville Sponley read the report of the inter- view with John Bagsbury and accorded it un- grudging admiration. That direct way of saying things was characteristic of John, and when he did it, it was immensely effective. That was the reward, the Bear reflected, which sometimes comes to a man who never drives a hard bargain with the truth. This blurting out of the whole story was a good move.
It was worthy of the very pretty fight the Banker had been making this past week.

  The Bear could afford to look with ironical indulgence on John’s last desperate efforts to save himself, because he knew how futile they were. The Bear was in high feather. There was some credit in beating a combination like Pickering and Bagsbury. Bagsbury was, bar one, the best man in the city.

  His eye fell upon the vacant place across the table, and he came back sharply to present realities. He had not seen Harriet since Tues- day afternoon, had heard nothing from her since the little note asking him to excuse her for not coming down to dinner. He had gone to the Bagsburys’ house twice on Wednesday, but neither time had she been able to see him.

  He missed her, even in busy times like these. He wanted to talk over this last action with her before he went into it; not that he needed any help, but simply for the stimulating effect of her interest. He had thought a good many times in the last year that she was not her old self ; that she had been losing her sure grasp of a situation and her quick eye for an opportu- nity ; but he saw now how badly he had mis- judged her. Her foresight in warning John when it was too late to do any harm, but so that it might help to straighten out the tangle afterward, delighted him, and assured him that she was still the Harriet of ten years ago. And how plucky she was ! She had been too tired to come down to dinner, but she had nerved herself for that long ride down to the Bags- burys’ house to carry out the stratagem that had occurred to her. She must have been horribly fagged to have broken down that way, though. Perhaps it was just as. well that she was spared the exciting days that were following her col- lapse. They could talk it all over afterward, anyway. And he was glad that it was his last fight.

  He had meant to stop on his way to the office and find out what her condition was this morning ; now he decided to telephone instead ; but, just before he went out, he changed his mind once more. He would do neither. She might want to see him and ask a lot of ques- tions, and it was better that he should keep entirely out of the way for a little longer. It would all be over by noon.