"You are acquainted with her?"
"Yes. We happen to be secretly engaged."
"Ah-h!" Cliff saw a meaningful look pass between the two detectives.
"Your fiancée?"
"Yes."
"Did you personally cash her check that day?"
"Yes."
"You are positive about that?"
"Yes. I cash all of the pay-roll checks; and besides, I remember
talking to her while she was at the window."
The detectives nodded at each other and Cliff was dismissed.
Immediately Jamieson and Burton checked up the movements of Phyllis
Robinson on that particular day. They learned that she had cashed the
company's pay-roll check as usual and that she had been absent from
the office only a short time. Yes, the puzzled cashier was positive of
that--he remembered noticing particularly that she'd hardly left the
office before she was back with the money. In answer to their query as
to whether she had time to stop somewhere en route to the office from
the bank, the little man indignantly protested that he recalled every
detail of the morning and that she couldn't possibly have done so. "I
never knew her to get back so quick before, and she never was one to
loiter."
So much for that. The girl had undoubtedly gone straight from the
bank to her office. The Jones cashier insisted that she delivered the
satchel to him personally. Jamieson and Burton then visited the banks
of the city and its suburbs. The Third National was the largest in the
district and they went meticulously down the line in the order of
importance. At the City Trust they were informed that Phyllis Robinson
rented a safety-deposit box. An inspection of her card disclosed the
fact that she had not visited the box in two months. Nor had she a box
at any other bank. Neither had Cliff Wallace.
News of the investigation, received from the puzzled cashier, via the
frightened Phyllis, elated Cliff. He was delighted to know that the
two detectives were at work, and supremely confident that they could
discover nothing.
But Hanvey did nothing. All day long he lounged about the lobby
or sat in one of the cages with his feet propped upon a shelf,
surrounding himself with a haze of rancid cigar smoke. And always
those blank, stupid eyes were turned upon the cage of the chief paying
teller--blinking, blinking.
Wallace did not vary a hair's breadth from the established routine of
his daily life. He breakfasted at his usual place at the usual hour,
snatched a lunch as he had always been in the habit of doing, dined at
his favorite cafeteria, called upon Phyllis Robinson in the evenings
and either walked with her or took her riding in his little car.
On Thursday he drew his monthly pay check--two hundred and fifty
dollars. One hundred dollars of it he immediately deposited to his own
credit in a savings account. He had done this for years.
On Friday he received a shock. It was a light pay-roll day--not more
than a quarter million dollars had been set aside for the pay rolls.
In the line was Phyllis, satchel in hand. He greeted her as usual,
counted the packages of bills and rolls of silver. And then, as he
unlocked the little window of his cage to return to her the satchel, he
visioned the ponderous figure of Jim Hanvey lolling indifferently over
the shelf; round idiotic eyes fixed unseeingly upon him. Fear flashed
into Cliff's heart and the color receded from his cheeks. What was the
significance of that? Was it possible----With an almost hysterical
gesture he slammed shut the window. Hanvey's eyes blinked once, slowly;
a second time, more slowly. Then he moved heavily away, playing with
his gold toothpick.
That night as Cliff was driving with Phyllis in the country--"That was
Hanvey standing by the window to-day when I cashed your pay-roll check."