First we want to get your stories direct.”
Bryce rolled his cigar around in his mouth, blew a thin cloud of smoke up toward the ceiling and watched it, caught by the suction, swirl into the ventilation register. He dropped his eyes now and again to Jerry and Jeremy with a hint of glare they could not fail to observe.
Jerry made as if to speak but Fenner stopped him, saying kindly: “What we want you to do is to think carefully and tell us just what happened today. Try to remember every little detail. Something that may not appear important to you may be very significant when taken with everything else.”
In appearance as in method Fenner differed radically from Bryce. He was tall and rather spare of figure, invariably immaculately turned out, and carried his fifty odd years lightly enough. There was a certain aquiline keenness about his features but his ruddy complexion and his shock of prematurely snow-white hair softened this. His eyes, gently blue, genial, invited confidence.
“We had better have your story here,” he went on, nodding toward Jeremy. “We’ll have yours later in your own office.” The last to Jerry.
Jeremy thought for a moment, then launched into as complete a description of the events of the morning as he could remember. He had started checking up the truck immediately upon its arrival but had scarcely commenced when Mr. Hanley had brought in the engineers about the door. He had shoved the truck into the corner and had attended their questions. He’d showed them how the door was binding and they’d talked about it a while. Then they’d tried the level of the floor with a machine and then had talked some more. Then they’d looked over the walls for cracks. They had all gone out about noon—maybe a few minutes before. He’d decided to eat before unloading the truck, and had ordered his lunch. Then he’d read a newspaper till one o’clock. Soon after he had resumed work he’d found that one bag on the check list was not on the truck, and had called his son down to the vault. They’d checked it all over and had then reported to Mr. Hanley. That was all.
Hanley nodded from time to time, corroboratively. Fenner watched Jeremy while he talked, pigeon-holing the facts in his orderly mind. Bryce jotted down notes in a small pocket notebook. They examined the truck which still stood where Jeremy had unloaded it.
“You say they had to shift the truck a little in order to set up this instrument?” Fenner asked when Jeremy had finished.
“Yeah; they moved it out a little to get into the corner behind it.”
“Was that after you and the doorman had stepped out to try the door?”
“Yes; we had tried it and had come back inside.”
“They found the door unbalanced and that’s what led them to want to try the level of the floor,” Hanley explained.
“Then later Morton found the cracks over there and they all crowded over to look at them. Is that right?”
Jeremy and Hanley nodded.
“Can you show us the cracks and put the truck about where it was at that time?”
Hanley pointed out several small, irregular cracks in the rear wall of the vault near the floor. They were very fine and only noticeable from fairly close by. Jeremy studied a minute, then shifted the truck, to a point a yard or so from the corner and looked to Hanley for confirmation.
“That’s about right,” the manager agreed.
“Say, how big was this sack?” Bryce asked abruptly.
No one answered until Hanley turned to Jerry.
“Why, it was about eight inches long and four inches wide and six or seven inches deep,” the latter said after a second of hesitation, indicating the size with a spread of his hands. “It was large denominations, sir.” The last explanation was directed to Hanley.
“How were all of these men dressed?” Fenner next asked.
Hanley volunteered the answer to that question.
“Let’s see; Morton had on a topcoat and Dickson carried one over his arm, or a light overcoat. The other fellow had no overcoat at all; just a suit coat.” He finished: “Now that I think of it, Mr. Morton carried a briefcase—pretty sizable one, too.”
Bryce audibly grunted.
Hanley said: “We may get more from the entrance checker. I’ve questioned him already and he noticed nothing suspicious; but the. party entered and left by the employees’ door which he watches. We’ll see him directly.”
“By the way,” Fenner asked Jeremy, “you say you had your lunch here? Then you really haven’t left the vault at all since this happened?”
“Haven’t had my foot out of the door since ten o’clock this morning.”
“Always have your lunch here?”
“Almost always.”
