Fenner was somewhat startled but concealed his surprise. “Yes; I didn’t get here until about four-fifteen.” He paused. “You’re observant, aren’t you?” The comment was in a cutting tone but he took the edge off by adding: “It’s always a pleasure and usually a help to have someone around who sees things. Now maybe you can tell us if there were any other visitors or customers in the afternoon or evening—say, after I left?”
Again old Schmidt stopped to think. “There was two I know of,” he started slowly. “There was one fellow, a young fellow. He came a little after five and stayed for ten or fifteen minutes. Seemed to know Adolph. When he came out he was laughing and yelled something back through the door to him. He stopped and bought a paper off me and then went on up toward William Street.” Schmidt stopped and shook his head a little wearily as if the effort of recollecting these events strained his mind.
Fenner looked quickly at Bryce, inquiringly. The latter pulled out his notebook. “That must’ve been Borden, all right. Five-ten to five-twenty-five. Shall we get hold of him? I think he’s at the bank job right now.”
“I think we’d better—and also that man you’ve got on him; Murphy, isn’t it?” Fenner replied.
“We’ll get Borden. Murphy’ll come along. Don’t worry about that,” Bryce assured him. He picked up Knoeckler’s telephone and called the job office. Borden, it seemed, was somewhere down in the excavation and Bryce had to wait ten minutes while he was found and summoned to the telephone. When Bryce asked him to come around to Knoeckler’s, he seemed surprised and curious but promised to come at once.
Fenner turned back to Schmidt. “You said there were two. Now what about the other fellow?”
“That was later on—not long before Elsa went away. It was a young fellow, too. He was hangin’ around in front when I came back from supper. I saw him go inside but I never saw him leave. He must’ve gone out while I was in my store.”
“Do you know him or anything about him?”
“No; only I think maybe I’ve seen him there before.”
“You’d know him again, then?”
“Oh, yes.”
Bryce was jotting down notes industriously. “How was Mr. Knoeckler’s health?” Dr. Pollard put this question.
“He’s been feelin’ his age a little, lately,” the old German answered cautiously. “His stomach’s been bothering him now and then, and he’s had a sort of weakness in his left side. His left arm trembled a lot. He’s been afraid of a stroke and was up to see Dr. Kellar only last week.”
“Dr. Kellar? Where?”
“Up in Park Row, I think.”
The coroner wrote down the name and picked up the telephone directory. “Is it Doctor Otto Kellar?” he asked.
“Yah—yess; that’s right.”
“I’ll see him.”
Fenner and Bryce started looking about the shop. “You need me any more?” Schmidt asked apologetically. “My store—”
“You’ll be in your store if we do?” Bryce wanted to know.
“Yah.” Schmidt nodded vigorously.
“Just a minute,” Fenner broke in. “There’s a chap on his way over here—be here in a minute. I want you to tell me if he’s the first young fellow you just told us about—the one who bought the paper from you. Then you can go.”
Only a few minutes later Borden came in. He hesitated in the entrance, glanced around, then came over to the group. When Schmidt saw him he looked at Fenner and nodded affirmatively. Fenner dismissed him with a wave and a curt “Thanks,” and turned to Borden.
“I understand you knew Mr. Knoeckler?” he began.
At the use of the past tense Borden looked up sharply. “Why, casually, I do. We usually have him repair our instruments when they get out of shape.”
“When did you last see him?”
“I saw him yesterday afternoon around five o’clock—maybe a few minutes after,” Borden replied. Nobody spoke, so he enlarged upon his answer. “We have a level here for repairs. I thought it wasn’t much of a job but Knoeckler called up yesterday afternoon and said he’d either have to send it back to the factory or substitute some old parts he had around. I left the office a little early and stopped here to go over the thing with him.”
“Did he seem ill or in any way act unusual when you were here?”
