The Bank Vault Mystery

by Louis F. Booth

  In the next wing they found a group of officers carrying one of their number to the emergency hospital room. The guard, Clancy, with the assistance of two of his companions, limped along in the rear. Philip Borden was stretched upon the floor, a police surgeon kneeling over him.

  “How is he, Doc?” Bryce asked quickly.

  “He’s alive, but he won’t be for long.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’ll have to ask Clancy. I came when I heard the shooting. He tried to make a break; that’s all I know.”

  “Where’s Clancy?”

  “Got a bullet in the thigh—not serious. I sent him to the hospital. The other had one in his chest. He’s a little worse off but he’ll pull through.”

  “Will this bird talk any more?” With his foot Bryce indicated the figure on the floor.

  “Very unlikely. He’s riddled. He can’t possibly live two hours.”

  “He going to the hospital, too?”

  “Yes; they’ve gone for a stretcher.”

  “Come on, Max.” Bryce led the way. In the emergency ward they found Clancy seated upon an operating table, his wounded leg stretched out before him, the other swinging idly.

  “What happened, Clancy?” Bryce asked.

  Clancy hung his head.

  “Go ahead; spill it!”

  “Well, I was bringing him up like you said when all of a sudden I felt a yank and he had a rod in my ribs. He told me to keep my trap shut and lead him out of the place or get plugged. I steered him into the ante-room where some of the boys was waitin’ to go out on their beats. They wised up but he got the drop on ‘em. He started to back out and then, somehow, the shooting commenced.”

  “Your gun he had, Clancy?”

  The guard looked up soberly. “Yeah. Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  Clancy indicated his trousers and holster belt draped over a chair. Bryce drew the gun from its holster and broke open the chamber. “Was it fully loaded, Clancy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bryce held it up and remarked to Fenner: “It’s a damned lucky thing Borden wasn’t handy with one of these. He got off six shots before they stopped him.”

  There was a shuffling in the hall and two men came in bearing Borden on a stretcher. They lifted him to a table and the same surgeon went to work over him. Presently he straightened up and signaled to Bryce. “I think he’s coming out of it now but he won’t last long.” As he spoke Borden’s eyes fluttered open. Bryce and Fenner moved to the side of the table.

  Borden made a limp motion with his hand and wrist, smiled feebly, and muttered something terminating in “—bungled it up!” He sighed and relaxed. The surgeon pressed a glass of stimulant to his lips and he opened his eyes again. They met Fenner’s. He whispered hoarsely: “Guess I’m done.—Listen!—I didn’t brain Morton but I stuck the tag in his pocket when we found him. Tell him I owned up. Tell him to keep an eye on my mother.” He looked at Fenner pleadingly, then his eyes drooped shut and his head fell back. Again the surgeon forced the liquid between his lips but this time could obtain no reaction. He put his ear to Borden’s breast, raised up and shook his head, murmuring: “He’s washed up!”

  Fenner and Bryce went back to the inspector’s sanctum.

  3

  Fenner drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and blotted beads of perspiration from his forehead. Bryce sat down heavily, mechanically drew a match from the desk stand and struck it, held it poised six inches from his dead cigar while he stared vacantly into space. Roused when the flame reached his finger tips he cursed softly, struck another match and lighted the cigar.

  “A swift, clean-cut finish,” Fenner observed meditatively. “That’s as it should be.”

  “Yeah; clean-cut for Borden but not for us. Too bad he couldn’t have talked more. There’s plenty we’re in the dark about yet.”

  “Details, but little else. His suicide—for it was certainly no less than that—I regard as tantamount to a confession. He certainly knew before he made his break that he had about one chance in a thousand of getting away with it. But what puzzles me is: what prompted him to try it just then? It’s almost as if he knew we’d found Coles.”

  Bryce looked up quickly. “Oh! But of course he knew it. He was sitting right where you are when Quade telephoned this morning. Borden was getting ready to sign his statement. I told him not to bother, that we’d have some additions for it, that Coles had come back. That was before I went over to the job. Thought I’d give him something to think about.”

