The Bank Vault Mystery

by Louis F. Booth

  The job noises blended with the street noises to form a low, variable clamor. Fenner had been seated at the window a short time and his ears had begun to accustom themselves to the din when above the racket a human voice was raised in a shrill cry. Other voices joined the first and a minor tumult swelled, but as quickly dwindled to the former steady hum. Curious as to the cause of the disturbance, Fenner flicked the ashes off his cigarette and leaned out of the window better to see down into the lot.

  The men had flocked across the timbers to a point near one corner of the job where they fringed the opening through the bracing, leaning over each other in their endeavors to see into the bottom. Presently a man—a foreman or superintendent of some sort, Fenner concluded—appeared at the head of a ladder leading up from the bottom. With effective gestures and, Fenner imagined, appropriate language, he dispersed the group, then disappeared into the green shanty which housed the job office. A few moments later he came out, shouted some commands to one of the derrick signalmen and disappeared down the ladder.

  Fenner was about to decide that the whole disturbance was a false alarm when He saw one of the empty stone skips being swung around and let slowly down through the opening around which the crowd had been congregated. He decided that someone had been hurt and his conclusion was verified only a few minutes later when the hollow clang of an ambulance bell floated up clearly above the other noises. He saw the machine pull up at a ramp on the far side of the lot. Two white-coated attendants hopped out and a gateman waiting for them spoke a moment and pointed into the cellar. The attendants scrambled down stairways and ladders in the direction indicated and disappeared beneath the bracing.

  After a seemingly interminable wait, for Fenner’s curiosity was mounting rapidly, one of the attendants reappeared. When he reached the bracing level he glanced back hastily, then hurried up to his ambulance. At the same time the stone skip came again into view, rising slowly, carefully, up from between the rows of timber bracing. Fenner saw that it was freighted with a human cargo. The ambulance attendant and the foreman he had noticed before were squatted in either end of the skip; between them lay an inert figure, the head swathed in bandages, the clothing disheveled.

  Fenner’s eyes followed the skip as it swung up and out with its triple burden until it came to rest at the ramp where the ambulance waited. In a twinkling the figure was bundled into the car and with a peremptory shriek of the siren whisked away. A crowd of passers-by which had collected around the waiting ambulance melted swiftly; the foreman turned back to the job; the incident was closed.

  Fenner turned from the window vaguely disturbed. Another small item in the cost of these mammoth structures, he reflected—a human item, difficult to evaluate. He wondered for a moment how much of this sort of intangible cost was ever recorded upon a builder’s books. The reflections were cut short when the office door swung open and Hanley burst in, white and trembling.

  “There’s been an accident,” he said weakly. “Randolph Morton’s been hurt—maybe killed.” Fenner started up with surprise. “What! Was he the man they just took away? Good Lord!” He seized Hanley’s arm. “Tell me more quickly.” Already questions were seething in Fenner’s brain, doubts.

  Hanley sank into a chair. “There’s little to tell,” he said. “A chunk of iron fell on his head—brained him. The ambulance surgeon has little hope. They took him to the Broad Street Hospital.”

  Fenner seized the telephone and put a call through to Bryce. He told him in a few moments what had happened and asked him to come to the job. He turned back to Hanley.

  “Tell me what you know,” he demanded. “I’m going to meet Bryce downstairs in a few minutes.”

  Hanley had regained most of his composure., “Why Bryce?” he asked, and then at Fenner’s insistence went on: “I was down in the bottom showing Mr. Spencer and Mr. Whitehead—they’re directors and both big stockholders—through the job. We came across Morton and Dickson and Borden and the superintendent. They were having some sort of a discussion—or rather, had been, for it looked as if they had about finished. We had seen all we wished, so I took my guests up to the street gate and parted with them there. Then I went back down as far as the top of the bracing, thinking I’d wait for Morton to come up, as I wanted to talk to him. I’d only waited a moment when I heard a lot of yelling and the men all came running over. I gathered that someone had been hurt but I didn’t know it was Morton until the superintendent came up to call the ambulance. When he told me who it was I went back down into the cellar again.”

