With expert fingers Phillip Dunston, receiving teller, verified the
last package of one-hundred-dollar bills he had made up--ten thousand
dollars in all--and tossed it over on the pile beside him, while he
checked off a memorandum. It was correct; there were eighteen packages
of bills, containing $107,231. Then he took the bundles, one by one,
and on each placed his initials, "P. D." This was a system of checking
in the Ralston National Bank.
It was care in such trivial details, perhaps, that had a great deal to
do with the fact that the Ralston National had advanced from a small
beginning to the first rank of those banks which were financial
powers. President Quinton Fraser had inaugurated the system under
which the Ralston National had so prospered, and now, despite his
seventy-four years, he was still its active head. For fifty years he
had been in its employ; for thirty-five years of that time he had been
its president.
Publicly the aged banker was credited with the possession of a vast
fortune, this public estimate being based on large sums he had given
to charity. But as a matter of fact the private fortune of the old
man, who had no one to share it save his wife, was not large; it was
merely a comfortable living sum for an aged couple of simple tastes.
Dunston gathered up the packages of money and took them into the
cashier's private office, where he dumped them on the great flat-top
desk at which that official, Randolph West, sat figuring. The cashier
thrust the sheet of paper on which he had been working into his pocket
and took the memorandum which Dunston offered.
"All right?" he asked.
"It tallies perfectly," Dunston replied.
"Thanks. You may go now."
It was an hour after closing time. Dunston was just pulling on his
coat when he saw West come out of his private office with the money to
put it away in the big steel safe which stood between depositors and
thieves. The cashier paused a moment to allow the janitor, Harris, to
sweep the space in front of the safe. It was the late afternoon
scrubbing and sweeping.
"Hurry up," the cashier complained, impatiently. Harris hurried, and
West placed the money in the safe. There were eighteen packages.
"All right, sir?" Dunston inquired.
"Yes."
West was disposing of the last bundle when Miss Clarke--Louise
Clarke--private secretary to President Fraser, came out of his office
with a long envelope in her hand. Dunston glanced at her and she
smiled at him.
"Please, Mr. West," she said to the cashier, "Mr. Fraser told me
before he went to put these papers in the safe. I had almost
forgotten."
She glanced into the open safe and her pretty blue eyes opened wide.
Mr. West took the envelope, stowed it away with the money without a
word, the girl looking on interestedly, and then swung the heavy door
closed. She turned away with a quick, reassuring smile at Dunston, and
disappeared inside the private office.
West had shot the bolts of the safe into place and had taken hold of
the combination dial to throw it on, when the street door opened and
President Fraser entered hurriedly.
"Just a moment, West," he called. "Did Miss Clarke give you an
envelope to go in there?"
"Yes. I just put it in."
"One moment," and the aged president came through a gate which Dunston
held open and went to the safe. The cashier pulled the steel door
open, unlocked the money compartment where the envelope had been
placed, and the president took it out.
West turned and spoke to Dunston, leaving the president looking over
the contents of the envelope. When the cashier turned back to the safe
the president was just taking his hand away from his inside coat
pocket.
"It's all right, West," he instructed. "Lock it up."
Again the heavy door closed, the bolts were shot and the combination
dial turned. President Fraser stood looking on curiously; it just
happened that he had never witnessed this operation before.
"How much have you got in there to-night?" he asked.
"One hundred and twenty-nine thousand," replied the cashier. "And all
the securities, of course."
"Hum," mused the president. "That would be a good haul for some
one--if they could get it, eh, West?" and he chuckled dryly.
"Excellent," returned West, smilingly. "But they can't."
Miss Clarke, dressed for the street, her handsome face almost
concealed by a veil which was intended to protect her pink cheeks from
boisterous winds, was standing in the door of the president's office.
"Oh, Miss Clarke, before you go, would you write just a short note for
me?" asked the president.
"Certainly," she responded, and she returned to the private office.
Mr. Fraser followed her.
West and Dunston stood outside the bank railing, Dunston waiting for
Miss Clarke. Every evening he walked over to the subway with her. His
opinion of her was an open secret. West was waiting for the janitor to
finish sweeping.
"Hurry up, Harris," he said again.
"Yes, sir," came the reply, and the janitor applied the broom more
vigorously. "Just a little bit more. I've finished inside."
Dunston glanced through the railing. The floor was spick and span and
the hardwood glistened cleanly. Various bits of paper came down the
corridor before Harris's broom. The janitor swept it all up into a
dustpan just as Miss Clarke came out of the president's room. With
Dunston she walked up the street. As they were going they saw Cashier
West come out the front door, with his handkerchief in his hand, and
then walk away rapidly.
"Mr. Fraser is doing some figuring," Miss Clarke explained to Dunston.
"He said he might be there for another hour."
"You are beautiful," replied Dunston, irrelevantly.
* * * * * *
These, then, were the happenings in detail in the Ralston National
Bank from 4:15 o'clock on the afternoon of November 11. That night the
bank was robbed. The great steel safe which was considered impregnable
was blown and $129,000 was missing.
The night watchman of the bank, William Haney, was found senseless,
bound and gagged, inside the bank. His revolver lay beside him with
all the cartridges out. He had been beaten into insensibility; at the
hospital it was stated that there was only a bare chance of his
recovery.
The locks, hinges and bolts of the steel safe had been smashed by some
powerful explosive, possibly nitro-glycerine. The tiny dial of the
time-lock showed that the explosion came at 2:39; the remainder of the
lock was blown to pieces.
Thus was fixed definitely the moment at which the robbery occurred. It
was shown that the policeman on the beat had been four blocks away. It
was perfectly possible that no one heard the explosion, because the
bank was situated in a part of the city wholly given over to business
and deserted at night.
The burglars had entered the building through a window of the
cashier's private office, in the full glare of an electric light. The
window sash here had been found unfastened and the protecting steel
bars, outside from top to bottom, seemed to have been dragged from
their sockets in the solid granite. The granite crumbled away, as if
it had been chalk.
Only one possible clew was found. This was a white linen handkerchief,
picked up in front of the blown safe. It must have been dropped there
at the time of the burglary, because Dunston distinctly recalled it
was not there before he left the bank. He would have noticed it while
the janitor was sweeping.
This handkerchief was the property of Cashier West. The cashier did
not deny it, but could offer no explanation of how it came there. Miss
Clarke and Dunston both said that they had seen him leave the bank
with a handkerchief in his hand.