  “Ah, well that, of course, explains it.” There was a note of reproach in Fenner’s voice. “It appears he thought about it quite seriously—and perceived that he had come to the end of his evil way.” Bryce did not reply and Fenner went on: “Borden was an unusual criminal type. We—or I, rather—grossly underestimated his subtlety, his keenness, and most of all his utter ruthlessness. I realized from the start that we were matched against a quick, acute brain, but I hardly expected such a cold-blooded devil and least of all such a mentally agile one. He has twice hopped from one setup to another, a step ahead of us and outguessing us each time. At first we had Morton brained and the tag planted to direct suspicion to him and away from the others, including Mr. Borden. But Borden guessed that we would reason just that way so he took the next step and supplied a potential criminal, Coles.

  “If Morton appeared to be the victim of a frame-up and Coles was missing, we could be depended upon to make the desired deductions. With only Morton found accidentally killed but in possession of the tag, any suspicion which Borden might share with the others would be lulled, but without the money returned it would never quite die. However, with Morton patently framed and Coles missing, suspicion would be so strongly focused upon him that Borden would certainly be relieved of it, even if neither the money nor Coles were ever seen again. At first we reasoned just about as Borden planned. Our reactions on Thursday when it became apparent that Coles was gone were exactly what Borden counted upon. But I had previously developed such a strong theory presuming Borden’s guilt that, even in the face of the new evidence, I couldn’t quite abandon it. Then, too, the jealousy motive confused the issue.” Fenner paused for breath.

  “He sure stuck to his story overnight,” Bryce interposed. “The boys were after him pretty strong, too.”

  Fenner suppressed a shudder. He had visions of a brutal third degree, and he knew that third degrees are never quite so vicious as when they promise from the outset to be futile. No sympathy, however, was due Borden. He replied: “He could well afford to. It was a good story. When I first nabbed him yesterday, if you remember, he was innocent as hell and his feelings were deeply injured. But the goods were on him and he was ‘in a spot.’ His first play was to pass the buck to Morton on the long chance that Morton might not recover. When he learned

  I was going to get in touch with Lowman, he realized the game was absolutely up as far as the theft was concerned, so last night he figured he’d take as short a rap as he could get and deny the more serious charges. There’s no real proof of Knoeckler’s murder and Borden knew it. We won’t know about Morton until we can talk to him, but the chances are he never knew what hit him, so Borden figured that even if he recovered to talk there would still be nothing but conjecture against him; and of course there’d also be the highly diverting fact that Coles, who also had a motive, was missing.

  “Borden alone knew where Coles was and counted upon him never to appear and upset the story. That wall was five feet thick. It was only by the purest, fortuitous chance that Coles landed with one hand against the forms. That hand needed only to have been an inch back from the surface and that Wop would never have had the chance to snatch Coles back from the limbo. Yes; all in all Borden had a pretty good story.

  “But once Coles is found the yarn collapses like a house of cards. An accidental fall into a body of soft concrete wouldn’t damage a person much. The most superficial autopsy must disclose the head injury a
nd the fact that Coles had suffocated. Borden saw he was licked. He knew his goose was cooked and he preferred the end he met to burning in the chair. And of course there was always that thin glimmer of hope that by some colossal fortune he might win free.” Fenner stopped and looked away, traced odd designs on the desk top with the gold pencil which had somehow found its way between his fingers during the long discourse.

  Bryce produced his notebook and leafed through it. “I’m glad,” he said in a minute, “that Borden gave in and opened up about the tag. It certainly simplifies matters as far as Morton is concerned.”

  “How is he today?” Fenner quickly asked. “I’d sort of overlooked him in the excitement.”

  “He was much better this morning. They feel pretty sure of him now.” Bryce turned several more pages. “Now how about Knoeckler? Where does this leave him?”

  “It leaves him murdered in cold blood. Borden practically confessed it. His story last night was that they’d agreed on a blackmail payment and that the old man had kept the tag. Today he admits that he, Borden, subsequently planted the tag on Morton after he was hurt. Well, you know old Knoeckler wouldn’t have given him the tag, and Borden wouldn’t take it and leave the old fellow alive to talk.”