  “What did you say happened to him?”

  “An iron bar, a sort of sawed-off crowbar, fell from somewhere and caught him on the head. A glancing blow, it must have been, or it surely would have killed him outright.”

  “Where did it fall from?”

  “Nobody knows. The superintendent suggested it had probably been left on one of the upper layers of bracing and either rolled off or got knocked off. No one seems to have seen it happen. One of the laborers working near by heard a noise and turned around and saw Morton stretched out on the ground.”

  “Who was down there when you got back to the bottom again?”

  “Four or five laborers and foremen and Mr. Dickson and—well, quite a crowd. Borden came along, too, right after I did. Morton was unconscious and to me he looked about gone. The superintendent had put something on his head to stop the bleeding. The ambulance men dressed it before they took him away.”

  Fenner got down to the street just in time to see Bryce round the corner toward the job entrance. He ran a few steps to overtake him and together they went to the office shanty. Bryce inquired for the superintendent, and a plan boy went down into the job to find him. While Fenner and Bryce were waiting Dickson walked into the shanty. He seemed little surprised to see them and remarked: “It certainly doesn’t take you fellows long to get around when there’s any trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Fenner looked at the engineer for a long, searching moment. It struck him as odd that Dickson should so readily take their presence for granted.

  “Mr. Morton, I mean. Of course you’ve heard?”

  “Oh, yes; we heard,” Fenner replied. “But you flatter us as to the speed. I was right across the street in Mr. Hanley’s office when he came in with the news, so we stepped over. What happened to Morton, anyway?”

  “A bull point fell on him. That’s all we can find out,” Dickson replied tersely.

  “Anybody see it happen?”

  “I guess not. One of the rockmen working a few feet away says he heard a noise and turned around and saw Morton lying there. He’d seen him standing looking around a few seconds before. Why, I had been talking to him myself not five minutes before.”

  “Did Morton usually spend much time down here on the job?” Fenner asked after a moment.

  “Quite a little, lately. He likes to inspect all of the pier bottoms before they’re concreted.”

  “Was that what brought him down to the job today?”

  “Yes. There are several pier holes in which the rock strata slope sharply. Morton had been quite insistent that we level them off, so we had him down to look them over before we poured them.”

  “I see.” Fenner hesitated, then went on almost apologetically. “We’d like to have a look around. Could you show us the way down there?”

  “Certainly; no trouble at all.” Dickson was surprisingly agreeable.

  He led the way outside and down a series of ladders to the bottom of the excavation. Fenner and Bryce, unaccustomed to climbing, followed him gingerly. To Fenner the scene at the bottom of the huge hole presented a thrilling and interesting spectacle. The raw rock floor and sides, rough and rugged as the blasters and drillers had left them, reminded him of a deep stone quarry into which he had once made a trip. Through the openings in the network of heavy timber bracing overhead he could see, four stories above him, the painted fence he knew to be at street level; down in the bottom the timber posts supporting the bracing stretched away
in even rows like tree trunks in an open forest. Little streams, channels in the rough bottom, led the ground water which seeped up through the fissures in the rock, rippling away to a sump pit. Absorbed by the interesting closeup of the bowels of the earth, Fenner for a moment almost, forgot his gruesome errand, but Dickson brought him rudely back to the time and the place.

  “Right here’s where we found him,” he announced, pointing to a location a few feet from several small, rectangular depressions in the rock. Fenner could see a tell-tale discoloration of the glistening mica schist where Morton’s head had rested. Dickson pointed to the depressions. “Those are the pier bottoms we had been discussing. Morton wanted them leveled off a little more, so we put a man on them. You can see they slope away a little.

  I suppose Morton thought he’d hang around and see that they were done the way he wanted them.” There was a trace of scarce concealed impatience in his voice that led Fenner to conclude that the discussion of the pier bottoms might not have been a wholly amiable one.

  “How long after your talk here ended did Mr. Morton get hurt?”

  “Not more than five minutes,” Dickson answered positively. “I had started up to the office shanty to use the telephone and hadn’t even reached it.”

