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THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE
BY
ALICE MacGOWAN
AND
PERRY NEWBERRY
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1922, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_Copyright, 1921, by_
THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
_under the title "Two and Two"_
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I WORTH GILBERT 1
II SIGHT UNSEEN 16
III A WEDDING PARTY 27
IV AN APPARITION 45
V AT THE ST. DUNSTAN 57
VI ON THE ROOF 65
VII THE GOLD NUGGET 75
VIII A TIN-HORN GAMBLER 87
IX SANTA YSOBEL 101
X A SHADOW IN THE FOG 110
XI THE MISSING DIARY 124
XII A MURDER 137
XIII DR. BOWMAN 147
XIV SEVEN LOST DAYS 155
XV AT DYKEMAN'S OFFICE 164
XVI A LUNCHEON 171
XVII CLEANSING FIRES 181
XVIII THE TORN PAGE 188
XIX ON THE HILL-TOP 196
XX AT THE COUNTRY CLUB 209
XXI A MATTER OF TASTE 214
XXII A DINNER INVITATION 225
XXIII A BIT OF SILK 231
XXIV THE MAGNET 240
XXV AN ARREST 250
XXVI MRS. BOWMAN SPEAKS 261
XXVII THE BLOSSOM FESTIVAL 273
XXVIII THE COUNTRY CLUB BALL 293
XXIX UNMASKED 303
XXX A CONFESSION 311
XXXI THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE 320
THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE
CHAPTER I
WORTH GILBERT
On the blank silence that followed my last words, there in the big,
dignified room with its Circassian walnut and sound-softening rugs,
Dykeman, the oldest director, squalled out as though he had been bitten,
"All there is to tell! But it can't be! It isn't possib--" His voice
cracked, split on the word, and the rest came in an agonized squeak, "A
man can't just vanish into thin air!"
"A man!" Knapp, the cashier, echoed. "A suitcase full of money--our
money--can't vanish into thin air in the course of a few hours."
Feverishly they passed the timeworn phrase back and forth; it would have
been ludicrous if it hadn't been so deadly serious. Well, money when you
come to think of it, is its very existence to such an institution; it
was not to be wondered at that the twelve men around the long table in
the directors' room of the Van Ness Avenue Savings Bank found this a
life or death matter.
"How much--?" began heavy-set, heavy-voiced old Anson, down at the lower
end, but stuck and got no further. There was a smitten look on every
face at the contemplation--a suitcase could hold so unguessably great a
sum expressed in terms of cash and securities.
"We'll have the exact amount in a few moments--I've just set them to
verifying," President Whipple indicated with a slight backward nod the
second and smaller table in the room, where two clerks delved mole-like
among piles of securities, among greenbacks and yellowbacks bound round
with paper collars, and stacks of coin.
The blinds were down, only the table lamps on, and a gooseneck over
where the men counted. It put the place all in shadow, and threw out
into bolder relief the faces around that board, gray-white, denatured,
all with the financier's curiously unhuman look. The one fairly cheerful
countenance in sight was that of A. G. Cummings, the bank's attorney.
For myself, I was only waiting to hear what results those clerks would
bring us. So far, Whipple had been quite noncommittal: the extraordinary
state of the market--everything so upset that a bank couldn't afford
even the suspicion of a loss or irregularity--hinting at something in
his mind not evident to the rest of us. I was just rising to go round
and ask him quietly if, having reported, I might not be excused to get
on the actual work, when the door opened.
I can't say why the young fellow who stood in it should have seemed so
foreign to the business in hand; perhaps the carriage of his tall
figure, the military abruptness of his movements, the way he swung the
door far back against the wall and halted there, looking us over. But I
do know that no sooner had Worth Gilbert, lately home from France,
crossed the threshold, meeting Whipple's outstretched hand, nodding
carelessly to the others, than suddenly every man in the room seemed
older, less a man. We were dead ones; he the only live wire in the
place.
"Boyne," the president turned quickly to me, "would you mind going over
for Captain Gilbert's benefit what you've just said?"
