The Bank Vault Mystery

by Louis F. Booth

  “It’s quite possible,” Bryce agreed dryly, and added peremptorily: “Be good enough to have him get in touch with Mr. Hanley or myself when you hear from him, will you?” Abruptly he rang off leaving Dickson more mystified than ever and no less ruffled. When he came out of the booth Bryce found

  McFadden already back.

  “No luck, Chief,” the latter reported soberly. “Bert is still there, though, and it’s not twelve-thirty yet. There’s still a chance.” Bryce stepped back into the booth and called Fenner’s office but found that there was still no word from him either. Somewhat at a loss as to where to turn next, he started back to headquarters, but as he passed the Consolidated Bank entrance he remembered that he ought to notify Hanley that Borden might call him up.

  The bank manager welcomed the inspector warmly, almost excitedly. He was, he said, “hungry for news.” He’d not seen Fenner since the afternoon of Morton’s accident, and then only for a minute or two. Mr. Morton, he understood, was thought to have a good chance now. He’d tried several times during the morning to get Fenner on the telephone but had been unable to. Were they getting anywhere? Was anything new? There was to be a Board meeting during the afternoon. He’d like to report some sort of progress if such a thing was possible.

  Bryce acknowledged both statements and questions with only slow nods and thoughtful rolling around of his unlit cigar between his lips. When Hanley seemed to have finished, he said with cheerful irrelevance: “Young Borden may call you up. We lost track of him this morning. I left word with Dickson to have him call you or me. I can’t say I expect him to call but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. On the other hand, if he doesn’t show up soon

  I’ll begin to suspect something fishy.” Bryce watched the bank manager’s face as he made these remarks but detected nothing untoward in the latter’s reception of them or in his bearing.

  “But what the devil shall I tell him?” Hanley naturally wanted to know.

  Bryce ignored the query for a moment. A little thing like that ought to be easy for a bank manager. But presently he replied: “Oh, tell him you want to see him about the vault. Tell him anything. If he calls at all, that lets him out, which will mean it won’t make any difference what you tell him. If he doesn’t call or show up, it won’t be very long before we pick him up.”

  Hanley whistled between his teeth, mildly amazed. “So that’s it! Well, this is something. And have you given over your suspicions of Mr. Morton?”

  Bryce looked at the banker sideways, wondering if the question was as innocent as it sounded. The tag! Who could tell?

  “Why, we haven’t exactly given over suspecting anybody,” he replied cautiously. “This is one of those damned cases where everybody is guilty until proven innocent, you know.”

  Hanley’s only reply to that was a grunt. He looked at his watch.

  “Will you come upstairs with me and have lunch?” he suggested. “We have quite a dining room. It would be better than to go out in this rain.”

  Bryce looked out at the gray streets and troubled skies. The rain, which had somewhat abated before he came in, had renewed its violence and was coming down in great swirling sheets that he could hardly see through. The thought of a comfortable lunch tempted him but, more intriguing, there was the remote possibility that his host might become carelessly expansive. He would certainly be one up on Fenner if anything of that sort could be brought to pass. “Why, I suppose I can, if you like,” he assented to Hanley’s invitation.

  Before they went up he telephoned his headquarters. He found, though with no surprise, that the wide net had so far yielded up nothing.

  3

  Throughout an unusually hearty and protracted lunch, Hanley, much to Bryce’s disappointment and disgust, kept the conversation strictly upon politics, prohibition, the weather and musical comedies. At the conclusion of the meal they returned together to the manager’s office.

  Hanley opened the door for Bryce, but the inspector did not enter. Instead he stood rooted to the threshold, frozen in astonishment. Hanley glanced over his shoulder and saw within, seated in his most comfortable leather guest chair, Maxwell Fenner. The dapper investigator presented a picture of solid comfort. His knees were crossed, one leg swinging idly; his cigarette drooped at just the proper nonchalant angle; his whole attitude reflected the acme of indolence.