“Why, no; at least, not that I could notice.” He hesitated. “We had a good-natured argument about the price he wanted to charge for a second-hand tripod head. Not serious, of course—the bank’s paying for it anyway. No—he seemed all right to me. When I went out I called him a robber and he laughed at me.” Borden glanced around the semicircle of faces. “Why? What’s happened to him?”
“He’s either had an accident or been murdered—we hope the former,” Fenner replied.
Borden winced at the word but recovered quickly. He drew in his breath sharply, stammering in astonishment: “But—but what—but who—who would want to kill old Adolph?”
“That’s precisely what we’re most interested in finding out.” There was a steely hardness beneath Fenner’s tone and in the sharp way his words were clipped off. If Borden noticed he did not give any sign but simply waited for Fenner or Bryce to say more.
“Do you know anything about the man—his private life or anything of that sort?”
“I never saw Mr. Knoeckler except in this store and then only when business brought me here,” Borden replied. He had quite regained his composure.
At this point Bryce excused himself, remarking that he would return within a few minutes. Borden looked at his watch and fidgeted impatiently. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask me, sir? If not, I’d better get back to the job.”
“Better wait just a minute. Bryce might have something in his mind,” Fenner suggested amiably.
Borden waited, glancing around the shop. “There’s our level,” he said, pointing to an instrument on Knoeckler’s work bench in a rear corner of the shop. Beside it stood the open mahogany case; around it lay a miscellaneous assortment of tools. Borden went over to look at the machine. He looked around the bench, then at the old-fashioned roll-top desk which stood beside it.
“Don’t touch anything,” Fenner admonished sharply. “Fingerprints, you know,” he explained more coolly.
Borden stepped back quickly. “Oh, of course. I didn’t think,” he apologized. Just then Bryce returned.
“Anything you want to ask Mr. Borden?” Fenner inquired.
Bryce shook his head. “No—Nope. I guess not.”
Borden picked up his hat from the counter. “I’ll be going along, then?” he asked rather than stated, and at Fenner’s permission he hurried out.
When he had gone Bryce said a little disappointedly: “I was outside talking to Murphy. He confirms what Borden and Schmidt told us to a ‘T.’ All the details about the time and about Borden calling back and about him buying the paper, he confirms exactly.” Murphy was the aide of Bryce’s who had been shadowing Borden on the previous afternoon.
The coroner had been standing by in growing mystification. At his obvious curiosity Bryce explained, “There are some angles to this that we’ll have to go over with you afterward, Dr. Pollard. We’d better look around here now and see what we can turn up.”
There was little semblance of order about Knoeckler’s establishment. The counters and showcases were scantily stocked with a varied assortment of tapes, rods, drawing instruments, and other surveying and drafting paraphernalia. The rear portion, which had apparently served for his repair work, contained several work benches and in one corner the old roll-top desk. The benches were littered with tools, parts and odds and ends of instruments, and several instruments in process of repair.
The desk was covered with a jumble of papers, mostly bills and receipts. There were a few letters, a German newspaper, and on top of the pile—staring Fenner and Bryce in the face—a day-old copy of the tabloid newspaper opened to the article on the Consolidated American Bank theft.
Fenner a
nd Bryce stared at the paper for a long time. “Must be the paper Schmidt gave him yesterday afternoon,” Bryce finally suggested.
Fenner agreed absently; he seemed suddenly lost in thought. “Bryce,” he. announced abruptly, “that paper was spread out just like that, open to just that article, when I came in yesterday afternoon to question Knoeckler about Borden—only then it was over on the counter. Knoeckler was so absorbed reading it that he didn’t even hear me until I was almost on top of him. I wonder—“ He stopped as abruptly as he had started. For a moment more he was thoughtful, glancing around and resolving the arrangement of things in his mind. Then he was off on a new tack. “The next thing is to locate the girl. Let’s see what we can find upstairs.”
