Читать книгу The Cases of Detective Jim Hanvey - Octavus Roy Cohen - Страница 3
Fish Eyes
ОглавлениеClifford Wallace was noticeably ill at ease. He worked intensively yet mechanically at his post in the Third National Bank, within the narrow confines of a cage bearing the inscription Paying Teller Number One. Horizontal lines of worry creased his forehead and a single lock of white stood out with startling clarity against the deep brown of his hair.
Beside him were piled great stacks of money divided into neat packages. Behind his back the huge doors of the cash vault gaped, disclosing more money. At the right of his cage were the inclosures of the three other—the junior—paying tellers. The marbled lobby of the big bank was a welter of discordant activity, of impatience—the clink of silver, the soft shuffling of new bank notes, the slamming of ledgers, the hum of banking during the rush hours.
To-day was the busiest of the month for Paying Teller Number One. To-day came due the pay rolls. of the three largest corporations in the industrial district of which this city was the metropolis. More than a million and a quarter dollars in cash occupied the cage with Cliff Wallace; a million and a quarter dollars in silver and bills, only a few of the latter in denominations of more than one hundred dollars. It was Wallace's task to make up these pay-rolls and deliver them to the armed men who came with the checks. He was sorting the money now, indifferent to the exasperated stare of the little man outside the window who impatiently rattled his own modest pay-roll check for $208.
Behind the irate little man a line formed slowly—two or three other representatives of small businesses, then a strikingly pretty young woman in a blue coat suit, and behind her, two stalwarts from the Garrison Coal, Iron and Steel Company. Cliff knew the proportions of the check they carried—$278,000. Real work there, work requiring intense concentration. It was so easy to make an error of a few hundred dollars when one dealt casually in single amounts greater than a quarter million. Cliff received the little man's check and counted the money deftly, cramming it into a canvas sack. He was visibly annoyed when the man insisted on opening the sack and counting the money for himself. Cliff's eyes sought those of the pretty girl and a brief glance of understanding passed between them. Both were taut of muscle and tense of nerves; upon the face of each was an unnatural pallor.
The little man completed his count, closed his canvas sack and moved off pompously. The next man in line presented his check and received his money. So, too, did the next. The girl pushed her check through the window—the pay-roll check of the wholesale hardware company for which she worked; $728.56. With it she presented a leather satchel. Cliff Wallace unlocked the barred window of his cage to take the satchel. He placed it on the shelf at his right, the shelf containing the mountains of bills. Again that look of under standing—of apprehension—passed between them. They spoke with simulated casualness.
“Good morning, Phyllis.”
“Good morning, Cliff.”
That was all. Yet, save for those first glances, they avoided each other's eyes. The oldish-young paying teller sorted out the amount of her pay roll. And then, working discreetly, swiftly and dexterously, he piled beside it a small stack of new bills. In that stack of bills was a hundred thousand dollars; one thousand one-hundred-dollar bank notes. Once he permitted his eyes to rove restlessly about the lobby. They paused briefly on the gray-coated figure of the bank’s special officer, who lounged indifferently near the Notes and Discounts Window. Apparently the bank detective had neither thought nor care in the world. Reassured, yet with no diminution of his nervousness, Cliff Wallace returned to the task in hand.
Into the girl’s brown leather satchel he put the amount of her pay-roll check, and then he crammed into it also the one hundred thousand dollars.
His face was ghastly pale as he faced her once more. The hand that held the satchel trembled violently. He conscripted a smile which he intended to be reassuring, and the smile with which she answered him was so obviously an effort that it seemed to shriek her guilt. For a second they remained rigid, staring into each other's eyes, then the envoys of the Garrison Coal, Iron and Steel Company coughed impatiently and the girl moved away. The paying teller fingered the $278,000 check nervously, his eyes remaining focused on the blue coat suit which was moving with horrid slowness toward the whirling doors that opened onto the street. And finally she disappeared and Cliff Wallace breathed a sigh of infinite relief. Thus far nothing had been noticed. He gave his attention to the task of assorting huge stacks of bills for the Garrison Company.