  Before him on one end of Hanley’s desk was placed a small tan suitcase, unopened. At the window, gazing meditatively out, sat Philip Borden. A uniformed policeman standing by in one corner of the room lent an air of grim reality to the scene. Fenner nodded to Bryce and Hanley.

  “You’ve both met Mr. Borden,” he said amiably, exaggerating the courtesy. Hanley and Bryce, taken aback at the unexpected amenity and not sure of the irony, both managed nods. Borden returned their bows gravely.

  “Mr. Borden and I have been having a very interesting discussion of the matter of the trifling shortage that came up last week,” Fenner explained. “A little one-sided to be called a discussion,” he amended, “because Mr. Borden very modestly prefers to let me have the floor.”

  “Oh, yeah?” from Bryce.

  “It isn’t always that we have the chance to review intelligently our theories and earmark our mistakes for future profit,” Fenner went on.

  Hanley’s eyes were on the suitcase; he hardly heard the remark.

  Observing this Fenner said: “I haven’t opened that yet. Mr. Borden will supply you with a key, I believe. I think it would be poetic justice to have old Jeremy and young Donegan check it over, though I haven’t the slightest doubt you’ll find your consignment quite intact.”

  Borden shook his head. “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” he said. “I have a knife, though, that will make a monkey of that grip if you care to use it.” He drew a heavy clasp knife from his pocket, opened it slowly, and held it out for Hanley.

  The manager crossed the room to take it, moving as in a daze, hardly comprehending what was happening, hardly able to believe he was awake. He hesitated, undecided as to how to attack the lock. Bryce impatiently took the knife from him and with several swift slits ripped a whole side out of the grip. Within they saw the small canvas dispatch bag, comfortably crammed as it must have been on the day, little more than a week past, when it so mysteriously disappeared from the vault.

  Hanley looked at Fenner bewilderedly, then sideways at Borden, then across the room at the policeman, finally at Bryce. Fenner replied to his questioning glance by announcing: “Mr. Borden has expressed an intention to refrain from discussing his part in this affair pending advice of counsel. This is his privilege, of course, but I believe I can outline the principal points without his assistance.” Fenner’s eyes bored into Borden as he expressed this conviction.

  Borden returned his glance coolly for a moment, then turned away to resume his watch through the window.

  “In the first place,” Fenner continued, “I suppose you’re all curious as to where this little bag of tricks has been hidden for the past week. Well, it has been just about five blocks from here tucked away in the Hudson Terminal Parcel Room. You must have had some anxious moments; those places are far from infallible.” The last remark was addressed to Borden.

  The younger man broke his silence.

  “Not me,” he said laconically. “I knew nothing about it. A parcel check was handed to me Wednesday morning by Mr. Morton. He asked me as a personal favor to get a bag he had left there, to keep it for him for a couple of days, and to keep my mouth shut. At first I thought it was liquor he’d got while he was in Detroit, but for my trouble he promised me a month’s pay if a deal he was trying to put across went through, so I knew it couldn’t be that. I never saw that bag until this morning. I had no idea what it contained when I went for it, though I did begin to suspect it when you brought me here.” He paused and then went on: “I suppose even if Mr. Morton recovers I’ll have a hard time making anyone believe my word against his.”

  “Why do you so quickly assume Morto
n will deny your story?” Fenner asked quickly.

  “Why not? Do you think I can’t see I’ve been taken for a ride? I’m the sap! To think I was going to take care of all of that loot for him for four hundred dollars. I suppose he was afraid to offer me more—I’d get too curious.” He broke off. “I’m talking too much.” He said it almost apologetically.

