rushing in on them with the forceps. It was a crazy thing for Whipple to call this meeting – have all these old, scared men on my back before I could take the measure of what I was up against. What, exactly, had the Van Ness Avenue Bank lost? That, and not anything else, was the key for my first moves. And at last a clerk crossed to our table, touched Whipple's arm and presented a sheet of paper.
"I'll read the total, gentlemen." The president stared at the sheet he held, moistened his lips, gulped, gasped, "I – I'd no idea it was so much!" and finished in a changed voice, "nine hundred and eighty seven thousand, two hundred and thirty four dollars."
A deathlike hush. Dykeman's mere look was a call for the ambulance; Anson slumped in his chair; little old Sillsbee sat twisted away so that his face was in shadow, but the knuckles showed bone white where his hand gripped the table top. None of them seemed able to speak; the young voice that broke startlingly on the stillness had the effect of scaring the others, with its tone of nonchalance, rather than reassuring them. Worth Gilbert leaned forward and looked round in my direction with,
"This is beginning to be interesting. What do the police say of it?"
"We've not thought well to notify them yet." Whipple's eye consulted that of his cashier and he broke off. Quietly the clerks got out with the last load of securities; Knapp closed the door carefully behind them, and as he returned to us, Whipple repeated, "I had no idea it was so big," his tone almost pleading as he looked from one to the other. "But I felt from the first that we'd better keep this thing to ourselves. We don't want a run on the bank, and under present financial conditions, almost anything might start one. But – almost a million dollars!"
He seemed unable to go on; none of the other men at the table had anything to offer. It was the silent youngster, the outsider, who spoke again.
"I suppose Clayte was bonded – for what that's worth?"
"Fifteen thousand dollars," Knapp, the cashier, gave the information dully. The sum sounded pitiful beside that which, we were to understand, had traveled out of the bank as currency and unregistered securities in Clayte's suitcase.
"Bonding company will hound him, won't they?" young Gilbert put it bluntly. "Will the Clearing House help you out?" in the tone of one discussing a lost umbrella.
"Not much chance – now." Whipple's face was sickly. "You know as well as I do that we are going to get little help from outside. I want you to all stand by me now – keep this quiet – among ourselves – "
"Among ourselves!" rapped out Kirkpatrick. "Then it leaks – we have a run – and where are you?"
"No, no. Just long enough to give Boyne here a chance to recover our money without publicity – try it out, anyhow."
"Well," said Anson sullenly, "that's what he's paid for. How long is it going to take him?"
I made no attempt to answer that fool question; Cummings spoke for me, lawyer fashion, straddling the question, bringing up the arguments pro and con.
"Your detective asks for publicity to assist his search. You refuse it. Then you've got to be indulgent with him in the matter of time. Understand me, you may be right; I'm not questioning the wisdom of secrecy, though as a lawyer I generally think the sooner you get to the police with a crime the better. You all can see how publicity and a sizable reward offered would give Mr. Boyne a hundred thousand assistants – conscious and unconscious – to help nab Clayte."
"And we'd be a busted bank before you found him," groaned Knapp. "We've got to keep this thing to ourselves. I agree with Whipple."
"It's all we can do," the president repeated.
"Suppose a State bank examiner walks in on you Monday?" demanded the attorney.
"We take that chance – that serious chance," replied Whipple solemnly.
Silence after that again till Cummings spoke.
"Gentlemen, there are here present twelve of the principal stockholders of the bank." He paused a moment to estimate. "The capital is practically represented. Speaking as your legal advisor, I am obliged to say that you should not let the bank take such a risk as Mr. Whipple suggests. You are threatened with a staggering loss, but, after all, a high percent of money lost by defalcations is recovered – made good – wholly or in part."
"Nearly a million dollars!" croaked old Sillsbee.
"Yes, yes, of course," Cummings agreed hastily; "the larger amount's against you. The men who can engineer such a theft are almost as strong as you are. You've got to make every edge cut – use every weapon that's at hand. And most of all, gentlemen, you've got to stand together. No dissensions. As a temporary expedient – to keep the bank sufficiently under cover and still allow Boyne the publicity he needs – replace this money pro rata among yourselves. That wouldn't clean any of you. Announce a small defalcation, such as Clayte's bond would cover, so you could collect there; use all the machinery of the police. Then when Clayte's found, the money recovered, you reimburse yourselves."
"But if he's never found! If it's never recovered?" Knapp asked huskily; he was least able of any man in the room to stand the loss.
"What do you say, Gilbert?" The attorney looked toward the young man, who, all through the discussion, had been staring straight ahead of him. He came round to the lawyer's question like one roused from other thoughts, and agreed shortly.
"Not a bad bet."
"Well – Boyne – " Whipple was giving way an inch at a time.
"It's a peculiar case," I began, then caught myself up with, "All cases are peculiar. The big point here is to get our man before he can get rid of the money. We were close after Clayte; even that locked room in the St. Dunstan needn't have stopped us. If he wasn't in it, he was somewhere not far outside it. He'd had no time to make a real getaway. All I needed to lay hands on him was a good description."
"Description?" echoed Whipple. "Your agency's got descriptions on file – thumb prints – photographs – of every employee of this bank."
"Every one of 'em but Clayte," I said. "When I came to look up the files, there wasn't a thing on him. Don't think I ever laid eyes on the man myself."
A description of Edward Clayte? Every man at the table – even old Sillsbee – sat up and opened his mouth to give one; but Knapp beat them to it, with,
"Clayte's worked in this bank eight years. We all know him. You can get just as many good descriptions as there are people on our payroll or directors in this room – and plenty more at the St. Dunstan, I'll be bound."
"You think so?" I said wearily. "I have not been idle, gentlemen; I have interviewed his associates. Listen to this; it is a composite of the best I've been able to get." I read: "Edward Clayte; height about five feet seven or eight; weight between one hundred and forty and one hundred and fifty pounds; age somewhere around forty; smooth face; medium complexion, fairish; brown hair; light eyes; apparently commonplace features; dressed neatly in blue business suit, black shoes, black derby hat – "
"Wait a minute," interposed Knapp. "Is that what they gave you at the St. Dunstan – what he was wearing when he came in?"
I nodded.
"Well, I'd have said he had on tan shoes and a fedora. He did– or was that yesterday? But aside from that, it's a perfect description; brings the man right up before me."
I heard a chuckle from Worth Gilbert.
"That description," I said, "is gibberish; mere words. Would it bring Clayte up before any one who had never seen him? Ask Captain Gilbert, who doesn't know the man. I say that's a list of the points at which he resembles every third office man you meet on the street. What I want is the points at which he'd differ. You have all known Clayte for years; forget his regularities, and tell me his peculiarities – looks, manners, dress or habits."
There was a long pause, broken finally by Whipple.
"He never smoked," said the bank president.
"Occasionally he did," contradicted Knapp, and the pause continued till I asked,
"Any peculiarities of clothing?"
"Oh,