Meanwhile the girl in the blue coat suit turned into the swirl of traffic on the city's main thoroughfare. She threaded her way through the crowd, walking with unnecessary swiftness, with the single thought in her mind of putting as much space as possible between herself and the Third National Bank. Her fingers were wrapped tightly about the handle of the brown leather satchel, her face bore a fixed rigidity of expression, her heart was pounding beneath the plain tailored waist she wore. It seemed incomprehensible that the transaction in Cliff Wallace's cage had gone unnoticed. It had been so simple—so absurdly simple.
And now she was making all haste toward the office where she worked. Cliff had warned her that she must return promptly from the bank in order that the inevitable investigation should disclose no suspicious lapse of time.
She turned up a side street and thence into a gaunt, red-brick building labeled Sanford Jones & Co. Biting her lips with a fierce effort at self-control, she entered the building and turned immediately into the women's washroom. Trembling fingers found the door key and turned it. Then making certain that she was alone in the room she took from the shelf a large piece of brown wrapping paper which she had placed there earlier in the morning—that and a bit of twine.
She dropped to her knees, opened the satchel and took from it the one hundred thousand dollars. She felt a vague amazement that so much money should be of such small bulk. She arranged the bills neatly in three stacks of equal height and wrapped them carefully in the brown paper. Then with the package securely tied with twine she closed the satchel, unlocked the washroom door and swung into the office. No one had noticed her brief excursion into the wash room; that much was evident.
Straight toward the cashier’s desk she went, and in his hand's 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 Bonds 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. 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 suité. 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?”
“Certainly, 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 to-day.”
“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 employe as he or she leaves the bank. That will insure its remaining here to-night. By to-morrow 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 to-morrow.”
“And you are not even going to keep me under surveillance to-night?”
“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 breath 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 decidely 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.
“You—you're free, Cliff?”
“Obviously.” The man was a poser; this was too perfect an opportunity to miss. He wished the girl at his side to be impressed with his own granite imperviousness to emotion. Phyllis shook her head; she loved him despite the fact that she knew his weakness.
“They don’t suspect you?”
“Certainly not. They couldn't. I went in to the old man and told him the money was gone. I didn’t protect myself a bit. Suggested that he had better lock me up. And of course he didn't.” He smiled grimly, pridefully. “The only danger point in the whole scheme has been passed, Phyllis. We're safe.”
“And I’m frightened.”
“Of course. That’s natural.”
“Aren't you?”
“Not at all.” He stopped the car as if to light a cigarette. “You put the money in the vault at the City Trust?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Immediately after I left the office for lunch.”
“You went straight from the Third National to your office?”
“Yes. And the cashier commented on how quickly I got back.”
“Fine! Great! Sooner or later they're bound to connect us in this matter, and when they do they'll investigate your actions. It’ll disarm them to learn that you got back to the office in record time; that you couldn’t possibly have gone anywhere between the bank and your place of business. And now about the vault—you didn't attract any particular attention there, did you?”
“No-o. I’m sure I didn’t. There was a crowd there, and I am sure the old man didn't notice me at all. I put the money in Harriet's box, not mine.”
He patted her hand reassuringly. “You were a trump, dear. And you're not sorry?”
“No-o-and yes. I know that it is wrong, yet—oh, well, we need the money. It means so much more to us than it ever could to that bank. If we're only not caught.”
“We won’t be.” His narrow, rather hard face was set. He argued as though to reassure himself. “The weakness in anything of this sort is preliminary planning. The average man who sets out to steal one hundred thousand dollars”—the girl winced—“makes plans so enormously elaborate that he cuts his own throat, minimizes his chances of getting away with it. For every detail that such a man plants he sows a possibility of detection. He isn't content with the easy, the safe, the normal. In striving for perfection, for absolute safety, he lays traps for himself. Remember this, Phyllis: a detective can make a thousand mistakes and, by doing one single thing correctly, land his man. The criminal cannot afford a single mistake. Understand?”
“Yes.” And then the feminine side of the girl flooded to the surface. “Cliff dear, you're so—so hard!”
That pleased him. He wanted to be hard, cultivated a gelid philosophy.
“Sentiment serves no man well, Phyllis. My hardness has made possible financial ease for us—and consequent contentment. I have no conscience. Neither has the average man. Conscience is the fear of being caught. We are all inherently immoral. It was not wrong for the primitive man to steal. He took what he could get away with. Right and wrong are products of legislation, of artificial ethical culture. They are not part of us; we are inoculated with them. They are utterly foreign to us. In taking this money I have committed no natural crime. By statute only am I a criminal. I am not ashamed of what I have done. I would be ashamed of detection.”