  “Yes, you are,” Fenner agreed. “It’s a pretty plausible story, though; but I should be very surprised if you got by with it, even if Morton never wakes up to talk.” He looked Borden over appraisingly and said icily: “You have a remarkably quick head in emergencies. It’s a shame your talent was diverted out of honest channels. You might have made your mark in the world. Since the moment I tapped your shoulder at the Hudson Terminal this noon you’ve been deliberating your chances. You were caught with the goods and knew it. You might have made a break but decided that the odds would be too much against you. You had to shift the blame and there was Morton ail stretched out to receive it. You’re taking a chance on his passing out, but not such a bad chance at that, because it would still be your word against his if he recovers. But that’s not all.” Fenner’s tone was low but incisive. “You banked on one more circumstance—this.” He drew from his pocket the fiber tag and tossed it clattering on the desk. “You knew Morton had it on him when he was taken away.”

  Hanley started up out of his chair at the sight of the tag but settled back again. Borden looked at it with mild curiosity, then turned away uninterestedly. Fenner could not help admiring the man’s control. He resumed his remarks with slow, firm deliberation, directing them all at the impassive Borden as if to hammer down his reserve. “You hope that Morton dies so there will be no one to deny your clever cock-and-bull story. You had better pray that he lives. Murder is a damned sight more serious than larceny.” He hesitated. “Suppose I were to tell you I had an eyewitness who saw you drop that bull point on Randolph Morton’s head? Would you want him to get better then?”

  It was a shot in the dark and utterly failed of its mark.

  Borden’s gaze shifted for a second; then he cleared his throat and said evenly: “You can have no such witness because I did no such thing.”

  “A man cool enough to do that is of course cool enough to deny it,” Fenner observed dryly.

  Bryce interrupted, suggesting: “Suppose we go around to the station. Maybe Mr. Borden’d feel more like loosening up there.”

  “It would be of no use whatever,” Fenner replied impatiently. “Can’t you see that here’s a fellow whom your third degree would never faze? It’s going to take more than a beating up with a length of hose or a few teeth knocked out to make him change his story.”

  Hanley had watched and listened with growing bewilderment. He picked up the tag which Fenner had tossed upon the desk.

  “What? Where?” he started but Fenner interrupted him.

  “I’m going to run through this whole thing from the beginning as I have reconstructed it. I venture, Mr. Borden, you’ll have damned few corrections to make; and when you’ve heard the whole business and realize how tight you’re sewed up, maybe you’ll come to your senses and decide to come clean.

  “Now let’s get back to last Thursday morning. You went into the vault with the party. You carried your level in its box and carried the tripod under your arm. You were mildly interested in the workings of a bank, not having been around them much before, and kept your eyes open in a natural, normal way, but for the most part you tended to business. When you got into the vault you were naturally impressed with the proximity to such vast wealth. I dare say every member of the party had somewhat the same feeling somewhere in the back of his mind. It would be unnatural not to. When you went to set up your instrument you had to get back in the corner behind that money truck.

  “You unpacked your machine and did your job. However, when you were through and glanced down, you saw your level case standing invitingly open and sheltered from view behind the truck loaded with sacks of money. The juxtaposition was too much for you. In a flash you decided to take a chance. You stooped over and flipped one of the sacks from the truck into the level box. No one noticed. I can imagine your elation. Whether you picked a sack at random and just happened to get the particular one in the whole load most suited to your purpose, or whether you took time to glance at the tags, you can tell me when I’m through.

  “Anyway—so far, so good. You had made a perfect beginning on what was going to be a grand coup. You were troubled by no conscientious scruples, no moral sense of right or wrong. A bank with all the wealth of the Consolidated could well spare some of it to you, if you were clever enough to take it. It was just a game, with the odds against you but the prize worth winning if you could bring it off. You might have even started mentally enjoying your gains, but I suspect not. There were other things to keep your brain busy. You felt pretty sure you’d get out of the building, but you had no idea how long it would be before a hue and cry was raised.

  “You might have walked out of the bank and disappeared. When I think it over I believe that would have been your wisest course. But you preferred not. It would have meant becoming a fugitive, uprooting your life and its associations. You thought you knew a better way: to cache your loot and go about your normal way of life and wait—years, if necessary—until the thing blew over and it was safe for you gradually to draw your stake back into use.”