The newcomer had, so far, not made any movement to join the circle at
the table. He stood there, chin up, looking straight at us all, but
quite through us. At the back of the gaze was a something between weary
and fierce that I have noticed in the eyes of so many of our boys home
from what they'd witnessed and gone through over there, when forced to
bring their attention to the stale, bloodless affairs of civil life.
Used to the instant, conclusive fortunes of war, they can hardly handle
themselves when matters hitch and halt upon customs and legalities; the
only thing that appeals to them is the big chance, win or lose, and have
it over. Such a man doesn't speak the language of the group that was
there gathered. Just looking at him, old Dykeman rasped, without further
provocation,
"What's Captain Gilbert got to do with the private concerns of this
bank?"
As though the words--and their tone--had been a cordial invitation,
rather than an offensive challenge, the young man, who had still shown
no sign of an intention to come into the meeting at all, walked to the
table, drew out a chair and sat down.
"Pardon me, Mr. Dykeman," Cummings' voice had a wire edge on it, "the
Hanford block of stock in this bank has, as I think you very well know,
passed fully into Gilbert hands to-day."
"Thomas A. Gilbert," Dykeman was sparing of words.
"Captain Worth Gilbert's father," Whipple attempted pacification. "Mr.
Gilbert senior was with me till nearly noon, closing up the transfer. He
had hardly left when we discovered the shortage. After consultation,
Knapp and I got hold of Cummings. We wanted to get you gentlemen
here--have the capital of the bank represented, as nearly as we
could--and found that Mr. Gilbert had taken the twelve-forty-five train
for Santa Ysobel; so, as Captain Gilbert was to be found, we felt that
if we got him it would be practically--er--quite the same thing--"
Worth Gilbert had sat in the chair he selected, absolutely indifferent.
It was only when Dykeman, hanging to his point, spoke again, that I saw
a quick gleam of blue fire come into those hawk eyes under the slant
brow. He gave a sort of detached attention as Dykeman sputtered
indecently.
"Not the same thing at all! Sons can't always speak for fathers, any
more than fathers can always speak for sons. In this case--"
He broke off with his ugly old mouth open. Worth Gilbert, the son of
divorced parents, with a childhood that had divided time between a
mother in the East and a California father, surveyed the parchment-like
countenance leisurely after the crackling old voice was hushed. Finally
he grunted inarticulately (I'm sorry I can't find a more imposing word
for a returned hero); and answered all objections with,
"I'm here now--and here I stay. What's the excitement?"
"I was just asking Mr. Boyne to tell you," Whipple came in smoothly.
No one else offered any objections. What I repeated, briefly, amounted
to this:
Directly after closing time to-day--which was noon, as this was
Saturday--Knapp, the cashier of the bank, had discovered a heavy
shortage, and it was decided on a quick investigation that Edward
Clayte, one of the paying tellers, had walked out with the money in a
suitcase. I was immediately called in on what appeared a wide-open
trail, with me so close behind Clayte that you'd have said there was
nothing to it. I followed him--and the suitcase--to his apartment at the
St. Dunstan, found he'd got there at twenty-five minutes to one, and I
barely three quarters of an hour after.
"How do you get the exact minute Clayte arrived?" Anson stopped me at
this point, "and the positive knowledge that he had the suitcase with
him?"
"Clayte asked the time--from the clerk at the desk--as he came in. He
put the suitcase down while he set his watch. The clerk saw him pick it
up and go into the elevator; Mrs. Griggsby, a woman at work mending
carpet on the seventh floor--which is his--saw him come out of the
elevator carrying it, and let himself into his room. There the trail
ends."
"Ends?" As my voice halted young Gilbert's word came like a bullet. "The
trail can't end unless the man was there."
"Or the suitcase," little old Sillsbee quavered, and Worth Gilbert gave
him a swift, half-humorous glance.
"Bath and bedroom," I said, "that suite has three windows, seven
stories above the ground. I found them all locked--not mere latches--the
St. Dunstan has burglar-proof locks. No disturbance in the room; all
neat, in place, the door closed with the usual spring lock; and I had to
get Mrs. Griggsby to move, since she was tacking the carpet right at the
threshold. Everything was in that room that should have been
there--except Clayte and the suitcase."
