THE COMBINATIONS AT THE BANK.
For the pursuit of ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, which
Bret Harte once attributed to his famous “Heathen Chinee,” Barrows
couldn’t have selected a better place than those back rooms in Marsten’s
house. Marsten’s place cost him a hundred dollars a month in rent, which
was about twice what a house in that locality in New Haven is worth to
the ordinary, law-abiding citizen. But Marsten never felt that he was
paying too much. It was a house that was very hard to get into, for one
thing.
From the street it looked like an ordinary place. True, the windows were
nearly always dark, but that was the owner’s own business. The front
door looked very innocent. If you wanted to get in, you found an
ordinary wooden door, which was open. Behind that was a panel of shaded
glass, through which nothing of what went on inside was visible,
although a strong electric light shone down on any visitor who rang the
bell. That bell was a work of art in itself. It established an electric
current which resulted, by a complicated and most ingenious system of
mirrors, in revealing, to an observer carefully stationed for the
purpose within the house, the appearance of whoever rang it. If the
guard was made suspicious, the door was not opened, no matter how hard
the bell might be rung.
A few favored visitors, for greater convenience, were intrusted with a
code way of ringing that bell, which secured immediate admittance, at
any hour of the day or night, for Marsten had friends who were likely,
at almost any time, to require a quick and readily available hiding
place. For Marsten was in the habit, when gambling profits were a trifle
slow, of doing some extra business in the way of receiving stolen goods.
He was very careful about this, and Detective Jones and the other
shining lights of the New Haven police had not even suspected this phase
of his activities as yet.
This secret signal for gaining quick admittance to the house was changed
every few days, by way of precaution, lest, in some manner, some person
hostile to Mr. Marsten and his way of making a living should discover
it. Riggs, Foote, Barrows, Bascom, and a few others knew of it, and at
half past ten promptly on the night of the day on which Dick Merriwell
made his deposit of five thousand dollars in the Elm National Bank,
Riggs pressed the button twice in long rings, and then three times in
very rapid succession. It was the right code signal, and he was admitted
at once, to be greeted with a smile by Marsten.
“You’re very lucky, Mr. Riggs,” said Marsten. “There are times when I am
afraid that my friend Barrows is misguided, but he has been greatly
moved by the wrongs and sufferings of men in your position. As long as
his motives are good, I know of no reason why I should take it on myself
to criticize the means he uses to reform bad conditions. Follow me. I
will take you to him.”
Riggs, when he was taken upstairs, had to wait a few minutes for
Barrows. He found himself in what looked like a miniature machine shop.
There were several peculiar instruments around. One resembled a vacuum
cleaner. Then there were a number of delicate tools, all attached to
lengths of insulated wire, with plugs at the other end, evidently
adapted to use with an ordinary electric-light circuit. In one corner of
the room, a young man bent over a desk, industriously plying a very fine
camel’s-hair brush. He had half a dozen of these brushes, of incredible
delicacy, each resting on a little dish of paint, of different colors.
This young man, who might have been recognized as Bascom, the wireless
operator of the _Marina_, had Jim Phillips been there, paid no attention
at all to Riggs. He seemed to have plenty to keep him busy without
displaying any idle curiosity, and he worked as if he were fascinated by
his task, and took an artistic pride in doing it as well as it could be
done.
Then Barrows entered, brisk, confident, looking more like the man who
had been so sure of success before the defeat of his plans for making a
killing on the boat race at New London.
“All right, Riggs,” he said. “I think it looks pretty well. Now we want
to get right down to business. There’s no use wasting time here. They
might make an inspection of your books before you expected them, you
know, and the sooner things are straightened out so that you have
nothing to fear, the better you will feel. Have you got those numbers?”
“Yes,” said Riggs, taking a notebook from his pocket. “Here is a record
of every bank note above ten dollars in value that was in the vaults
to-night. And here are the numbers that I substituted in the official
record. I passed up all that are likely to be used in the course of
business to-morrow, and worked simply with the reserve cash, that would
not be touched except in an emergency. All our customers make it a point
to give us a few days’ notice, when possible, before making a large
withdrawal, so that we can be ready for them without any trouble. But
there is nothing of that sort in sight for several days.”
“Good,” said Barrows. “Now we shall be able to arrange that part of it
all right. Bascom, I want you to listen with me now, to the questions I
shall ask Riggs and to his answers. This is your part—and it is the
hardest part of the whole business, in a way.”