  Fenner thrust the gold pencil into his vest, thus figuratively placing a concluding period after their discussion. He got to his feet.

  Bryce settled back more comfortably in his chair. “What’s your hurry? Sit down a while. There are a lot of loose ends that need tying together. How’d you happen to run into Borden yesterday?”

  “From the list of calls for that pay phone Borden used I found the one to his house and the one just before it to an Arthur Lowman in Orange. I called the number and learned from Lowman’s wife that

  Borden was one of her husband’s best friends. I got Lowman’s business address and went to see him. As I was scanning the directory board in the lobby, Borden came in. I happened to see him in time to duck up the stairs out of sight until he got in an elevator. When I saw neither of your men, I realized something was wrong so I waited for Borden to come down and tagged along after him. Sleuthing—in a literal sense, I mean—is out of my line. It’s a wonder Borden didn’t spot me right away, but I guess he felt sure he was safe. When he went to the Terminal I thought he was going to leave the city and I decided to pinch him on suspicion, so I picked up the officer on the corner. Then when he headed for the parcel room I suddenly saw the whole thing. I waited until he got the grip and then we nailed him.

  “He came along as meekly as you please. Before we came away I got the parcel check from the clerk. The grip had been there just eight days—since twelve-forty-five last Thursday. The tag was stamped and Borden had just paid the extra seven days’ storage. That clinched it. The rest you know. I brought Borden to Hanley’s office where you found us.” Fenner lit a cigarette and smoked thoughtfully.

  Bryce shifted in his chair and looked at his colleague accusingly.

  “You must have been pretty sure from the beginning that Borden was our man,” he said. “Why didn’t you let me in on it?”

  “On the contrary, I knew nothing of the sort.

  There was nothing tangible to go on for quite a while. If the possibility of connection between the robbery and the death of Adolph Knoeckler was ignored, Borden did not head my list. As a matter of fact, they all looked pretty much alike; or at least there was something unnatural about the conduct of all of them. Jerry started off by lying about his noon hour. Dickson’s disappearing for three or four hours on Thursday afternoon made him eligible, even if it later appeared he’d been hanging around a bucket shop. Morton’s dropping out of sight completely the way he did made him a more likely candidate even than the others. The dispatch bag was small; Morton and Dickson both wore coats; Dickson went out carrying his over his arm. Morton had a briefcase and Borden the level box, though to tell you the truth I didn’t attach proper weight to that box at the start. None of them would be subjected to much scrutiny in the company of Hanley, and any of them might have gotten away with it. Then of course, there was always the possibility of an inside job—involving Old Jeremy or not, as you please.”

  “But what led you to Borden when you did pick him out?” Bryce persisted.

  “A sort of hybrid process of elimination, I suppose. My investigation at the bank brought me to the point where I was ready to discard the inside job theory. Morton and Miss Knoeckler turned up on Monday and we learned that Morton, too, had been to Knoeckler’s shop on Thursday evening. That seemed to double the likelihood that the theft and Knoeckler’s demise were connected in some way, so for a starter I assumed just that.

  “That left it between Morton and Borden, but with the odds in favor of Borden. I’ll tell you why: From even the most casual inquiry it became apparent that Morton was by nature a cautious, planning sort of person. The chap we were looking for must have been just the opposite—an opportunist, a quick thinker, and with it all an unusually cool-headed person. Borden more nearly fitted that description than any of the rest. Remember the day we saw Borden and Dickson down on the cross-lot bracing—when the chain on the stone-pan broke, you know? Dickson was scared out of his wits, but Borden never turned a hair. That little incident demonstrated as completely as anything could have that Borden possessed the attributes of quickness and coolness that the fellow we were looking for must have needed. Also it showed conclusively that Dickson did not have them, which let him out.

