Читать книгу The Mystery Of The Second Shot - Rufus Gillmore - Страница 3

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Chapter 1 The Black Limousine

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A thin-faced young stenographer was the first to suspect. She wrote the same sentence over and over—and listened. In the official refrigerator-like stillness of the Massachusetts Bank Commissioner’s Department, words carried, and the teasing excitement soon took on a meaning. Finally, about half past ten on that Wednesday morning, after a last whispered conference with his chief, Deputy-Commissioner Haswell bolted out of the Department. The thin-faced stenographer allowed him time to reach the elevator; then, she fluttered out into the State House corridor and called aside a reporter who had bribed her with baseball passes. Within ten minutes, the manager of the State House News Service began to telephone the city editor of each Boston daily the significant news: “It looks as though something were about to happen at last to the good old Province Trust Company. That’s all I know. Get busy!”

Eight Boston reporters—among them John Ashley of The Eagle—started on a foot race to State Street. But Deputy-Commissioner Haswell had taken a taxi. They arrived to find the bank closed, policemen driving a gaping crowd off the curb, and a surly sergeant who, stationed at the side door, denied them entrance.

The reporters promptly pooled their interests. The suspension of this venerable trust company marked the first check to the career of a conspicuous citizen. Each reporter knew it to be his business to locate Bertrand Newhall, President of the Province Trust Company, and to note carefully how he bore up.

According to the sergeant at the door, President Newhall was not inside. By adroit team-work, the reporters worried him into calling out one of the clerks, who confirmed his statement. But it was not likely that the president of a defunct bank would be absent from his post at such a crisis. While the rest watched the doors, two reporters hurried to neighboring pay-stations to get past the police by telephone. These returned with the same discouraging news, but the skeptical reporters still hung about the two doors, convinced that they had President Newhall cornered. In the meantime, one of their number had departed, intent upon a simple method of solving the problem.

Through a window bearing a “To Let” sign, with a pair of opera-glasses glued to his eyes, Ashley of The Eagle watched every movement across the street in the Province Trust Company. From this unoccupied office in an upper story, he had a slanting view into the trust company, over the heads of the crowd in the street and unobstructed by the opaque screens in the bank’s front windows.

At the long desk nearest to the great vault, stood Deputy-Commissioner Haswell. He was rapidly examining packages of stocks, bonds and notes, stopping from time to time to speak to a clerk beside him, who thereupon took tally or made notes. Two other men, apparently officials of the trust company, hovered about, alternately answering the Commissioner’s questions and withdrawing to shake their heads in ominous consultation. Scattered behind the grille, a score of clerks kept up a pretense of work; their cocked heads spoke of eager ears kept to the wind. Ashley fixed his glasses upon one after another. President Newhall was not inside the grilled-in-inclosure.

Ashley moved to the other side of the narrow office. Here he secured a view of the president’s and directors’ rooms. The president’s room was occupied only by a stenographer sitting idly at her machine; in the directors’ room, half a dozen men could be discerned through the glass partition grouped in earnest conversation. At each in turn he aimed his glasses and waited patiently until some shift in the talk brought face or profile to view. After a long time, Ashley swung the glasses from his eyes. President Newhall was not there either. If the reporters wished to learn how he took this—the first mishap in his triumphant career—they must hunt for him elsewhere.

Ashley returned the borrowed opera-glasses to the optician on the ground floor. He was about to cross the street to acquaint the other reporters with his discovery, when the vehement talk of a little Italian bootblack caught his attention. The bootblack stood by his stand at the head of the alley opposite the trust company. He was holding forth to a small knot of listeners, talking with the gesture and passion peculiar to the modern Latin. Aimless curiosity sent Ashley to him. Soon his casual curiosity changed to a lively interest. He had come upon information which lent an impetus and an entirely new bearing to the pursuit of President Newhall.

At half past seven that morning, when the bootblack arrived to open his stand, he had found a black limousine stationed before it. As the clocks began to strike eight, the chauffeur jumped out and cranked up the engine. Shortly afterwards, President Newhall came out of the clerks’ entrance of the Province Trust Company. He was smoking a cigar and showed no evidence of flurry. He carried nothing which would indicate that he was leaving for any time or distance. He crossed the street and entered the waiting car. The chauffeur swung away from the curb and the black limousine, with its single passenger, disappeared up State Street.

Ashley’s cross-examination failed to shake the little Italian’s assurance on two points of importance. He was certain that the chauffeur had cranked up before President Newhall came out of the trust company, and he was positive that the chauffeur had started off without directions from Newhall. Apparently, that departure had been carefully planned in advance.