“Usually alone?”
“Sometimes Pat comes in.” He indicated the doorman on duty outside the barred grille.
“But today?”
“Nope; alone today.”
There were a few minutes more of discussion and repetition; then the party, without Jeremy, went up to Jerry’s cage. The tellers and clerks looked curiously at the group when they came in, but at a general glance from Hanley went on with their work.
Jerry told his story a little nervously, beginning at the point where Hanley had come in to look at the crack in the wall. He spread out his check lists on the desk, though none of the party bothered to examine them closely.
Fenner was interested in the method of packing and handling the currency. He asked to see one of the dispatch bags. Jerry showed him one and also explained how the packets were identified with metal-rimmed fiber tags wired through eyelets in the top of the bag. Fenner pocketed a blank tag.
Next they called the truck boy who had taken the load to the vault. He came in, obviously badly frightened. Fenner quickly reassured him and plied him with questions about the particular trip. Apparently nothing unusual had occurred except for the slight near-collision at the door. The stop at Jerry’s cage had been the last one on that round and the truck had gone from there directly to the vault.
Hanley enlarged a little on the incident at the door. He had side-stepped the truck but it had gently bumped at least two of the men following him, he explained.
Bryce grunted with disgust: “You could have hauled that bag through Wall Street at noon time on a kiddie car and not have had it much more exposed, all in all, than it was.”
Fenner said nothing, nor had Hanley any reply.
As they were about to leave Fenner inquired casually of Jerry: “Do you have lunch in the building like your dad?”
“Sometimes I eat at the employees’ restaurant, but more often I go outside,” Jerry answered.
“Would you mind telling us what time you went out this noon and where you went.”
Jerry hesitated perceptibly, flushing a little.
“I went out a few minutes one way or the other of noon,” he said. “I had lunch at the new Automat around the corner in Pearl Street. Then I walked down around the Battery for a while. When I got back it was quarter after one. I had only been back a few minutes when Pop called up.”
“I see. Ah—thank you.” Fenner seemed satisfied.
Having exhausted the possibilities of this location,
Hanley took Fenner and Bryce to interview the entrance guard. Jerry went back to his work.
In the employees’ entrance lobby of the bank there was a counter beside the door. Behind a glass screen sat two men. All day they watched the employees and messengers come and go. Every employee was known by sight to one or the other of these two men, as were also most of the messengers and runners who came regularly to the bank. Anyone coming or going whom they failed to recognize was required to explain his errand. If the slightest suspicion arose in their minds the explanation was checked by telephone. It had proved, Hanley told Fenner and Bryce, as nearly an airtight system as they could devise without hampering the operation of the bank.
Hanley explained to the man who had been on duty in the morning that they wanted to know what each of the party of engineers had worn or carried.
“Well, seeing that t
hey were, with you I didn’t give them much attention,” the guard said. “The big fellow had on a tan topcoat, a light brown hat, a brown suit, I think, and carried a brown leather briefcase—looked fairly well crammed.”
“That’s Morton,” Hanley put in.
“The one with the glasses had on a light gray overcoat and a gray hat. His partner had on a blue suit and no overcoat. He was carrying a reddish wooden box with a leather strap handle, and he had a sort of collapsible stand under his arm.”
“That’s Dickson and Borden.”
“When they went out,” the man continued, “the big fellow looked just the same to me. He changed his bag from one hand to the other when he shook hands with Mr. Hanley. It looked heavy but no more so than before. The man with the glasses had his topcoat over his arm instead of wearing it. The other one was just the same.”
Fenner nodded approvingly. “There’s the kind of a person I like to ask a question of. Shows what a trained observer will take in.” To Bryce in an aside he commented: “—and he admits he didn’t pay ‘special attention’!”
“Do you know the Donegans?” Fenner asked the checker.
The latter nodded that he did.
“Can you tell me if either of them went out this noon, and when?”
