VIA THE PRESIDENT'S PRIVATE WAY
There was a hanging lamp in Britt's office, and the president hastened
to light it.
“Do you mean to say that there's another way of entering that bank
vault?” Starr demanded when Britt began to twirl the knob of a steel
door that guarded his private vault. “I'm beginning to think that the
fellow who wrote on that placard had this joint sized up mighty well.”
Britt went on with the working of the combination. He was deeply
stirred; his excitement had made his temper touchy. “I know of no reason
why the president of a bank isn't allowed access to the vault.”
“Perhaps not, under proper conditions, but we'll discuss that matter
later, Britt. Right now I'm all-fired glad you can get in.” He sneered
when he added, “Perhaps a regular, time-locked vault does need a safety
outlet. I may recommend it for all state banks.”
Vona took her stand close to the door, trembling with passionate
eagerness. Constantly she appealed to Britt to hurry. When he finally
swung open the door she leaped into the vault. He dragged her back,
handling her roughly, harshly telling her that it was no place for a
girl.
“I don't think it is, either,” agreed Starr. “We seem to have
considerable love mixed in with this situation, young woman, but this is
not the time for it.”
He crowded past her, at the back of Britt.
The man ahead stopped and fumbled at what seemed to be a wall of
concrete; he pushed open a narrow door which fitted so closely that it
had seemed to be a part of the wall.
Mr. Starr grunted.
There was a passage at the right of the inner safe. The light from the
lamp outside shed dim radiance. Britt descended a short flight of cement
steps, and Starr, following groping with his feet, realized that the
way led under the floor of the corridor. He was obliged to crouch almost
double in order to avoid the ceiling.
There was another flight of stairs leading up to the floor level.
The two men, mounting the stairs, heard groans.
Vona, undeterred by her treatment, had followed closely on Starr's
heels. She urged them to hurry, calling hysterically.
Again the man ahead fumbled at what seemed to be solid wall. Again he
was able to open a door of concrete.
But Britt, when he was through the narrow door in the lead, was blocked
and stopped. He lighted a match. One leaf of the double doors of the
inner safe of the bank vault was flung back across the narrow passage.
He dropped the stub of the match and pushed. The door moved only a few
inches; it was opposed by something on the other side. The president
lighted another match and held it while he peered over the door; there
was a space between the top of the door and the ceiling. “It's Vaniman,”
he reported, huskily. “He's lying against this door. I can't push it any
further. He's wedged against the front of the vault.”
Then Starr lighted a match. He noted that the space above the door was
too narrow for his bulk or Britt's.
“Go tell the guard to send in a chap that's slim and spry,” the examiner
commanded the girl. “We've got to boost somebody in over that door.”
“I'll go. I must go. I'm bound and determined to go!” she insisted,
pulling at him, trying to crowd past him.
But it was necessary for Starr and Britt to follow her to the wider
space below the corridor in order to allow her to pass them. They
demurred, still, but she hurried back up the stairs. Britt knelt and
gave her his shoulders to serve as a mounting block. She swung herself
over the door, and by the light of the match that Starr held she was
able to avoid stepping on the prostrate figure when she lowered herself
to the floor.
The men outside in the passage detected the odor of chloroform.
“I have lifted him,” the girl cried. “Push back the door.”
Britt obeyed. Then he and Starr took the unconscious cashier by
shoulders and heels and carried him to the private office.
Britt's office conveniences did not include a couch; the men propped
Vaniman in the desk chair and Vona crouched beside him and took his head
on her shoulder.
There were no visible marks of injury. He gave off the scent of
chloroform. His wrists were crossed in front of him and were secured
with a noose of tape. Starr picked up shears from Britt's desk and cut
the tape. “Where's your doctor? Get him in here.”
“He lives in another part of the town. I didn't see him at the hall
to-night,” said Britt. “I'll send for him.”
But Vaniman began to show such promising symptoms that the president
delayed the message.
There seemed to be magic in the touch of Vona's caressing palm on the
stricken man's forehead; the words she was murmuring in his ear were
stirring his faculties. He opened his eyes and stared at her and at the
two men, vague wonderment in his expression.
