Читать книгу Under Three Flags - Bert Leston Taylor - Страница 6

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The following dispatch appeared in the columns of the New York Hemisphere, under the usual sensational headlines:

“Raymond, Vt., May 31.—This quiet town among the Green Mountains had cause indeed to mourn upon this year’s occurrence of the nation’s Memorial Day. Last evening, at the close of the most general observance of the solemn holiday yet undertaken in Raymond, the community was horror-stricken by the discovery of the foulest crime ever committed within the limits of the state.

“Roger Hathaway, cashier of the Raymond National Bank and treasurer of the Wild River Savings Bank, was found murdered at the entrance of the joint vault of the two institutions, which had been rifled of money and securities aggregating, it is thought, not less than $75,000. The crime had apparently been most carefully planned and evidenced not only thorough familiarity with the town and the interior arrangements of the banks, but also the possession of the fact that the national bank had on hand at the time an unusual amount of ready money. The position of the murdered cashier and the conditions of the rooms indicated also that the official had met his death while endeavoring to protect the funds entrusted to his care, his lifeless body, in fact, barring the entrance to the rifled vault, a mute witness to his faithfulness even unto death.

“The Raymond National and Wild River Savings Banks occupy commodious quarters on the ground floor of Bank Block, a three-story brick structure on Main Street, the principal business thoroughfare of the town. The banking rooms are in the northern portion of the block, occupying the entire depth of the building, the only entrance being from Main Street. The north wall of the block is parallel with a tributary of the Wild River, which joins that stream, about 300 yards distant. The interiors of the banking-rooms are plainly but conveniently arranged. A steel wire cage extends east and west, separating the officials of the institutions from the public, with the customary counter and two windows for the savings and national bank, respectively. At the rear of the room is the private office of the cashier, separated from the main room in part by the vault, an old-fashioned brick affair, built into the partition in such a manner as to be partly in both rooms. The iron doors to the vault open into the cashier’s private office, although originally designed to be entirely within the main office. Some years prior the office of the cashier was enlarged to accommodate the meetings of the directors, and the partition was moved east, bringing the major portion of the vault within the enlarged room. Two doors communicate with the cashier’s room, one opening from the public office, the other from the interior of the main banking-room. Two large windows, looking respectively west and north, afford light for the cashier’s office. Both these windows are heavily barred, as indeed are the two windows on the north side of the main office. A dark closet, four by six feet, in the southwest corner of the cashier’s room, serves in part as a storage-room for old ledgers, account-books and supplies, and as a wardrobe for employes.

“It was in the cashier’s room that the tragedy that has so sadly marred the evening of Memorial Day took place, that witnessed the awful struggle between the assassin and the white-haired custodian of the bank’s funds. The details of that struggle may never be known, but the circumstances tell plainly that Cashier Hathaway either surprised the assassin in the dark closet, where he had perhaps concealed himself to await an opportunity to work upon the combination of the safe, or had himself been surprised while about to close the door of the vault.

“The crime was committed in the vicinity of 8 p.m., and its early discovery—within less than half an hour thereafter, indeed—singularly enough was due to a letter which the murdered cashier had previously sent to the president of the bank, requesting his immediate presence to confer on a business matter. The president, the Hon. Cyrus Felton, upon returning to his residence shortly after 8 o’clock, found a note from Cashier Hathaway asking him to call at the bank at once. The note had been left by a messenger, the servant stated, about fifteen minutes before. Mr. Felton hastily repaired to the bank, about ten minutes’ walk. He found the outer door ajar, but the door to the cashier’s private office was locked. This was not unusual, and, presuming that the cashier was busy within, Mr. Felton used his own key and opened the door without knocking. Then the awful discovery of the murder was made.

“Cashier Hathaway lay face downward in front of the open safe door, his right arm partially drawn up beneath the body and his heavy oaken desk chair overturned near by. His first thought being that the cashier had fallen in a shock, Mr. Felton hastened to raise the recumbent form. As he turned the body over, the soft rays from the argand lamp on the cashier’s desk revealed an ominous pool upon the polished floor, even now augmented by the slight moving of the body. Roger Hathaway lay weltering in his own blood, slowly oozing from a bullet hole directly over the heart.

“It was several moments before Mr. Felton could pull himself together to take cognizance of the circumstances. He then noted the unmistakable evidences of a desperate struggle. As stated, the cashier’s own chair lay overturned near the body; one of the side drawers in the desk was partially drawn out, and the orderly row of directors’ chairs were now disarranged as if a heavy body had been flung violently against them. The door of the dark closet was wide open and a lot of old ledgers that had been piled upon its floor were toppled over into the room. The doors of the safe were open, and a glance within revealed the principal money drawer half-withdrawn, and empty save of two canvas bags of specie and nickels; a goodly bunch of keys with chain attached hanging in the lock. The story was told. Cashier Hathaway had been murdered and the bank robbed.