“Not Old Jeremy. He never goes out at noon. Jerry was out to lunch, though. Let’s see—I don’t remember him going out but I remember him coming back a little after one, picking his teeth. We talked for a minute.”
“Can you recall what he said?”
“Nothing much. Just a remark or two about getting spring fever.”
Hanley wondered mildly at Fenner’s odd line of questioning but said nothing. It was a little after three o’clock when they adjourned to his office.
6
Hanley drew up chairs for Bryce and Fenner and then sat down himself. He waited for one of the others to speak.
“Not much to get hold of so far. I want to browse around a bit between your working floor and the vault,” Fenner began.
“Have you really an idea this is an inside job?” Hanley asked.
“I haven’t any ideas at all at present. I refuse to formulate any theories or conclusions until we’ve talked to Morton and Dickson and Borden.”
“You don’t expect their versions of what happened in the bank to differ much from what we’ve been told, do you?” Bryce asked.
“Certainly not; but there were five people, there and we’ve heard only two.” Fenner inclined his head toward the bank manager. “Without any reflection at all on Mr. Hanley here, or Donegan either, for that matter, I have no doubt that there are details which they have failed to notice but which might be remembered by one, of the others. Possibly nothing of any significance, but that remains to be seen.”
“If this should be an inside job—though I can’t refrain from expressing my firm conviction that it’s not—would you be inclined to suspect Jeremy or young Jerry or both?” Hanley persisted in his line of inquiry.
“It’s hard to say,” Fenner answered shortly, “but until it’s all cleared up every move either of them makes, in the bank or out of it, ought to be observed.” He glanced at Bryce and continued: “If either of them or the pair together have anything to do with this they’ll soon give themselves away. If it was the vault custodian alone, the stuff’s not out of the bank yet. If it was he and the boy, or the young man alone, he probably cached it somewhere this noon and will have to go back for it soon.” He paused. “Then, too,” he went on, “don’t forget that you’re not limited to the vault. The bag was loaded on the truck about ten-thirty in Donegan’s cage—that is, presumably it was. Its loss was discovered after one o’clock in the vault. The truck had to travel from the cage to the vault.”
“Yes, but Jerry’s cage was the last stop. The truck went straight to the vault. That lad’s pretty dependable, and the way is all guarded, anyway. No office space to go through or anything of that sort—just the corridor behind the cages and the elevator to the vault anteroom. No loopholes en route, I can pretty well assure you.”
Fenner only raised his eyebrows.
The discussion was interrupted by the jangling of the phone. Hanley answered it and, with a “For you,” handed it to Bryce. The. latter acknowledged himself and listened. Fenner and Hanley waiting curiously watched a slow frown darken his face. Presently he hung up and said to them: “There’s no Detroit train leaving any New York station within forty-five minutes, one way or the other, of one o’clock. Mr. Randolph Morton hasn’t been at his apartment since morning, nor at his club all day, nor at his office since he came here this morning. Looks bad. I’d like to bet that when we find him we’ll be pretty near to the bottom of this. We’ll find him, too. There’s a lot of good men out looking for him right at this minute.”
“Let’s not jump too quickly to conclusions,” Fenner cautioned, and at an impatient gesture from Bryce amended amiably: “I mean by that, let’s not forget the others.”
“Don’t worry! We’re forgetting no one!” He paused but continued: “Wouldn’t it help now to give something to the newspapers?”
Hanley looked uncertainly at Fenner and said: “I know that they would prefer upstairs—the Board Room—to do without the publicity, but if it will help at all, why, of course we can’t yield to their feelings.”
“I think a little well worded publicity might be of service,” Fenner said thoughtfully. “It is entirely possible that Mr. Morton has absented himself for perfectly legitimate reasons of his own. In that case he would immediately come forward; and if, as you seem to feel, it’s not an inside job, why the story’s got to come out sooner or later anyway.”