“What is it--what has happened?” he muttered.
“That's what we want to know,” said Starr. “What did happen? Who got
afoul of you?”
“I don't know. Who brought me in here?”
“We got you out of the bank vault and brought you here by the way of
Britt's private passage.”
Vaniman seemed to find that statement unconvincing.
“He didn't know about that passage,” stammered the president. “I--I
never bothered to speak about it. I suppose I ought to have told you,
Frank. That cement panel is a door--with the handle on this side.”
The cashier shook his head slowly, as if giving up the attempt to
understand.
“I guess the panel fits so closely that you never noticed it was a
door,” Britt went on, with the manner of one trying to set himself
right. “I meant to tell you about it.”
“But what happened?” the examiner insisted.
“I don't know, sir.”
“Look here! You must know something!”
“Mr. Starr, this is no time to shout and bellow at this poor boy who has
barely got his senses back,” Vona protested, indignantly.
“You mustn't blame Mr. Starr, dear,” said the cashier, patting her hand.
“Of course, he and Mr. Britt are much stirred up over the thing. I'm not
trying to hide anything, gentlemen. You say you found me in the vault!
What is the condition of things in the bank?” He struggled and sat up
straighter in the chair. He was showing intense anxiety as his senses
cleared.
Examiner Starr, though present officially, was in no mood to make any
report on bank conditions just then. “Vaniman, you'd better do your
talking first.”
“I'll tell all I know about it. I was working on the books, my attention
very much taken up, of course. I felt a sudden shock, as I remember it.
Everything went black. As to what has been going on from that moment,
whenever it was, till I woke up here, I'll have to depend on you for
information.”
“That's straight, is it?” demanded the examiner, grimly.
“On my honor, sir.”
“There's a lot to be opened out and what you have said doesn't help.”
“I wish I could help more. I understand fully what a fix I'm in unless
this whole muddle is cleared up,” confessed the cashier, plaintively. He
had been putting his hand to his head. “I think I must have been stunned
by a blow.”
Starr, without asking permission, ran his hand over Vaniman's head. “No
especially big lump anywhere!”
Vaniman spanned a space on his head between thumb and forefinger. “I
feel a particular ache right about there, sir.”
“Britt, get down that lamp!”
The president brought the lamp from the hanging bracket and held it
close to Vaniman's head while Starr carefully parted the hair and
inspected. “There's a red strip, but it's not much swollen,” he
reported. “Of course, we know all about those rubber wallopers
that--But this is not a time for guesswork. Now, Vaniman, how about this
chloroform odor? Remember anything about an attempt to snuff you that
way?”
“No, sir!”
“Why don't you wait until to-morrow and let Frank's mind clear up?”
Vona pleaded. She had been standing with her arm about the young man's
shoulders, insisting on holding her position even when Starr crowded
close in making his survey of the cashier's cranium.
“Young woman, the first statements in any affair are the best statements
when there's a general, all-round desire to get to bottom facts,” said
the examiner, sternly.
“That's my desire, sir,” declared Vaniman, earnestly. “But I have told
you all I know.”
President Britt had replaced the lamp in the bracket. He waited for a
moment while Starr regarded the cashier with uncompromising stare, as if
meditating a more determined onslaught in the way of the third degree.
Britt, restraining himself during the interview, had managed to steady
himself somewhat, but he was much perturbed. He ventured to put in a
word. “Mr. Starr, don't you think that Vona's idea is a good one--give
Frank a good night's rest? He may be able to tell us a whole lot more in
the morning.”
Then the bank examiner delivered the crusher that he had been holding
in reserve. “Vaniman, you may be able to tell me in the morning, if not
now, how it happens that all your specie bags were filled with--not with
the gold coin that ought to have been there, but with”--Starr advanced
close to the cashier and shook a big finger--“mere metal disks!” He
shouted the last words.
Whether Starr perceived any proof of innocence in Vaniman's
expression--mouth opening, eyes wide, face white with the pallor of
threatened collapse--the bank examiner did not reveal by any expression
of his own.