“Mr. Felton immediately notified Sheriff Wilson, and the legal machinery of the town was at once set in motion to encompass the capture of the murderer and robber. It was thought that with the short start obtained the feat would be a comparatively easy matter.

“Nearly $50,000 in available cash, and half as much more in securities, part negotiable and part worthless to the robber, were secured by the murderer. The presence of this unusually large amount of ready money was due to the fact that $50,000 of Mansfield County bonds matured to-day and were payable at the Raymond National Bank.

“The presence of Cashier Hathaway in the bank at that particular time was by the merest chance, and the conclusion is therefore irresistible that the murder was not premeditated. The savings and national banks, though both among the most prosperous and stable fiduciary institutions in the state, are comparatively small, the capital of the national bank being $50,000 and employing but a small clerical force. The latter comprise, besides the cashier, the teller of the bank, Frederick Sibley; the bookkeeper of the savings bank, Ralph Felton, son of the president, and one clerk, a youth named Edward Maxwell. For the last two weeks the teller, Mr. Sibley, has been confined to his residence by illness, and considerable extra labor has necessarily devolved upon the cashier. Memorial Day, a legal holiday in Vermont, the bank had been closed, and on returning from the services at the cemetery, in which he had taken part—for Mr. Hathaway had been a gallant soldier in the famous Vermont brigade—the cashier had dropped into the bank, apparently to complete some work upon the books. It is possible that the robber—the opinion is general that there was but one engaged in the enterprise—had previously entered the bank, and upon the entrance of the cashier concealed himself in the only place available, the dark closet. He may have remained an unobserved spectator of the cashier through the partly opened door and as the latter finished his work and prepared to close the safe, the robber may have concluded, by a coup de main, to save himself the trouble of attempting to solve the combination, and, noiselessly stepping from the closet, have sought to surprise the cashier. On this hypothesis the presumption is that Mr. Hathaway became aware of his danger, and turning sought to ward off the blow, when the struggle ensued that was ended with his death. Or the cashier may have discovered the presence of some intruder in the closet, and seizing his revolver, which he kept in a drawer of his desk, he may have approached the closet, when the robber sprung upon him and, wresting the weapon from the feeble hands of the old banker, turned it against the latter’s breast.

“The fatal shot was fired at so close range that the clothing of the victim was scorched by the explosion. No weapon was found in the room; the revolver which, as noted above, the cashier was known to have kept in his desk, is also missing. The wound was made, the physicians state, by a 32-caliber bullet, which penetrated the breast directly above the vital organ, and death must have been instantaneous. The shot was fired at about 8 o’clock. Prof. Black, who occupies rooms directly over the cashier’s office, heard a shot at that time, as did several friends who were in the room with him, but they attributed it to boys shooting water rats from the bridge beneath the professor’s window.

“Thus far the tragedy possesses few extraordinary features. But what has become of the murderer? Raymond is not so populous that the presence of a stranger would be unnoted. Yet no one has volunteered information of any suspicious characters in town. Within fifty minutes of the commission of a daring crime the perpetrator disappeared, leaving not a trace for the local sleuths. The last seen of Mr. Hathaway alive, so far as known, was about 7:45 o’clock, when he stepped to the door of the bank, and, calling a boy who was standing on the bridge, throwing stones into the stream, asked him to take a letter to President Felton at his house. Half an hour later he was found shot through the heart in his office.

“President Felton was seen by the Hemisphere representative to-day, and told the story of the finding of the dead cashier substantially as outlined above. He was terribly affected by the tragedy and could hardly be induced to converse regarding it.

“Roger Hathaway was one of the best known and highly esteemed residents of Raymond. He was 63 years of age and had been identified with the national and savings banks ever since their organization, the last twenty years as cashier and treasurer respectively. He was prominent in Grand Army and church circles; a deacon in the Congregational Church. Of a severely stern but eminently just disposition, it was not known that Deacon Hathaway possessed an enemy in the world. He lived in a plain but substantial mansion, the family homestead of several generations of Hathaways, with his two daughters, his wife having died some ten years before. He was one of the founders of both the savings and national banks, which under his management had prospered to an unusual degree and stood high among the banking institutions of the state. He had held several important positions in the gift of his townspeople, and as town treasurer his rugged honesty, economic conservatism and strict observance of the letter of the law in the handling of the town’s funds, had earned for him the sobriquet of ‘watchdog of the treasury,’ a title which he sealed even with his life blood.

“Up to a late hour this evening no clew to the murderer has been discovered. The theory is held by the local police that the deed was clearly that of an expert bank robber, and they are inclined to think that he may be a member of the same gang that has broken into numerous postoffices in New Hampshire and Vermont within the last few months. The officials cite the fact that the local papers had advertised that $50,000 in Mansfield County bonds were to be redeemed at the Raymond National Bank upon this particular date, and the natural presumption that the bank would have on hand a large amount of currency, with the knowledge that yesterday was a holiday, when the bank would be closed and afford an unusual opportunity to work upon the safe, would form a strong inducement to a daring burglar.”