A CLUE
Coatless men and bareheaded women made up the excited company before the
Clinkerport Bank, while shrill-voiced children circled the outskirts.
It was like a circus or a street-fair day for the youngsters.
But among the adults there were grave faces. This disaster was a very
real one to many who had scrimped and saved--like the Bassetts--for a
bank account.
The Clinkerport Bank was a "one man institution." If Arad Thompson had
mismanaged it, or had not taken sufficient precautions against burglary,
the result might be a lasting blow to the community.
These people were not familiar enough with law and with banking affairs
to understand why the Clinkerport Bank should be closed if the
institution itself--and Arad Thompson--had not "gone broke" through the
robbery that was reported.
"What d'ye think of it? What d'ye think, Tobias?" demanded Ezra Crouch
of the lightkeeper when the latter approached the scene. "Ain't it a
shame--a rascally shame? That Arad Thompson----"
"I hadn't heard tell that Arad burgled his own bank. Did he, Ez?"
"Wal, no. I dunno as he did," admitted the much-wrought-upon Mr.
Crouch, who had never deposited a dollar in the bank in all his
shiftless career and probably never would. "But Arad's responserble,
ain't he?"
"I cal'late," agreed Tobias mildly. "Guess we better give him a chance
to straighten things out----"
"I guess you ain't heard much about it, Tobias," interrupted the
busy-tongued Ezra. "Something mighty funny about this robbery. Arad
called in all the money he could an' seemed to get his cash-drawer
crammed with it, jest so's 'twould make a good haul for these burglars.
A hundred and forty thousand dollars! My!"
"Does seem a whole lot o' money to take chances with," admitted Tobias.
"Huh! And why does Arad, fust-off, telegraph to some feller they call a
'bank examiner' and get him down here on the airly train? And why does
he shut the bank up as tight as a herrin' can and put a sign on the
door? That's what _I_ want to know."
"Time'll tell. I wouldn't get excited if I was you, Ez," advised the
lightkeeper soothingly.
"Wal, that Arad Thompson----"
"I know. We got to watch him--and that wheel chair. Where is he?"
"Inside. In his office," snorted Ezra Crouch.
"Smokin' twenty-five cent _see_-gars an' takin' it easy."
"Looks suspicious," agreed Tobias, his eyes twinkling. "These times it
does seem as though a feller _must_ have come by his money dishonest if
he smokes quarter cigars. Hullo, Mr. Compton!"
Compton kept one of the general stores. He was a bald-headed, keen-eyed
man. His smile was rather grim as he acknowledged the lightkeeper's
greeting.
"Good-day, Tobias. What you and Ezra doing? Going to get a rope and
pick out a good tree for a necktie party? To hear some of these folks
talk you'd think Arad had robbed his own self."
"How was it done?" asked Tobias.
"Plain to be seen. Back window forced from the outside. They must have
worked a long time on those window-bars, to saw 'em through. But they
opened the safe by learning the combination."
"Get out!"
"Fact. Didn't hurt the lock none. Either they knew the combination
'fore they started in, or they was smart enough to puzzle it out."
"They knowed the combination because they knowed it," snorted Ezra
Crouch cryptically.
"But where was the watchman?" Tobias asked.
"Doped," said Compton. "You know Bill Purvis? Good man, but never any
too smart. Always keeps his lunch basket and bottle of cold tea on a
beam under the shed back of the post-office. Everybody in town knew
'twas there and that Bill took a snack about 'leven o'clock, or a little
later.
"They drugged his tea last night, and he woke up under the shed just
before four o'clock this morning. He see the bank window open and the
bars bent up and he ran to Arad's house. Arad telephoned a message to
the telegraph operator at the station, who put it through for this bank
examiner, before he even tucked his shirt in, so they say."
"Yep," ejaculated the suspicious Mr. Crouch. "Looks mighty like Arad
knowed the bank had been robbed, spang off!"
"He could easy guess it," said Compton, with a dry chuckle, "considering
the look of that back window."
"I see," said Tobias. "Nobody ever could accuse Arad Thompson of being
slow."
"Oh, he's smart enough," sneered Ezra. "That's what we all air worried
about."
The lightkeeper asked the storekeeper:
"Mr. Compton, haven't they found any of them there clues ye read about?
Burglars always leave clues, don't they?"
"There's the open window and the sawed bars," returned Compton.
"Huh!" sneered the sparrowlike Ezra, "they couldn't very well take 'em
away with them, could they?"
Tobias gave him no further heed. He was "studying."