“This is wicked--wicked!” gasped Vona.
“Young woman, step away!” Starr yanked her arm from Vaniman's shoulder
and pushed her to one side. “Did you know _that_, Mr. Cashier--suspect
that--have any least idea of that?”
“I did not know it, sir.”
“Why didn't you know it?”
Vaniman tried to say something sensible about this astounding condition
of affairs and failed to utter a word, he shook his head.
“How had you verified the specie?”
“By checking the sacks as received--by weighing them.”
“Expect somebody else to take 'em in the course of business on the same
basis?”
“I was intending--”
Starr waited for the explanation and then urged the cashier out of his
silence.
“I intended to have President Britt and a committee of the directors
count up the coin with me, sir. But it can't be possible--not with the
Sub-treasury seal--not after--”
“If you're able to walk, you'd better go over into the bank and take
a look at what was in those sacks, Mr. Cashier.” The examiner put a
sardonic twist upon the appellation. “The sight may help your thoughts
while you are running over the matter in your mind between now and
to-morrow morning.”
Vaniman rose from the chair. He was flushed. “Mr. Starr, I protest
against this attitude you're taking! From the very start you have acted
as if I am a guilty man--guilty of falsifying accounts, and now of
stealing the bank's money.”
There was so much fire in Vaniman's resentment that Starr was taken down
a few pegs. He replied in a milder tone: “I don't intend to put any name
on to the thing as it stands. But I'm here to examine a bank, and I find
a combination of crazy bookkeeping and a junk shop. My feelings are to
be excused.”
“I'll admit that, sir. But you found something else! You found me in the
vault, you say. It is plain that I was shut in that vault with the time
lock on; otherwise it wouldn't have been necessary to lug me out by that
other way, whatever it is!” He snapped accusatory gesture at the
open door of Britt's vault and flashed equally accusatory gaze at the
president. “Do you think I was trying to commit suicide by that kind of
lingering agony?”
“Seeing how you admit that you excuse my feelings, Vaniman, I'll admit,
for my part, that you've certainly got me on that point. It doesn't look
like a sensible plan of doing away with yourself, provided there is
any sense in suicide, anyway! You say you were not aware of Mr. Britt's
private passage?” he quizzed.
“Most certainly I knew nothing about it.”
“I suppose, however, the vault door is time-locked. To be sure, we were
pretty much excited when we tried to open it--”
“Verily, ye were!”
The voice was deep and solemn. The sound jumped the four persons in
Britt's office. Framed in the door of Britt's vault was Prophet Elias.
“How did you get in here?” thundered “Foghorn Fremont,” first to get his
voice.
“Not by smiting with the rod of Moses,” returned the Prophet,
considerable ire in his tone. “I pulled open the door of the bank vault
and walked in.”
“Britt, you'd better put up a sign of 'Lunatic Avenue' over that passage
and invite a general parade through,” barked Starr. “I've had plenty of
nightmares in my life, but never anything to equal this one, take it by
and large!”
It was evident from President Britt's countenance that a great many
emotions were struggling in him; but the prevailing expression--the one
which seemed to embrace all the modifications of his emotions--indicated
that he felt thoroughly sick. He gazed at the open door of his vault and
looked as a man might appear after realizing that the presentation of a
wooden popgun had made him turn over his pocketbook to a robber. “Walked
in? _Walked_ in?” he reiterated.
The stress of the occasion seemed to have made the Prophet less
incoherent than was his wont; or perhaps he found no texts to fit this
situation. “I did not dive through your solid steel, Pharaoh! I used my
eyes, after I had used my ears. Here!” His fists had been doubled. He
unclasped his hands and held them forward. In each palm was one of the
metal disks. “Your bank-vault door was trigged with these--wedged in the
crack of the outer flange. I saw, I pulled hard on the big handle--and
here I am!”
“But the bolts--” Starr stopped, trying to remember about the bolts.
“The bolts were not shot. You were trying to push back what had already
been pushed.”