The babel of complaint and suggestion broke out as I finished, exactly
as it had done when I got to this point before: "The Griggsby woman
ought to be kept under surveillance"; "The clerk, the house servants
ought to be watched,"--and so on, and so on. I curtly reiterated my
assurance that such routine matters had been promptly and thoroughly
attended to. My nerves were getting raw. I'm not so young as I was. This
promised to be one of those grinding cases where the detective agency is
run through the rollers so many times that it comes out pretty slim in
the end, whether that end is failure or success.
The only thing in sight that it didn't make me sick to look at was that
silent young fellow sitting there, never opening his trap, giving things
a chance to develop, not rushing in on them with the forceps. It was a
crazy thing for Whipple to call this meeting--have all these old, scared
men on my back before I could take the measure of what I was up against.
What, exactly, had the Van Ness Avenue Bank lost? That, and not anything
else, was the key for my first moves. And at last a clerk crossed to our
table, touched Whipple's arm and presented a sheet of paper.
"I'll read the total, gentlemen." The president stared at the sheet he
held, moistened his lips, gulped, gasped, "I--I'd no idea it was so
much!" and finished in a changed voice, "nine hundred and eighty seven
thousand, two hundred and thirty four dollars."
A deathlike hush. Dykeman's mere look was a call for the ambulance;
Anson slumped in his chair; little old Sillsbee sat twisted away so that
his face was in shadow, but the knuckles showed bone white where his
hand gripped the table top. None of them seemed able to speak; the young
voice that broke startlingly on the stillness had the effect of scaring
the others, with its tone of nonchalance, rather than reassuring them.
Worth Gilbert leaned forward and looked round in my direction with,
"This is beginning to be interesting. What do the police say of it?"
"We've not thought well to notify them yet." Whipple's eye consulted
that of his cashier and he broke off. Quietly the clerks got out with
the last load of securities; Knapp closed the door carefully behind
them, and as he returned to us, Whipple repeated, "I had no idea it was
so big," his tone almost pleading as he looked from one to the other.
"But I felt from the first that we'd better keep this thing to
ourselves. We don't want a run on the bank, and under present financial
conditions, almost anything might start one. But--almost a million
dollars!"
He seemed unable to go on; none of the other men at the table had
anything to offer. It was the silent youngster, the outsider, who spoke
again.
"I suppose Clayte was bonded--for what that's worth?"
"Fifteen thousand dollars," Knapp, the cashier, gave the information
dully. The sum sounded pitiful beside that which, we were to
understand, had traveled out of the bank as currency and unregistered
securities in Clayte's suitcase.
"Bonding company will hound him, won't they?" young Gilbert put it
bluntly. "Will the Clearing House help you out?" in the tone of one
discussing a lost umbrella.
"Not much chance--now." Whipple's face was sickly. "You know as well as
I do that we are going to get little help from outside. I want you to
all stand by me now--keep this quiet--among ourselves--"
"Among ourselves!" rapped out Kirkpatrick. "Then it leaks--we have a
run--and where are you?"
"No, no. Just long enough to give Boyne here a chance to recover our
money without publicity--try it out, anyhow."
"Well," said Anson sullenly, "that's what he's paid for. How long is it
going to take him?"
I made no attempt to answer that fool question; Cummings spoke for me,
lawyer fashion, straddling the question, bringing up the arguments pro
and con.
"Your detective asks for publicity to assist his search. You refuse it.
Then you've got to be indulgent with him in the matter of time.
Understand me, you may be right; I'm not questioning the wisdom of
secrecy, though as a lawyer I generally think the sooner you get to the
police with a crime the better. You all can see how publicity and a
sizable reward offered would give Mr. Boyne a hundred thousand
assistants--conscious and unconscious--to help nab Clayte."
"And we'd be a busted bank before you found him," groaned Knapp. "We've
got to keep this thing to ourselves. I agree with Whipple."
"It's all we can do," the president repeated.