  “Who else was down here with you and Mr. Morton?”

  “Why, Borden and Quinn, the foundation outfit’s superintendent. Oh, yes; and Steve Coles. That’s Morton’s assistant.”

  “Did they leave him when you did?”

  “Quinn left a few minutes before. We had decided about the piers, and he is a busy man—always in a hurry. Coles stayed with him. Borden left at the same time I did. He had a lot of his routine data to collect. Here he comes now.”

  They saw Borden picking his way through the cluttered lot toward them. The younger man only paused to exchange a word or two with Dickson and then started for the ladder.

  “Did you want to talk to him?” Dickson asked Fenner as Borden moved away.

  Fenner looked mildly surprised at the question. “I hardly think it’s necessary. I should like to talk to this chap, Quinn, though, if he’s around—and also to Coles.”

  “He’s around, all right,” Dickson assured them. “Find Coles and Quinn and send them down here, will you, Borden,” he commanded.

  A few moments later the foundation superintendent joined them. He acknowledged the introductions of Fenner and Bryce pleasantly enough but seemed to turn a shade cooler when he learned that the latter was connected with the police and was inquiring into Morton’s accident.

  Accidents on foundation construction were as inevitable as the law of averages, and Quinn had been dealt his share of them, but this was the first one in his experience that the police had investigated with anything except casual formality. Of course in this case the victim was not some obscure laborer, which made the prompt inquiry a little less surprising, but Quinn knew nothing of Morton’s possible connection with the recent bank robbery.

  “What’s your idea about the affair?” Fenner asked him abruptly.

  “I don’t know what you mean. Mr. Morton was hit by a bull point. From the position in which he was found it seems likely the bar fell off one of the upper layers of bracing of that row.” He pointed to a range of timbers the edge of which came approximately over the spot where Morton had been hurt. “Of course I haven’t any idea how a bull point could have got up there on the bracing. We’re very careful to leave nothing lying around on the timbers, just to avoid this very kind of accident. And I haven’t any idea what could dislodge it. One of these Guineas probably kicked it off and is scared to open his trap.”

  “What is a bull point used for?”

  “Mostly wedging out rock and getting out loose boulders. Loosening the hardpan,” Quinn explained.

  “There’d be no use for one up there?”

  “No. Some lazy ba——d probably left it lying there. Too lazy to take it back to the tool room. The men walk around on the bracing a great deal.”

  “Where’s the bull point now?”

  “Up in the office. I kept it in case the insurance inspector should want to see it.”

  “I’ll look at it when we go up. Thanks very much,” Fenner concluded. He turned to Bryce. “I think we had better go now. I’m anxious to get over to the hospital. But wait! Where’s Coles?” Quinn interrupted: “He left as soon as Morton was put in the ambulance. I imagine you’ll get him at the hospital or at his office—or maybe here, later. He’s coming back to inspect these pier holes. I’m going to concrete them on the early night shift, and ordinarily he or Morton would have to see them before they’re poured.”

  They started up to the street.

  “I suppose you’ve notified Morton’s office and family,” Fenner suggested casually.

  “I called our own main office. They’re taking care of it.”

  In the job office Quinn handed Bryce the bull point. It was simply an iron bar about two feet long and an inch and a half thick, pointed at one end. Bryce took it in his handkerchief. Fenner smiled and pointed out: “It’s been handled by a dozen people, I’ll venture.”

  “Perhaps, but this is a good habit,” Bryce countered. He balanced the bar in his hand, estimating its weight. “This wouldn’t have to fall far to kill a man if it caught him right. I’d hate to have it come down on my cranium from even a foot or two.” He passed the bar to Fenner who examined it briefly and handed it back to Quinn.

  As they left the job to go to the hospital the inspector felt someone at his elbow. It was his man, Quade, whom he had placed on the job as assistant timekeeper. When they had put a long block between themselves and the job, Bryce motioned for Quade to overtake them.

  “What’s up?”