Starr began to scratch the back of his head, in the process tipping his
hat low over his eyes. He turned those eyes on Vaniman. “Speaking of
pushing--of being able to push--” But the examiner did not allow himself
to go any farther at that time. “Vaniman,” he blurted, after a few
moments of meditation, “I want you to volunteer to do something--of your
own free will, understand!”
Vaniman, pallid again, was fully aware of the effect of this new
revelation on his position, already more than questionable. “I'll follow
any suggestion, of my own free will, sir.”
“We'd better arrange to have a private talk to-night before we go to
sleep, and another talk when we wake up. I suggest that you come to the
tavern and lodge with me.”
“It's a good plan, Mr. Starr,” the cashier returned, bravely.
But in the distressed glance which Frank and Vona exchanged they both
confessed that they knew he was politely and unofficially under arrest.
“I'll keep Dorsey on the premises and will stay here, myself,” proffered
the president. “You can be sure that things will take no harm during the
night, Mr. Starr.”
“So far as your bank goes, there doesn't seem to be much left to harm,
Britt,” snapped back the examiner. He fished one of the disks from his
vest pocket and surveyed it grimly. “As to these assets, whatever they
may be, I don't think you need to fear--except that small boys may want
to steal 'em to use for sinkers or to scale on the water next summer.
What are they, anyway? Does anybody know?”
Britt had plucked one of the disks from his pocket and was inspecting
it. He hastened to say that he had never seen anything of the sort till
that evening.
Prophet Elias seemed to be taking no further interest in affairs. He
went to the door leading into the corridor. It was locked. “I'd like to
get out,” he suggested.
“Now that the other way through the vaults had become the main-traveled
avenue of the village, why don't you go out as you came in?” was Starr's
sardonic query.
The Prophet was not ruffled. “I would gladly do so, but the door of the
grille is locked.”
“Ah, that accounts for the fact that everybody else in Egypt isn't in
this office on your heels! Britt, let him out!”
The president obeyed, unlocking the door, and the Prophet joined the
crowd in the corridor. Starr went to the door and addressed the folks.
“Allow me to call your attention, such of you as are handy to this door,
to Cashier Vaniman.” He jerked a gesture over his shoulder. “You can see
that he is all right. We are giving out no information to-night. I order
you, one and all, to leave this building at once. I mean business!”
He waited till the movement of the populace began, gave Dorsey some
sharp commands, and banged the door. But when he turned to face those
in the office he reached behind himself and opened the door again; the
sight of the girl had prompted him. “I suggest that this is a good time
for you to be going along, Miss Harnden. You'll have plenty of company.”
But she showed no inclination to go. She was exhibiting something like a
desperate resolve. “Will you please shut the door, Mr. Starr?”
He obeyed.
“It's in regard to those disks! They are coat weights!”
Starr fished out his souvenir once more and inspected it; his face
showed that he had not been illuminated especially.
“Women understand such things better than men, of course,” she went on.
“Dressmakers stitch those weights into the lower edges of women's suit
coats to make the fabric drape properly and hang without wrinkling.”
“You're a woman and you probably know what you're talking about on
that line,” admitted the examiner. “But because you're a woman I don't
suppose you can tell me how coat weights happen to be the main
cash assets of this bank!” Mr. Starr's manner expressed fully his
contemptuous convictions on that point.
“I certainly cannot say how those weights happen to be in the bank, sir.
But I feel that this is the time for everybody in our town to give in
every bit of information that will help to clear up this terrible thing.
I'm taking that attitude for myself, Mr. Starr, and I hope that all
others are going to be as frank.” She gave President Britt a fearless
stare of challenge. “My father has recently had a great deal of new
courage about some of the inventions he hopes to put through. He has
told me that Mr. Britt is backing him financially.”
“Your father is everlastingly shinning up a moonbeam, and you know it,”
declared Britt.
Starr shook his hand, pinching the disk between thumb and forefinger.
“Young woman, I'm interested only in this, if you have any information
to give me in regard to it.”
Vaniman was displaying an interest of his own that was but little short
of amazement.