They went up, Fenner leading the way. In the small sitting-room they found nothing of interest or significance; nor in the kitchen-dining room combination at the rear. Elsa’s bedroom they found mildly disordered. “She packed in a hurry,” Fenner commented. The bed had not been slept in but on the counterpane they could see the rectangular imprint left by her small suitcase where she had placed it on the bed to pack it. One of the dresser drawers was partly pulled out and the closet door stood open. Several dresses and an empty hanger had been tossed at the foot of the bed.
Bryce rummaged hurriedly but skillfully through the dresser drawers. “Not a thing,” he grumbled; “not so much as a single scrap of paper of any kind. Funny damned thing, when you think of it—”
Last they went into Adolph’s room. They found it neat and clean and in surprising order, considering the habits of carelessness which the disordered condition of the shop would have indicated Adolph Knoeckler had possessed. On the dresser, weighted down with a hairbrush, they found a hastily scribbled note. Fenner scanned it rapidly, glanced at the reverse side and handed it to Bryce. The note was written in lead pencil on plain paper and read:
FATHER—
I had a chance to go up to the country over the weekend so I got off from work and am going. I expect to be back Sunday night or Monday morning.
I brought some things in. You will find them in the ice-box.
ELSA.
Bryce read it slowly and looked up at Fenner. “Do you make anything of it?” he asked.
“There are a lot of things you can make of it. For one thing, it looks as if Miss Knoeckler had purposely avoided meeting her father. They parked the car next door instead of out front. She came for her things at a time when she must have known he would be likely to be out for dinner. That may have been just a coincidence, of course. Her obvious haste in packing may have arisen from a desire to get away before he returned, though she might have been in a hurry for some other reason. The note indicates that she certainly expects to be back by Monday morning.” Fenner rubbed his chin meditatively and went on slowly, thinking aloud, “It’s going to be interesting to talk to the chap she went off with—if we ever see him. I suppose there’s no way of getting a line on him until we find Miss Knoeckler.”
“Pretty hard,” the inspector agreed.
“I wonder why they stopped the car next door. I wonder why she went in alone first. There may be perfectly simple explanations for these and a lot of other things, but I’m very much afraid we’re going to have to wait until Monday to learn what they are. As for the old gentleman—”
“The autopsy might show something,” Bryce reminded.
“It might.” But Fenner was obviously skeptical.
After a further cursory, and quite fruitless, search of Adolph’s room, they went back downstairs. The morgue wagon had arrived and the coroner;was awaiting word from Bryce before removing the body.
“Find anything?” he inquired.
“Not to speak of,” Bryce replied. “The girl’s gone away for the weekend.” He handed him Elsa’s note.
The coroner perused it quickly. “Your men through in the cellar?”
“We’re all done, Chief.” The photographer spoke up without waiting for Bryce to inquire.
“You don’t think of anything?” Bryce asked Fenner, and at the latter’s negative reply he said to Pollard: “You may as well get ahead with it, then. Let me know the results of your autopsy as soon as you can, will you? Also what you find out from Dr.—Kellar, wasn’t it?”
The coroner agreed to hasten things as much as he could and, summoning the ambulance attendants, directed the removal of Knoeckler’s body. Bryce posted a detective in the shop and with Fenner went back to the bank, from there to his own headquarters at the police station.
3
Fenner resumed his browsing in Donegan’s records just where he had been interrupted scarce two hours earlier. Before he left the bank late in the afternoon he telephoned the inspector. He learned that no trace of Morton’s car had yet been found. He learned also that a preliminary examination of Knoeckler’s body indicated without question that he had died of a fractured skull. The coroner had reported, according to Bryce, that the fracture could have been caused by a fall from the first floor to the basement where the body was found. Last, Dr. Pollard reported that he had been in communication with Dr. Kellar who had informed him that old Knoeckler’s ailment was such that a sudden seizure was not at all unlikely, and that, furthermore, in the event of such a seizure the man might have lost consciousness so abruptly as to have been incapable of breaking his fall with his hands. A more complete report would be forthcoming within a day or two, Bryce told Fenner.
