BEHIND THE OLD BOOKS
“Now, Larry, tell us all about it,” invited Mr. Bentfield a little
later, when, with his lawyer, he had greeted the young reporter in his
private office of the bank. It was past midnight, and, had any one
looked into that room, he might have wondered what brought the three
there, to hold a secret conference.
“Well, I made two strange discoveries,” Larry answered. “I think, Mr.
Bentfield, that we are about at the end of the trail. I can’t promise
you the million dollars, but I believe I can name the thief. He’s the
one I have suspected from the first. Now for my evidence.”
Larry quickly went over all his work on the bank mystery case from the
beginning. Then he gave more details of his location of the tell-tale
bricks, so near Witherby’s boarding place, telling of seeing the man at
the window, trying on the false beard.
“And now comes the climax,” went on Larry, as he told of finding the
thousand-dollar bill, and the false, sandy moustache.
“By Jove!” exclaimed the lawyer, “I never would have believed it! Of
course, he’s the guilty one, Bentfield. You should notify the police,
and have him arrested at once. In fact, I think I would not wait for
his return. He may never come back. Send word out to this place, where
he has gone on business for you, and have him taken into custody there.
Get him out of bed if necessary. He may have the million with him.”
“Poor fellow!” said the bank president softly. “It is sad to think
of it. I am just beginning to realize how hard it must be for a bank
clerk, on a comparatively small salary, to see millions of dollars
every day, and know that he must not touch them. And most of them are
young fellows, with a love for the pleasures of life. It is hard, very
hard! A great temptation!”
“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed the lawyer gruffly. “They should resist
temptation. The money is not theirs. If they take it they must suffer
the consequences. Call up the police at once, and have them arrest this
fellow. I congratulate you, young man,” he said to Larry. “You have
worked up a difficult case in a masterly manner. I congratulate you.
Yes, hum!”
“It isn’t finished yet,” said Larry, who had seen many a good story go
to pieces at the last minute. “Wait until we get the thief, and the
million.”
“Oh, we as good as have the thief, but I can’t say so much for the
money,” spoke the lawyer, confidently.
“All I ask,” said Larry, “is that you will see that I get the first
information on this case. I want the story exclusively. That is why I
have worked so hard on it--to get a ‘beat’ for the _Leader_.”
“You shall have it, you shall have it,” said the bank president slowly.
“Poor fellow! Poor Witherby! I suppose there is no other way than to
have him arrested?” He looked at the legal gentleman anxiously.
“A way out? Of course not, my dear sir. He must be arrested. Call up
the police at once.”
“I suppose I’ll have to,” sighed Mr. Bentfield. “And yet I had great
hopes of that young man. He had a hasty temper, but he was getting
control of it. Too bad--too bad.”
He reached for the telephone on his desk, but Larry stayed his hand.
“One moment, Mr. Bentfield,” said the young reporter. “I think, now
that this case seems likely to come to an issue, that we had better be
sure of our ground.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, in all likelihood, Witherby will deny that he took the
money.”
“But we can prove that he had part of it in his possession!” exclaimed
the lawyer testily.
“I’m afraid not,” went on Larry. “Thousand-dollar bills are not so very
uncommon. No one knows the numbers of the stolen ones, it seems. And,
it has been my experience, that no matter how good the evidence, or how
complete the case against a criminal, he will deny it, in the hope of
puzzling a jury.”
And as Larry spoke thus he could not help thinking of how it might
affect Grace Potter--to know that her friend and distant relative was a
bank thief. Larry almost wished he did not have to solve the mystery.
“Well, I suppose you are right,” admitted the lawyer. “I have had very
little practice in criminal cases.”
“What do you suggest, Larry?” asked the banker.
“I think that we should go carefully over the ground, and see if there
are any weak points,” replied the young reporter. “If we have to resort
to circumstantial evidence we ought to be able to show, step by step,
how the chain of evidence is made up. In the first place, would it have
been possible for Witherby to have gotten to the bag that morning,
after the million dollars was put in it?”
“I think it would,” answered the president. “Suppose we go out into the
main room, and look over the ground? It may help us on the case.”
The three went out into the dimly lighted “cage” where, during business
hours, so much money changed hands.
“Here is where the bank-notes were put into the bag,” said Mr.