Silence fell between them. The girl shivered as though with a chill.
“You are very convincing, dear. But I'm afraid that I’m terribly a victim to the morality of education. Of course you’ve convinced my intellect. But—since this afternoon—I'm afraid you can never convince my conscience.”
He flashed her a sudden apprehensive glance. “You’re not getting cold feet?”
“No.” She shook her head sadly. “It’s too late for that.”
“But your afraid?”
“Yes. I'm afraid.”
“Then you're silly. We're safe now. The minute you walked through those revolving doors with that hundred thousand in your bag I knew that we were safe. The scheme is successful because of its very simplicity. We are to go ahead in our normal ways. There is to be no variation whatsoever in our way of living. In a year we will marry. A year from then I will get a position somewhere else. And then—and not until then—will we begin to make use of the money which we got to-day. We're safe.”
“From the law—yes. But not from ourselves.”
“Harping on conscience again?”
“Yes.”
“Pff! I have no conscience, no fear of the intangible.”
She sighed. “I must agree with you, dear. I’ve gone too far not to. But I wonder—whether it's worth the price.”
He laughed harshly and the car leaped ahead as his finger caressed the gas lever.
“It’s fortunate, Phyllis, that I’m practical. The thing that counts in this world is what you have—not how you got it.”
They returned to the girl’s boarding house at eleven o'clock, stood chatting for a while on the front porch. Cliff wondered whether the man who must be shadowing him was witness to the tableau. He knew that the man must have been bewildered and apprehensive when they went off for a ride together—and pleased by their return. He fancied he could discern the person lolling in the shadows of the big oak across the street. He swung down the steps, whistling jauntily.
Phyllis slept not at all that night. Cliff, serene and untroubled, slumbered heavily. For two years he had planned this thing, had surveyed it from every angle. He had made an intensive personal study of the men with whom he would have to deal: Of Robert Warren, the president; of Garet Jenkins, the cashier; of each member of the board of directors. He had studied their mental processes, had deliberately built up their confidence in him and his integrity. He had known in advance that Warren would do just about as he had done and that his opinion would sway the board of directors. He knew that the matter would be hushed up and that the investigation would be conducted with the most rigid secrecy. He knew that detectives would appear the following morning, would remain there for some time—and that they would find nothing. He knew that eventually the conclusion would be reached that there had been, in fact, no robbery at all, but that the hundred thousand dollars had never reached the bank vaults.
He would be watched carefully for one month, two, three. Then the matter would be filed away as an unsolved mystery. Above everything, the bank was not desirous of a scandal. In the absence of sufficient evidence to convict they'd permit him his freedom. And the perfect normalcy of his life would convince them speedily that he was free from guilt.
He reached the bank the following morning at precisely his regular time, not a minute early or a minute late. He held a brief conference with the three assistant paying tellers and apportioned to each his quota of cash from the vault, which was a part of his individual cage. Then quite phlegmatically he answered a summons to the office of the president. And as he entered the door he recognized in the three strangers who faced him the detectives.
Cliff was somewhat amused. He knew that the glances they bestowed upon him were surcharged with deep and dark suspicion. Money had disappeared from the cage of the chief paying teller; ergo, the chief paying teller had stolen it. They’d start out on that theory—and butt their heads against a stone wall. He realized that Robert Warren was talking, that he was being introduced.
“The detectives; this is Mr. Peter Jamieson, representing the Bonding company. And Mr. Carl Burton, of the Banker's Protective Association.” He hesitated a moment as he turned toward the third stranger. Then: “This other gentleman is also here to represent the Bankers' Protective Association. Mr. Wallace, Mr. Hanvey—Mr. James Hanvey.”