  “Maybe it’s nothing, Chief. About a half hour before he was hurt, Mr. Morton was having some kind of a row with Borden. I couldn’t get what it was about, but they seemed pretty hot. Dickson and Quinn came along and joined in.”

  “You know Coles? How about him?” Fenner interjected hastily.

  “He came along later. He hung around the others but didn’t get in it.”

  “Where were you when Morton was hurt?” Bryce asked.

  “In the shanty. As soon as I heard the yelling I ran out, but by the time I got down to the bottom everybody on the job was hanging around. I couldn’t find out much.”

  “All right, Quade; see what you can pick up between now and evening and let me know.”

  4

  At the hospital Fenner and Bryce, without disclosing their identity, secured Morton’s room number from the desk nurse. As they made their way through the cool, white corridors, the heavy scent of ether and lysol assailed their nostrils. The particular odor had always been a sickening one to Fenner, and in some way disconcerting. He caught himself wondering, heavy hearted, if they would find Morton alive; if the man would ever again open his eyes and look upon the light of day. The thought unnerved him.

  For a brief moment there flashed through Fenner’s mind the things he had learned about the man in the short few days he had been working on the case. In spite of an innate conservatism Morton had been a hard liver in his day. There was no doubt about that, but he had also been a hard worker, a hard player and withal a gentleman with his share of gentlemanly attributes. Fenner could not help feeling a grudging admiration for the man. Suddenly he wondered about Elsa Knoeckler. What would become of her if Morton died—if he was already dead? Had she heard? It would probably be for her the final, crushing blow. Then he thought a little wearily that he would be glad when the case drew to its conclusion, for he realized, disconcertingly, that he was on the point of allowing his feelings to color what should be purely intellectual, cold-blooded processes of reasoning.

  Their scarce audible footsteps echoed softly down the long corridor. Bryce, who was more or less familiar with the layout of the hospital, led the way.

  “They’ve certainly done the best they could for him,” he whispered to Fenner. “This is the most expensive win
g of the place—private rooms and private nurses.” He was scanning the room numbers. “Ah! Here we are.”

  The door stood partly open and they glanced in. There was an anteroom between the hall and the patient’s room. A rather dapper-appearing individual, in a semi-reclining position suggestive of the ultimate of solid ease and comfort, lounged in one of the armchairs with which the room was furnished. He looked up when they entered and, upon seeing Bryce, sprang to his feet.

  “Oh, hello, Chief,” he said and waited.

  “Anything?”

  The man shook his head. He appeared to be a person of few words.

  “This is Mr. Burke, Max—Mr. Fenner,” Bryce said.

  “I’ve heard of you. Glad to meet you, sir,” the younger .man acknowledged. Burke, Fenner inferred, was one of Morton’s stalkers. Taking advantage of the incapacitation of his quarry, he brazenly lolled there at his ease instead of hovering discreetly around some corner.

  “What’s the latest on Morton?” Bryce asked.

  Burke nodded toward the door. “Two doctors and a nurse in there now. He was still unconscious when the nurse was out here a few minutes ago.”

  “Anyone been here?” Fenner asked.

  “Not a soul.”

  “Morton’s been here less than an hour,” Bryce reminded him.

  “I rather expected to find Coles here,” Fenner mused.

  Just then the .door to the sickroom opened. A white-gowned elderly surgeon stepped through and closed it carefully behind him. He looked at the men inquiringly.

  “What’s the word on Mr. Morton, Doctor?”

  “Whom do you represent?” the physician countered coolly.

  Bryce turned back his coat in true detective fashion, displaying his shield, and answered crisply: “Police Headquarters.”

  “Oh, I see. We have to be careful in cases of this kind.” He hesitated, looking from one to the other of them, but then went on: “Mr. Morton’s condition is more than critical. His skull has been fractured and he’s had a severe brain concussion. There is a chance that he will recover, but it is distinctly a remote one. However, miracles have happened before this. At present he is in a state of coma from which he may emerge in an hour, or a week, or never. Everything that is humanly possible is being done for him. That’s all I can say at this time—except that in any case he can’t be seen for at least two days and probably longer.”