"Suppose a State bank examiner walks in on you Monday?" demanded the
attorney.
"We take that chance--that serious chance," replied Whipple solemnly.
Silence after that again till Cummings spoke.
"Gentlemen, there are here present twelve of the principal stockholders
of the bank." He paused a moment to estimate. "The capital is
practically represented. Speaking as your legal advisor, I am obliged to
say that you should not let the bank take such a risk as Mr. Whipple
suggests. You are threatened with a staggering loss, but, after all, a
high percent of money lost by defalcations is recovered--made
good--wholly or in part."
"Nearly a million dollars!" croaked old Sillsbee.
"Yes, yes, of course," Cummings agreed hastily; "the larger amount's
against you. The men who can engineer such a theft are almost as strong
as you are. You've got to make every edge cut--use every weapon that's
at hand. And most of all, gentlemen, you've got to stand together. No
dissensions. As a temporary expedient--to keep the bank sufficiently
under cover and still allow Boyne the publicity he needs--replace this
money pro rata among yourselves. That wouldn't clean any of you.
Announce a small defalcation, such as Clayte's bond would cover, so you
could collect there; use all the machinery of the police. Then when
Clayte's found, the money recovered, you reimburse yourselves."
"But if he's never found! If it's never recovered?" Knapp asked huskily;
he was least able of any man in the room to stand the loss.
"What do you say, Gilbert?" The attorney looked toward the young man,
who, all through the discussion, had been staring straight ahead of him.
He came round to the lawyer's question like one roused from other
thoughts, and agreed shortly.
"Not a bad bet."
"Well--Boyne--" Whipple was giving way an inch at a time.
"It's a peculiar case," I began, then caught myself up with, "All cases
are peculiar. The big point here is to get our man before he can get rid
of the money. We were close after Clayte; even that locked room in the
St. Dunstan needn't have stopped us. If he wasn't in it, he was
somewhere not far outside it. He'd had no time to make a real getaway.
All I needed to lay hands on him was a good description."
"Description?" echoed Whipple. "Your agency's got descriptions on
file--thumb prints--photographs--of every employee of this bank."
"Every one of 'em but Clayte," I said. "When I came to look up the
files, there wasn't a thing on him. Don't think I ever laid eyes on the
man myself."
A description of Edward Clayte? Every man at the table--even old
Sillsbee--sat up and opened his mouth to give one; but Knapp beat them
to it, with,
"Clayte's worked in this bank eight years. We all know him. You can get
just as many good descriptions as there are people on our payroll or
directors in this room--and plenty more at the St. Dunstan, I'll be
bound."
"You think so?" I said wearily. "I have not been idle, gentlemen; I have
interviewed his associates. Listen to this; it is a composite of the
best I've been able to get." I read: "Edward Clayte; height about five
feet seven or eight; weight between one hundred and forty and one
hundred and fifty pounds; age somewhere around forty; smooth face;
medium complexion, fairish; brown hair; light eyes; apparently
commonplace features; dressed neatly in blue business suit, black shoes,
black derby hat--"
"Wait a minute," interposed Knapp. "Is that what they gave you at the
St. Dunstan--what he was wearing when he came in?"
I nodded.
"Well, I'd have said he had on tan shoes and a fedora. He _did_--or was
that yesterday? But aside from that, it's a perfect description; brings
the man right up before me."
I heard a chuckle from Worth Gilbert.
"That description," I said, "is gibberish; mere words. Would it bring
Clayte up before any one who had never seen him? Ask Captain Gilbert,
who doesn't know the man. I say that's a list of the points at which he
resembles every third office man you meet on the street. What I want is
the points at which he'd differ. You have all known Clayte for years;
forget his regularities, and tell me his peculiarities--looks, manners,
dress or habits."
There was a long pause, broken finally by Whipple.
"He never smoked," said the bank president.
"Occasionally he did," contradicted Knapp, and the pause continued till
I asked,
"Any peculiarities of clothing?"
"Oh, yes," said Whipple. "Very neat. Usually blue serge."