"Mr. Compton," he said again, "I've noticed them winder bars. They are
master thick."
"You are right, Tobias."
"Nobody could saw through one of them--not with a meat saw--in a short
time. And I have read that them sort of saws is made out o' watch
springs. Mighty flimsy they must be. 'Twouldn't be like cutting cheese
with a dull knife."
"I believe you, Tobias."
"If Bill Purvis," went on the lightkeeper reflectively, "went for his
lunch about 'leven, then them burglars couldn't have been sawin' on the
bars much before midnight. Humph! Let's go 'round there and take a
squint."
Tobias and the storekeeper, with Ezra Crouch tagging them, entered the
lane between the bank building, which was built of cement blocks, and
the post-office, which was a frame structure. The window in question
overlooked a stableyard at the back.
"I give it as my opinion," said the lightkeeper, "that them burglars
couldn't have worked here till after Bill was dead to the world in that
shed yonder. Else he'd have seen 'em."
"You're right, Tobias."
"And look at them bars," continued the lightkeeper. "Ha'f as thick as my
wrist. How'd you like to stand here--on a flimsy box, 'tis likely--and
saw away at them two bars? For how long? I cal'late 'twas something of
a job. 'Twould take more'n _one_ hour--nor yet _two_!"
"Uh-huh!" agreed the storekeeper.
"And then they crawled in and worked on the door of the vault, and got
it open. Well, well! That must have taken some time, too. And they got
clean away with the money before four o'clock?"
"They worked quick," said Compton.
"But they couldn't work quick sawin' them bars. That would take just so
much time, however smart they was."
"Well?"
"Why," said Tobias, "I don't see how they could have done it all in one
night."
Ezra Crouch laughed raucously. "O' course they done it last night," he
said. "If they'd cut the bars before, somebody would have seen it."
"Not so sure," Tobias rejoined. "I give it as my opinion that they must
have worked here before--mebbe on several nights. Almost sawed through
the bars and smutched dirt over the cracks to hide 'em. About all they
had to do last night was to force the bars apart after Bill was asleep.
And then they got in and worked on the safe."
"But why didn't Bill Purvis see 'em the other nights?" Compton wanted to
know.
"Like enough because he was sleeping like he was last night," Tobias
rejoined promptly. "Nobody had to drug his tea. You always see Bill
Purvis wanderin' around before folks go to bed. But who ever kept tabs
on him after 'leven or twelve o'clock? I cal'late Bill rolled out of
the hay this morning 'bout his usual time and found the bank robbed."
"I swanny!" murmured Ezra.
"It might be like you say, Tobias," agreed Mr. Compton.
"Yes. It might. Huh! What's this?"
The lightkeeper stooped and picked something out of the sand just under
the forced window. It was a small, flat, gold penknife. There were a
few gold links attached to one end. It had been torn from a watch
chain.
"I give it as my opinion," murmured Tobias, "that it was scraped off as
the feller worked his way in over that winder-sill. I reckon, Mr.
Compton, here is a real clue."
"Huh!" muttered the doubting Ezra. "I don't believe Arad Thompson ever
wore that dinky little thing."
"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed the amused lightkeeper. "I don't guess Arad was
anywhere hereabout when the burglars crawled in at that window. And he
never wore this here doo-dad on his watch chain, nohow."
He shook his head, staring at the penknife reflectively. He had seen
that knife--or one much like it--before. In whose possession?
"Cal'late I better see Arad about this," he said finally. "When the
perlice come to take holt on this case, Arad will want to give them all
the help he can."
"Then," said Compton, the storekeeper, with growing admiration, "you
don't believe this robbery was done by nary couple of burglars that come
to town last night and got clean away before morning?"
"I don't know about their getting away," said Tobias. "Maybe it would
be well to look about to see who's missing. But these burglars must
have been in town some time and knowed all about the bank and Bill
Purvis. No doubt o' that, Mr. Compton."
"Wal," croaked Ezra Crouch, his eyes like big porcelain buttons, "who's
gone away since last night? _I_ dunno, 'less 'tis old Miz Janey Ring
that's gone down to Harbor Bar to visit with her darter-in-law."
"Oh, sugar!" snorted Tobias.
"And it ain't sure they got away by train," said the storekeeper. "Who
has gone out by boat, or left in an automobile?"
"That's what I say," Tobias observed, still staring at the gold knife.
"Maybe them burglars ain't left town at all. No tellin'. Humph! I
cal'late I'd better give this to Arad."
He walked to the side door of the bank--the door opening on the
lane--and punched the button.