Hanley had no answer. Bryce shrugged his shoulders, and said: “We’ll see, anyway. Let me give out this story and I’ll mention no names. I have a few reporters who are a real help sometimes and I like to pay them back with these little scoops. Back in a moment.” He went into the adjoining room to use. the outside telephone.
While he was gone an office boy glided in and spoke to Hanley in a low tone. The banker straightened up in his chair.
“Bring him right in here,” he told the boy, and to Fenner explained: “It’s Borden.”
A moment later Philip Borden was ushered in. He was a clean-cut, youngish looking man with an almost military erectness of carriage, whom Fenner judged to be in his late twenties. He came directly to the desk, looking from one to the other with politely restrained curiosity, and nodded to Hanley whom alone he knew.
“Sit down a moment,” the bank manager said. “We’ve a few questions to ask you when the inspector gets back. Oh, by the way, did you find Mr. Dickson?”
“No; I’m sorry but I couldn’t locate him. I left a note for him, though. I have no doubt he’ll be back at the office in time to stop down here.”
“I hope so. Uh, this is Mr. Fenner.”
Fenner pushed a chair toward Borden as Bryce returned from the other room. Hanley opened the inquiry.
“There has been discovered since this forenoon a shortage in our central vault. You understand, of course, that you are being in no way accused.” He looked at Fenner who smiled reassuringly at Borden and took up the talk.
“We would like you to tell us in as much detail as you can just exactly what happened during the time you were in the bank this morning. There may be something that happened or that you noticed which may afford us a clew.”
Borden told his story, a little haltingly at first but more fluently as he warmed up. It differed in no important detail from the stories told by Jeremy and Hanley. Fenner prompted him now and then and tried to draw him out with leading questions, but no information as to the visits to Jerry’s cage or the vault was elicited which they did not already possess.
When he had concluded Fenner asked: “What time did you leave the bank?”
“Somewhere close to noon,” Borden replied. “Alone?”
“Yes; that is, practically. Mr. Morton walked down to the corner with me, or, rather, as far
as the Mercantile Bank.”
“He left you there?”
“Yes.”
“Did he go into the Mercantile Bank?”
“Yes; I believe so.”
Bryce appeared about to speak but Fenner prevented him with a motion of his hand. “Where did you go from there?”
Borden thought a moment. “I went to a little instrument repair shop in Fulton Street; Adolph Knoeckler’s. Our level needed some repairs and I left it there.”
“And from there?”
“I went to lunch and then to the office.”
“Where do you usually take your lunch?”
“When I’m in this neighborhood I usually go to a place in Pearl Street called Billy’s, but today I went to an Exchange Bullet up in the Hudson Terminal.”
“You must have gotten back to your office shortly after one o’clock. I suppose Mr. Dickson had been there and left in the meantime?”
Borden hesitated and then said: “No; it was half past one or after. It took a little while at Knoeckler’s and I ate a sizable lunch. However, I couldn’t have missed Mr. Dickson by much, because he usually takes at least an hour for lunch himself. He must have gone out only a few minutes before I got back.” Fenner turned to Bryce and Hanley. “Do either of you think of anything?” Apparently neither did. As an afterthought Fenner asked: “How do you go uptown to your office?”
“I took the B. M. T. from Cortlandt Street.” Fenner thanked Borden and with a little gesture of dismissal indicated that the interview was over. Borden got up to go.
“It would be better if you mentioned this affair to no one,” Hanley cautioned him.
“All right, sir; and if I can be of any more use please let me know. I’m sure those are the boss’s sentiments too—Mr. Dickson’s, I mean.” He looked at his watch and found that it was a quarter before four. “I’ve time for a little work at the office if I get on back,” he apologized, and left.
Fenner waited until the door had clicked behind him and looked quickly at the inspector.
“Don’t worry.” The latter read his question. “He’s had company since he left his office and they’ll stay right with him.”
The Bank Vault Mystery Page 4