“The information I have is this, sir! My father said that Mr. Britt's
help had enabled him to start in manufacturing a patent door which
requires the use of many washers with small holes, and he was saying
at home that he'd be obliged to have them turned out by a blacksmith.
I happened to be making over something for mother and I had some coat
weights on my table. I showed them to my father and he said they were
just the thing. He found out where they were made and he ordered a
quantity--they came in little kegs and he stored them in the stable.
That's all, Mr. Starr!”
“All? Go ahead and tell me--”
“I have told you all I know, sir! That's the stand I'm taking, whatever
may come up. If you expect me to tell you that these are the disks my
father stored in the stable, I shall do no such thing. The kegs and the
disks may be there right now, for all I know.” She faced the examiner
with an intrepidity which made that gentleman blink. It was plain enough
that he wanted to say something--but he did not venture to say it.
“And now I'll go! I think my father must be out there waiting for me.
If you care to stay here long enough, I'll have him hurry back from our
home and report whether the kegs are still in the stable.”
“We'll wait, Miss Harnden!” Starr opened the door.
After she had gone, Britt closed the door of his vault and shot the
bolts.
The three men kept off the dangerous topic except as they conferred on
the pressing business in hand. They helped Dorsey hurry the lingerers
from the building. Then they went into the bank, stored the books in the
vault, and locked it.
Starr, especially intent on collecting all items of evidence, found
in the vault, when he entered, a cloth that gave off the odor of
chloroform. On one corner of the cloth was a loop by which it could be
suspended from a hook.
“Is this cloth anything that has been about the premises?” asked the
official.
“It's Vona's dustcloth,” stated Britt. He had watched the girl too
closely o' mornings not to know that cloth!
That information seemed to prick Starr's memory on another point. From
his trousers pocket he dug the tape which he had cut from Vaniman's
wrists. He glanced about the littered floor. There was the remnant of a
roll of tape on the floor. Mr. Starr wrapped the fragment of tape in a
sheet of paper along with the roll.
Then Mr. Harnden arrived. The outer door had been left open for him. He
had run so fast that his breath came in whistles with the effect of
a penny squawker. As the movie scenarios put it, he “got over,” with
gestures and breathless mouthings rather than stated in so many words,
that the kegs of disks were gone--all of them.
Replying with asthmatic difficulty to questions put to him by Starr, Mr.
Harnden stated that he could not say with any certainty when the kegs
had been taken, nor could he guess who had taken them. He kept no horse
or cow and had not been into the stable since he put the kegs there. The
stable was not locked. He had always had full faith in the honesty of
his fellow-man, said the optimist.
Mr. Starr allowed that he had always tried to feel that way, too, but
stated that he had been having his feelings pretty severely wrenched
since he had arrived in the town of Egypt.
Then he and Vaniman left the bank to go to the tavern.
Outside the door, a statue of patience, Squire Hexter was waiting.
“I didn't use my pull as a director to get underfoot in there, Brother
Starr. No, just as soon as I heard that the boy, here, was all right I
stepped out and coaxed out all the others I could prevail on. What has
been done about starting the general hue and cry about those robbers?”
Starr stammered when he said that he supposed that the local constable
had notified the sheriff.
“I attended to that, myself! Dorsey could think of only one thing at
a time. But I reckoned you had taken some steps to make the call more
official. The state police ought to be on the job.”
“I'll attend to it.” But Mr. Starr did not display particularly urgent
zeal.
“Well, son, we'll toddle home! What say?”
Vaniman did not say. He was choking. Reaction and grief and anxiety were
unnerving him. Starr did the saying. “The cashier and I have a lot of
things to go over, Squire, and he plans to spend the night with me at
the tavern.”
“I see!” returned the notary, amiably, showing no surprise. He called a
cheery “Good night!” when he left them at the tavern door.
Landlord Files gave them a room with two beds. Without making any bones
of the thing, Examiner Starr pushed his bed across the door and then
turned in and snored with the abandon of one who had relieved himself of
the responsibility of keeping vigil.