“All right,” said Bascom, looking up for the first time. “You needn’t
worry about my part of the game. I’ll be there with bells on. I’m tired
of needing money. This will set me up for life.”
“Now, in the first place,” said Barrows, “is there a watchman in the
bank?”
“No,” said Riggs, “they trust so much to their new safety and
burglar-proof devices that they’ve changed that. There’s a man who
patrols the whole block that the bank is in. He passes up and down in
front every fifteen minutes. He goes around behind, too, and can look
right in through the barred windows at the room that leads into the
vault. There’s always a light in that room.”
“That’s bad,” said Barrows. “I suppose he passes there every fifteen
minutes, too. That wouldn’t give you time enough, Bascom. We’ll have to
get rid of him for an hour or two.”
“Leave that to me,” said Bascom coolly. “We won’t let a detail like that
interfere with our plans. Not if I know myself.”
“How about the combinations?” asked Barrows, next. “And the key to the
front door? Could you get those?”
“I’ve got an impression of the front-door key,” said Riggs. “I couldn’t
get one of the keys, though. I was afraid I’d make them suspicious if I
asked for one, and I didn’t dare take a chance. As for the combinations,
I’ve got some, but not all of them. Here is the combination for the gate
of the vaultroom. I’ve got it for the outer door of the vault, too. The
inner door of the vault I couldn’t get. And, once you’re inside the big
vault, there’s an old-fashioned safe; that’s about the only one of the
old things they kept. That’s used to lock up currency. The packet of
hundred-dollar bills that Merriwell deposited to-day is in that.”
Barrows turned to Bascom.
“Can you manage on that?” he asked.
“What’s the type of that vault?” asked the wireless expert tersely.
Riggs told him.
“All right,” nodded Bascom. “I probably couldn’t open it if I didn’t
have the outer combination. But those people make their inner and outer
doors on the same principle, and I can find out what the inside
combination is in ten minutes, if I’ve already opened the outer gate. As
for the safe inside, there isn’t a safe made before nineteen hundred
that would fool me for ten minutes on the combination. I can get that by
listening to the tumblers. Those old soft-iron safes were hard to break,
but easy to open if you had good ears and understood the principles of
combination locks.”
“Then it’s going to be a regular burglary?” asked Riggs.
“Of course it is,” snapped Barrows. “How else did you suppose we were
going to work it? It’s going to be a regular burglary—but a darned sight
different from the ordinary ones you read about. You can go down to the
bank the morning after it’s been pulled off, and you won’t hear a word
about it. Thanks to you, we’ve been able to take precautions that will
delay detection for several days.”
Riggs, fascinated, seemed to want to hang around. But Barrows had sucked
him dry, and had no further use for him. So Riggs had to go, still in
the dark as to when the burglary was to be attempted.
“That deposit of Merriwell’s is a bit of luck,” said Barrows, turning
with a smile to Bascom when they were alone. “Makes it a lot easier for
us to queer his game. I know what it’s for, too. He’s made some friends
of mine pretty sore by the way he’s threatened their lumber interests up
in Maine. We’ll be killing two birds with one stone if we land him.”
“Oh, let up on Merriwell,” said Bascom angrily. “You’ll queer this game
yet if you insist on dragging in your personal quarrels, Barrows. You
ought to be content to work the plant and let it go at that. You’ll have
money enough after this business to do Merriwell up without half trying.
Hire some one to do it for you and keep out of it yourself. No use
taking unnecessary risks.”
“I’m not going to,” said Barrows. “That’s what I roped this lad Foote in
for. He’s going to pull my chestnuts out of this fire for me, though he
doesn’t know it, and if he gets burned doing it, it will be his lookout,
not mine.”
“I forgot about Foote,” conceded Bascom. “Still I wish you’d stick to
one thing at a time. This business is delicate enough, without mixing up
a lot of other things with it that don’t belong at all. You may see that
when it’s too late, and be sorry you were so rash.”
“You’re as bad as Harding,” said Barrows angrily. “I’m just holding
Foote in reserve if anything goes wrong with the plan. This looks like a
first-class game, and a safe one. But that business at New London taught
me not to leave anything to chance. That watchman worries me. If we fall
down at all, it’s going to be on account of him. But I guess we can
guard against that. I’ll see Foote to-night, and we’ll put it over
to-morrow night. That give you time enough?”
“Sure,” said Bascom. And so it was agreed.
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