Fenner grunted. “I suppose it’s barely possible that Adolph Knoeckler’s demise was accidental,” he said when Bryce had finished, but his tone lacked conviction. He made a mental note to interview Dr. Kellar himself. “It looks, though, as if events were conspiring to compel me to play golf tomorrow and Sunday. We seem to be at somewhat of a standstill until Monday, or at least until Morton shows up.”
“Assuming that nobody else makes a break,” Bryce supplemented.
“Of course; but I think it’s a little early yet for that. Don’t you? But I suppose we had better go over things again in the morning, anyway.”
Bryce assented and Fenner disconnected, anxious to go home for the day. His appearance and manner of a dilettante bachelor to the contrary, Fenner was a family man; more than that, he was a man who consciously enjoyed his family. When he left his office, or wherever his cases happened to take him, he tried to forget his work as completely as he could. On most of his ordinary cases he was able to do this with slight effort, but when he was dealing with the more puzzling ones he found it harder to clear his brain. Various aspects of the questions confronting him had a way of suddenly poking their heads up into his consciousness, regardless of where he was or what he was doing. Fenner usually revolved the ideas for a moment, examining them from different sides, then thrust them down again for more processing by his subconscious mind.
On his way home on this Friday afternoon the picture that kept recurring to him was that of old Knoeckler as he had found him on the previous day when he had gone there to check up Borden’s story of his stop to leave the level. Adolph Knoeckler had been leaning on the counter, absorbed in the perusal of the tabloid spread before him. He had seemed almost reluctant to tear himself away from the paper and had been barely civil. When Fenner had told him the purpose of his call, the old man had seemed to unbend a little. At the same time Fenner fancied he had detected a masked keenness in the man which belied the initial vagueness of his answers.
He had generally confirmed Borden’s story, however, so Fenner had dismissed the incident from his mind. But today when he had recognized the paper spread on Knoeckler’s desk and had realized the subject of the article in which the old man had been so absorbed the day before, the incident had lost its insignificance. What new significance it would take on Fenner was at loss to predict. So far, it was just another thing to puzzle over, but that it was an aspect not to be dismissed he had no question. That its true significance would sometime be revealed he was less sure than hopeful of.
III. SATURDAY, APRIL 2nd
1
ON Saturday morning Fenner and Bryce and Hanley were again gathered in the bank manager’s office. Hanley looked distinctly better than when the others had left him the day before. He was refreshed with sleep and clean shaven, but he wore a sober air that bespoke discouragement at the progress they had made toward the solution of the theft.
Fenner was attired in knickers and wore a gay sweater beneath his jacket. Obviously he intended holding to his threat or promise to get in a weekend of golf. Bryce leaned forward with his elbows and forearms on the desk, mouthing an unlit cigar, his appearance quite unchanged; a good night’s rest or a sleepless vigil—either affected him not in the least. He was always the same—stolid, grim, relentless.
Hanley looked from one to the other. “Anything happen?” He asked the question glumly as if a negative answer was a foregone conclusion.
“Not much, I’m afraid,” Fenner replied. “Bryce has the chronicle.”
The detective thumbed through his little black book and read off concise but complete accounts of the actions of Jeremy Donegan, his son, Mr. Dickson, and Borden since the previous morning. There was not an unusual or suspicious act or event in the entire account. Nor was there any word of Randolph Morton or any trace of his car.
“You say Borden went to Knoeckler’s yesterday afternoon at your summons? What was that for?” Hanley inquired when the inspector had concluded.
“Knoeckler fell downstairs Thursday evening and killed himself. Borden had been there during the afternoon. We thought he might possibly be able to shed some light on it.”
“Killed, eh? You don’t say! And you suspect it may not have been accidental?” Hanley ventured shrewdly.
“Well, we’re not at all sure of anything; we’re just trying to find out,” Bryce evaded. He described without detail the discovery of Knoeckler’s body.
Hanley listened attentively. “You don’t suppose there’s any connection between the—er—accident and our affair here, do you?” he asked when Bryce had finished.
The Bank Vault Mystery Page 7