  “After that it became a question of motive and method. For the theft, the motive was obvious. For Knoeckler’s murder, it could only be to silence him. That Knoeckler attempted to blackmail Borden was at first a pure guess, but why else would he call Borden down there when he suspected something rather than get in touch with the police or the bank? Knoeckler was a pretty shrewd Dutchman. The tag was at some time in the shop—I found positive proof of that on Tuesday. What with the tag and the tabloid article and my calling to question him about Borden, the fellow couldn’t fail to see it. But when he confronted Borden he made the fatal mistake of underestimating his man. Borden, with characteristic quickness, decided to eliminate him for good, and did.

  “My theory was considerably bolstered when I reflected back upon Borden’s conduct that afternoon we called him to the shop. Though he simulated a natural amount of surprise at Knoeckler’s death, he was not curious as to how it happened, or when or where. The excitement might have caused him to fail to ask the questions one would normally expect, but he being otherwise such a level-headed chap, that seemed hardly likely.

  “As to Borden’s method of perpetrating the theft itself, I staged an experiment to get a line on that. A reenactment. Hanley arranged a second inspection of the vault on Tuesday morning for my special benefit. If I had conducted the same experiment earlier I’m not sure it would have helped so much, for one thing was very evident: that under the circumstances any one of the party, with care and perhaps a little better than ordinary luck, could have filched the sack and gotten away with it. The sack could have been concealed beneath a coat draped over the arm. Dickson and Morton both had them. Besides, Morton carried a briefcase that would have held it. But I was looking not for anybody’s method, but for Borden’s method, and the answer was absurdly simply—the level box, of course. Just to be sure, I went around to Knoeckler’s shop Tuesday afternoon and tried putting a sack of the same size into the level case Borden actually carried. It was a snug fit but it worked.

  “That took care of the method. While I was there, I found something else.” From his pocket Fenner drew a short length of light white-metal wire, doubled and bent into a loop. “It’s a wire the bank uses to attach the tags to their sacks. The sample sack I had obtained at the bank had a tag attached with such a wire. After trying it in the box I had tossed it to the bench. When I went to get it the similarity between this piece of wire lying among Knoeckler’s things and the one on the bag caught my eye. I straightened them out and found they were exactly the same. There was littl
e doubt they were part of the same cut and meant for the same purpose. For a minute I was quite excited. I had visions of some sort of connivance between Borden and the old man, but I concluded that this was entirely unnecessary from Borden’s point of view, so that plain blackmail was the only explanation left. And the wire indicated pretty conclusively that the tag had been at the shop. I concluded that, after killing Knoeckler, Borden recovered the tag but overlooked the wire.

  “Now we come to Morton: At first when he was hurt I thought he had in some way come to suspect Borden and had rashly confronted him—that heated argument in the excavation, you know—and that for his pains Borden had scrambled up onto the bracing and given him his ‘accident’; and that Borden had then played his ace of trumps by planting the tag and forever exorcising the finger of suspicion. Now it appears, if Borden’s dying statement is to be believed, that I was right only about the last half of it.” Fenner concluded his long explanation with a sigh of relief. He stretched himself and got up.

  “And Coles?” Bryce suggested.

  “Coles was an afterthought when it occurred to Borden that the planting of the tag on Morton would be seen through. He encountered him, half-drunk, on the bracing there, brained him, and dropped him into the wall they were pouring. In the dark it should have been relatively easy.”

  Bryce who had listened patiently now spoke up sharply: “You conducted your ‘reenactment’ on Tuesday morning. You got the key from me and went to the shop and confirmed your findings in the afternoon. You must have been morally sure on Tuesday evening that Borden was the chap we were looking for. Why didn’t you pinch him then? It would have saved Coles’ life.”

  “Not too fast,” Fenner protested. “There was certainly nothing upon which Borden could be convicted. My conclusions were based altogether upon circumstantial evidence. The length of wire was the only really tangible thing I’d found, and, since both Morton and Borden had been to the shop, it didn’t prove anything conclusive against either. More important, I had no idea until yesterday as to how Borden disposed of the money. If we pinched him, we stood a chance of losing it, for if he had cached it in such a way that it could lie for a long period unattended, he might figuratively thumb his nose at us, even if we got a conviction of sorts. Not literally, of course. He would naturally stick to a story of innocence and bide his time.”