  He paused for breath, still looking at Borden. The latter had not altered his bearing a whit. He simply sat and listened, politely curious. Fenner was not discouraged. He went on: “So you schemed to make yourself a chance to get away as soon as the party broke up. Your instrument was a little out of shape. You exaggerated the difficulty you were having with it and arranged to take it to Knoeckler’s shop to have it fixed. That gave you a plausible reason for leaving the party and, more important, carting your loot along with you. You put the level telescope in the box on top of the sack and squeezed the lid shut. It must have been a tight squeeze because I later tried it in the same box with a sack not quite as large and was just able to make it. The bracket you crammed into your coat pocket. When you left the bank you walked as far as the corner with Mr. Morton. You didn’t know how much time you had, but you feared it would be the minimum. To get up to your own office in the normal time, with a reasonable allowance for lunch, that was your object.

  “You went into a store—there are a number along Nassau Street where a valise like that can be had—and bought that grip. Hastily you transferred the sack to the grip and packed the level and bracket properly. Then you went around to Knoeckler’s and left the instrument for repairs. A general overhauling, you asked him to give it, because the specific condition you complained of to Dickson probably would not have even warranted the repairs. Then you took your little grip and walked over to the Hudson Terminal and checked it. You had lunch at the Exchange Buffet there—I imagine you put it away in quite a hurry—and went on up to your office where you very innocently put in an appearance at just about the time you should have.

  “But even then you were not safe. You could not leave the grip at the parcel room indefinitely. You did not even fell like keeping the check about you, so you mailed it with a plausible note to your friend, a Mr. Arthur Lowman, from whom you obtained it this morning. Then you sat back to wait.

  “You didn’t have to wait long. In a few minutes Hanley called you downtown. You came along, anxious to do everything you could for us, and with a plausible, reasonable account of your actions since leaving the bank. Since that time you’ve hardly been out of our sight, but you’ve known it all along and acted with corresponding circumspection.”

  Fenner stopped again. The room was so tensely quiet that even breathing seemed to have ceased.

  Hanley and Bryce waited in rapt absorption. Borden seemed, if anything, a shade more thoughtful. Fenner turned back to him and went on: “There is little I’ve told you so far that can not be specifically proved. You might get out in from four to six years, co
unting on good behavior, if that was all of the story. Unfortunately I feel impelled to outline some additional conjectures which will be turned over to the district attorney. I believe a little investigation, especially if Mr. Morton’s testimony becomes available, will bring out certain circumstances which will result for you in something more serious than four to six years up the river.”

  He waited for some sort of response. Borden was silent for a long moment; then he said: “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Fenner shrugged his shoulders. “So that’s to be your line! Well, we shall see.” He turned to the others and apologized: “I shall try to make a long story short.” He drew his chair around so it more squarely faced Borden and picked up his discourse where he had left off. “When we finished talking to you Thursday, you went back to your office. You had hardly got there when you had a telephone call from Adolph Knoeckler. He was very insistent that he see you about your level. You knew there was nothing about the repairs to it that couldn’t be settled over the phone, so you smelled a rat and went down to see him. Mr. Knoeckler was not so dumb. He showed you that little tag. I don’t know how much he asked you for, but I imagine it was plenty.

  Incidentally, you can thank me at least partly for that call of his. I’ll tell you why. When you transferred the sack from the box to the suitcase you were in a hurry. The tag got caught in one of the brackets in the box and you yanked the sack out and left the tag there. It probably wasn’t wired very securely. Old Adolph found the tag and thought nothing of it. A little while later he read in the afternoon tabloid of the robbery of $180,000 from the Consolidated Bank’s vault, and that some engineers were being questioned. He might not have thought much of that either, but when in a few minutes I came in and quizzed him about your stop there, the time, and whatever else I could find out, he put two and two together. He was poor, in ill health, and tired. He saw a chance to fix himself for life, so he called you up.