Bentfield, pointing to a low desk. “I know, because I was present at
the time. It was one of the biggest transactions we ever undertook,
and I wanted no mistakes. I saw the bundles of notes put into the
steel-mesh-lined bag. It was then locked, and set close to the chief
cashier’s desk, on the floor. There were a number of clerks and tellers
all around, and it would have been impossible for a stranger--an
outsider--to have come in the cage. We can easily prove that, if
Witherby sets up, as a defense, that some one other than a bank
employee might have committed the theft.”
“After the bag was placed on the floor, what happened?” asked Larry,
who wanted to refresh his memory.
“It stayed there until it was picked up, to be taken to the other bank.
Then the theft was discovered, as you know.”
Larry looked around the cage. It was like most banks. In front of the
brass grill work, and inside of it, was a long desk, at about the
height of a man’s chest. It was at this desk that the various tellers
and bookkeepers worked, and took in the money from depositors, or paid
it out through little wickets.
On the other side of the cage was a similar long desk, at which several
bookkeepers could work on the sloping top. This desk was not used by
the public at all, but at it the bank’s books were made up, money
counted and put into packages, and similar things done. Underneath
this desk were several closets, or compartments, closed by sliding
doors.
“What are they for?” asked Larry, pointing to the closets.
“Oh, unimportant books are kept in them, and some of the clerks use
them to put their rubbers or umbrellas in. Nothing of any account,” and
Mr. Bentfield opened several of the doors. Many of the compartments
were empty, and in one was a small valise.
“Whose is that?” asked Larry.
“Oh, it belongs to some of the clerks, I suppose,” answered the
president. “Often they go out of town for week-end visits. To save time
so as not to have to go back home, or to their boarding-places, after
the bank closes, they bring their valises down here with their change
of clothes in, and take the train from here. That is nothing.”
“No,” agreed Larry. His gaze went farther about the cage and rested
on the open door of a sort of closet, or vault. It was practically a
vault, for there was a heavy iron portal to it.
“Is that where you keep the bank’s money, Mr. Bentfield?” Larry asked,
with a smile. “It does not seem to be a very safe place.”
“No, that’s a vault where we keep old ledgers that are out of use. We
file them away merely for reference. They are seldom looked at, and
sometimes we burn them up. The vault is fire-proof, and that’s the
most that can be said of it. I don’t know why the door wasn’t closed
to-night. Some one was careless.”
Hardly knowing why he did it, Larry walked into this vault. There
was an incandescent lamp swinging from the ceiling by a green cord.
The young reporter reached up, and switched it on. He still had no
particular object in his actions. It was more to cover every bit of the
ground, so as to be in a position to testify accurately, in case he was
called on as a witness, as would be probable.
There were rows and rows of old ledgers on the shelves of the vault.
Big, heavy books, some of them nearly a foot thick. Their gold-lettered
backs stood out in the glow of the electric light.
“I shouldn’t want to carry many of those books around,” said Larry, as
he raised his hand to push against one of the largest, and so judge of
its weight. “They are pretty heavy. I should think----”
But he never finished that sentence. For, as his fingers came in
contact with the back of the old ledger it moved--it slid in on the
shelf, and, not only did that book move, but also the one next to it.
And Larry knew, full well, that not by a mere pressure of his fingers
could he move one of the heavy books on the shelf, to say nothing of
two.
“What is it? What is the matter?” demanded Mr. Bentfield, attracted
by something strange in the young reporter’s action. “Have you found
anything of importance?”
Larry did not answer. He tried to push a book that stood next to
the two which he had been able to move with such ease. He found it
impossible.
Only by exerting considerable strength was he able to slide the other
old ledger back. But it was different in the case of the first two.
They moved at a touch. There could be but one reason. They were dummies!
As this thought flashed into Larry’s mind he reached up and, taking
hold of the tops of the light ledgers, he pulled them toward him. They
came away amid a cloud of dust, leaving a gaping space in the row of
books.
And then something tumbled from the place they had occupied. A bag--a
leather bag, which rolled over and over on the floor of the vault to
the very feet of the president. The leather backs of the old ledgers
had been glued to the bag, and, when Larry pulled, they came out from
the row of books, bringing the bag with them. But the glue had not held
well, and the weight of the bag, once it was off the shelf, had pulled
it loose.
There it lay, on the floor, and Larry stood holding the backs of the
ledgers, from which the covers and pages had been cut with a sharp
knife. But it was the bag on which all eyes rested.
“It’s the bank’s bag! The bag that held the million dollars!” cried the
president, leaning over to grasp it. “It’s the bag for which the dummy
one was exchanged! What an amazing discovery!”
“See if the million is in it!” hoarsely suggested Larry.