Cliff started visibly. Jim Hanvey! He'd heard of the man—a detective with an enviable reputation. But he had envisioned Jim Hanvey as a person tall and sinewy, and with a saturnine face and deep-set flashing eyes. This man——
The hand which the great detective extended to him was limp and clammy, the man himself utterly negative. He was a large man, true; but his shoulders were rounded and from them the coat of his cheap ready made tweed suit hung like a smoking jacket. Above a thick red neck rose the head—huge, fat, shapeless. Three floppy chins, an apoplectic expression, a wide, loose-lipped mouth. And eyes——
Those eyes fascinated Wallace, not because they were marvelous eyes but because he could not reconcile himself to the fact that they were capable of seeing anything. They were large eyes, and round like a baby's. In color they were a passive gray—fishlike. They rested on Wallace's as their hands met, and then the lids closed slowly over them like a film, rising just as deliberately. It was more an ocular yawn than a blinking of eyes. Cliff felt within him a contempt for the man, instant and instinctive, then pulled himself together with a jerk. He knew that would never do. Jim Hanvey bore an international reputation, such a one as could not be attained through inefficiency.
Jamieson was nearer Cliff's conception of an efficient detective. Medium build, dapper, dynamic, with blazing eyes and a competent manner. He liked Jamieson, knew that he would know how to cope with him. Jamieson was a practical detective, and Jamieson was, there in the rôle of a friend. It was most decidedly to the interest of the bonding company to establish his innocence. Burton, too, radiated efficiency. He was tall and broad and had deep-set brown eyes which looked out keenly from under heavy lashes. He was there to convict, but Cliff did not fear him. Burton, like Jamieson, was too normal a man to inspire apprehension. But Hanvey, Hanvey of the slow blinking, fishy eyes—Hanvey was a disturbing quantity. Cliff didn’t like Hanvey.
Hanvey was speaking. Cliff noted that the others deferred to the ponderous, uninspired-looking individual.
“H'm! You're the paying teller, Mr. Wallace?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kind of funny—the hundred thousand gettin' lost thataway, wasn't it?”
Cliff was annoyed. The man wasn’t even grammatical.
“Rather peculiar—yes.”
“Ain’t got any idea how it happened, have you?”
“No.”
“No chance of any one sort of slippin’ an arm through the cage window and grabbin’ it, huh?”
Bah! the man was an idiot.
“Hardly that.”
“Kinder makes us believe that it must have been done by somebody inside the cage. Ain't that so?”
“That is the obvious conclusion.”
“Well, now—so it is. So it is.” Hanvey produced a golden toothpick, which he regarded fondly. “Awful funny thing how money gits to go thisaway. Awful funny. Ain't it, Jamieson?”
“Yes—yes indeed.” Cliff glanced curiously at the competent Jamieson. He fancied that Jamieson would appear annoyed by Hanvey's cumbersomeness. But instead he saw the two other detectives hanging worshipfully upon Hanvey's words.
Peculiar—it was impossible that Hanvey possessed keen intelligence. And yet——
Hanvey nodded heavily. “That's all, Mr. Wallace. I reckon that’s about all I need from you.”
All? It was nothing—less than nothing. One or two absurd, meaningless questions; a ridiculous voicing of the thought that some one might have stolen a hundred thousand dollars in currency from under his very eyes. And Jim Hanvey was reputed to be a great detective.
Cliff Wallace was bothered. The very somnolent heaviness of Jim Hanvey begot apprehension. He had no idea how to cope with it. The man was too utterly guileless, too awkward of manner. His ponderous in difference must cloak a keen, perceptive brain. Jamieson and Burton—well, Cliff knew just what they were thinking. He’d always know what they were thinking. But Hanvey—never. He didn’t even know that Hanvey was thinking. He was an element which the paying teller had not foreseen. Frank suspicion was easy to combat. Through his head there flashed the shibboleth of the Bankers’ Protective Association: “We get a man if it takes a lifetime—even though he has stolen only a dollar. It’s the principle of the thing.”
He shook off the thought of Jim Hanvey, but throughout the day watched the ponderous, big-jowled man lumber about the lobby and through the cages, those great fishy eyes blinking with a deliberation which reminded him of a man making physical effort to remain awake. Occasionally Cliff looked up to find the glassy eyes staring at him through the bars of his cage, the detective's unpressed tweed suit against the marble shelf. His eyes would flash into those of the detective, then would come that interminably slow blinking, and Hanvey would move away apologetically. Once Wallace Shivered.