"But sometimes gray," added Knapp, heavily, and old Sillsbee piped in,
"I've seen that feller wear pin-check; I know I have."
I was fed up on clothes.
"How did he brush his hair?" I questioned.
"Smoothed down from a part high on the left," Knapp came back promptly.
"On the right," boomed old Anson from the foot of the table.
"Sometimes--yes--I guess he did," Knapp conceded hesitantly.
"Oh, well then, what color was it? Maybe you can agree better on that."
"Sort of mousy color," Knapp thought.
"O Lord! Mousy colored!" groaned Dykeman under his breath. "Listen to
'em!"
"Well, isn't it?" Knapp was a bit stung.
"House mousy, or field mousy?" Cummings wanted to know.
"Knapp's right enough," Whipple said with dignity. "The man's hair is a
medium brown--indeterminate brown." He glanced around the table at the
heads of hair under the electric lights. "Something the color of
Merrill's," and a director began stroking his hair nervously.
"No, no; darker than Merrill's," broke in Kirkpatrick. "Isn't it,
Knapp?"
"Why, I was going to say lighter," admitted the cashier, discouragedly.
"Never mind," I sighed. "Forget the hair. Come on--what color are his
eyes?"
"Blue," said Whipple.
"Gray," said Knapp.
"Brown," said Kirkpatrick.
They all spoke in one breath. And as I despairingly laid down my pencil,
the last man repeated firmly,
"Brown. But--they might be light brown--or hazel, y'know."
"But, after all, Boyne," Whipple appealed to me, "you've got a fairly
accurate description of the man, one that fits him all right."
"Does it? Then he's description proof. No moles, scars or visible
marks?" I suggested desperately.
"None." There was a negative shaking of heads.
"No mannerisms? No little tricks, such as a twist of the mouth, a
mincing step, or a head carried on one side?"
More shakes of negation from the men who knew Clayte.
"Well, at least you can tell me who are his friends--his intimates?"
Nobody answered.
"He must have friends?" I urged.
"He hasn't," maintained Whipple. "Knapp is as close to him as any man in
San Francisco."
The cashier squirmed, but said nothing.
"But outside the bank. Who were his associates?"
"Don't think he had any," from Knapp.
"Relatives?"
"None--I know he hadn't."
"Girls? Lord! Didn't he have a girl?"
"Not a girl."
"No associates--no girl? For the love of Mike, what could such a man
intend to do with all that money?" I gasped. "Where did he spend his
time when he wasn't in the bank?"
Whipple looked at his cashier for an answer. But Knapp was sitting, head
down, in a painful brown study, and the president himself began
haltingly.
"Why, he was perhaps the one man in the bank that I knew least about.
The truth is he was so unobjectionable in every way, personally
unobtrusive, quite unimportant and uninteresting; really--er--
un-everything, such a--a--"
"Shadow," Cummings suggested.
"That's the word--shadow--I never thought to inquire where he went till
he walked out of here this noon with the bank's money crammed in that
suitcase."
"Was the Saturday suitcase a regular thing?" I asked, and Whipple looked
bewildered. But Knapp woke up with,
"Oh, yes. For years. Studious fellow. Books to be exchanged at the
public library, I think. No--" Knapp spoke heavily. "Come to think of
it, guess that was special work. He told me once he was taking some sort
of correspondence course."
"Special work!" chuckled Worth Gilbert. "I'll tell the world!"
"Oh, well, give me a description of the suitcase," I hurried.
"Brown. Sole-leather. That's all I ever noticed," from Whipple, a bit
stiffly.
"Brass rings and lock, I suppose?"
"Brass or nickel; I don't remember. What'd you say, Knapp?"
"I wouldn't know now, if it was canvas and tin," replied the harried
cashier.
"Gentlemen," I said, looking across at the clock, "since half-past two
my men have been watching docks, ferries, railroad stations, every
garage near the St. Dunstan, the main highways out of town. Seven of
them on the job, and in the first hour they made ten arrests, on that
description; and every time, sure they had their man. They thought, just
as you seem to think, that the bunch of words described something. We're
getting nowhere, gentlemen, and time means money here."