That was the beginning. Hanvey during the days that followed did absolutely nothing. Jamieson and Burton, on the other hand, worked busily and thoroughly. They pored over the list of customers for whom checks had been cashed on the day of the money's disappearance. And finally they came to the pay-roll check of Sanford Jones & Co. They called Cliff into conference with them, Burton doing the questioning.
“Who presented the Jones company check, Mr. Wallace?”
Cliff steeled himself to impassivity. “Miss Phyllis Robinson.”
“You are acquainted with her?”
“Yes. We happen to be secretly engaged.”
“Ah-h!” Cliff saw a meaningful look pass between the two detectives. “Your fiancée?”
“Yes.”
“Did you personally cash her check that day?”
“Yes.”
“You are positive about that?”
“Yes. I cash all of the pay-roll checks; and besides, I remember talking to her while she was at the window.”
The detectives nodded at each other and Cliff was dismissed. Immediately Jamieson and Burton checked up the movements of Phyllis Robinson on that particular day. They learned that she had cashed the company's pay-roll check as usual and that she had been absent from the office only a short time. Yes, the puzzled cashier was positive of that—he remembered noticing particularly that she'd hardly left the office before she was back with the money. In answer to their query as to whether she had time to stop some where en route to the office from the bank, the little man indignantly protested that he recalled every detail of the morning and that she couldn’t possibly have done so. “I never knew her to get back so quick before, and she never was one to loiter.”
So much for that. The girl had undoubtedly gone straight from the bank to her office. The Jones cashier insisted that she delivered the satchel to him personally. Jamieson and Burton then visited the banks of the city and its suburbs. The Third National was the largest in the district and they went meticulously down the line in the order of importance. At the City Trust they were informed that Phyllis Robinson rented a safety-deposit box. An inspection of her card disclosed the fact that she had not visited the box in two months. Nor had she a box at any other bank. Neither had Cliff Wallace.
News of the investigation, received from the puzzled cashier, via the frightened Phyllis, elated Cliff. He was delighted to know that the two detectives were at work, and supremely confident that they could discover nothing.
But Hanvey did nothing. All day long he lounged about the lobby or sat in one of the cages with his feet propped upon a shelf, surrounding himself with a haze of rancid cigar smoke. And always those blank, stupid eyes were turned upon the cage of the chief paying teller—blinking, blinking.
Wallace did not vary a hair's breadth from the established routine of his daily life. He breakfasted at his usual place at the usual hour, Snatched a lunch as he had always been in the habit of doing, dined at his favorite cafeteria, called upon Phyllis Robinson in the evenings and either walked with her or took her riding in his little car.
On Thursday he drew his monthly pay check—two hundred and fifty dollars. One hundred dollars of it he immediately deposited to his own credit in a savings account. He had done this for years.
On Friday he received a shock. It was a light pay-roll day—not more than a quarter million dollars had been set aside for the pay rolls. In the line was Phyllis, satchel in hand. He greeted her as usual, counted the packages of bills and rolls of silver. And then, as he unlocked the little window of his cage to return to her the satchel, he visioned the ponderous figure of Jim Hanvey lolling indifferently over the shelf; round idiotic eyes fixed unseeingly upon him. Fear flashed into Cliff's heart and the color receded from his cheeks. What was the significance of that? Was it possible—— With an almost hysterical gesture he slammed shut the window. Hanvey's eyes blinked once, slowly; a second time, more slowly. Then he moved heavily away, playing with his gold toothpick.
That night as Cliff was driving with Phyllis in the country—“That was Hanvey standing by the window to-day when I cashed your pay-roll check.”
The girl shuddered. “Ugh! He's horrid. Like a jellyfish.”
“I wonder why he did that? He's never done it before.”
“Did what?”
“Hung over the counter while I was cashing your pay-roll check. I wonder if he suspects——”
“That man! He looks like an imbecile.”
“Looks like, yes. But he is supposed to be a great detective.”
“It’s impossible.”
“He’s getting on my nerves, Phyllis. I can't help but believe that he suspects something. At times I feel a contempt for his obtuseness. Then I know that I’m wrong. He couldn’t be what he is and be the fool he looks. And he doesn’t do anything. He's never questioned me. He's never questioned any one. He just sits there and watches and watches—like—like a Buddha.”
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 obliquitous 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 any one 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—to-day—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, to-morrow——”
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 Wallaces' 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.”
