hesitated a fraction, then smiled. “Perhaps I’m over-cautious,” he admitted. “Or rather—I have been over-cautious. It’s all ended now. I know exactly what I aim to do.”
He fell silent again as Alberti returned with their first course; then as the meal progressed he asked:
“Is your father any more amenable towards me than he was?”
“Matter of fact I’m afraid he isn’t. He still thinks I oughtn’t to marry anything less than a prince. He shudders at the very thought of a garage owner. But I’ll talk him around, never fear.”
“In my estimation,” Jeff said, “a garage owner is every bit as important to the community as a banker. Besides your dad is in the sixties and I’m only in the thirties. By the time I’m his age I’ll gamble I’ve as much power and notoriety as he has.”
“Banking and your sort of trade are a bit different,” Judith smiled
“Maybe, but I have other—” Jeff stopped suddenly, seemed to think of something then abruptly changed the subject. “Anyway we’ll see. With you at my side I’ll conquer the earth, if need be. The only thing worrying me is that your father may put a stop to things.”
“How exactly?”
“I don’t know—but he’s a man with a good deal of influence and the devil of a lot of money. With those two weapons he can do a good deal toward spoiling our fun if he feels like it.”
“Let him try!” Judith’s lips tightened for a moment. “I’m legal age and he can’t tell me what to do. The most he can do is cut me out of his will, and that won’t worry me as long as I have you.”
Jeff’s hands stole across the table again and seized the girl’s tightly.
“Thanks, Judy. I know your dad’s chief objection to me is that I haven’t enough money—in his view—to be worth the attention of his daughter. Before very long I think he’ll have to change his tune very forcibly. What with the extension to the garage, and other things—”
Judith contented herself with a smile because she did not think it necessary to say anything. In her own mind she was quite decided.
There would never be any other man for her but Jefferson Cole.
CHAPTER TWO
Clive Burton, head cashier of the Mackinley Bank, passed a particularly restless night after the events of the day. In consequence he arrived at the bank the following morning in an anything but cheerful mood and his usual urbanity down at zero.
As he walked across the wealth of marble-tiled floor toward his office, morosely surveying the empty counters and the bare spaces behind the grilles as he went, he caught sight of the night watchman emerging from his quarters at the farther end of the wilderness.
“Everything all right, Anderson?” he called sharply.
Anderson was due to leave when the first of the day staff arrived, and he had never been known to be late for this appointment. He came shuffling across the tiles, scarf tied about his neck and old trilby pulled down over his eyes.
Immense integrity and the ability to keep awake at night had earned Anderson his post, and nobody had had any reason to complain of his nocturnal vigilance.
“Yes, Mr. Burton, everything’s all right. Nothing’s happened all night.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Burton retorted shortly. “Somehow I had rather expected trouble.”
“Trouble?” Anderson looked puzzled. “Why’s that?”
“Hang it, man, don’t you read the papers?” Burton exclaimed. “Don’t you know that fifty million in gold was lodged in this bank yesterday?”
Anderson scratched the back of his neck.
“Aye, now you come to mention it, I did read something about it—but then things are so watertight these days there ain’t nothing to fear.... Well, I’ll be on my way, Mr. Burton. Got to get my kip, you know. Good-day to you.”
* * * *
Burton walked the length of the tiled hall and vanished in the brick-walled region beyond. He finally went down into the basement, switched on all the lights, and finished his trip in front of the giant, impregnable door of the main strongroom.
He waited a moment or two; glanced at the electric clock, then smiled as there came a distinct click from the strongroom door. The time switch had operated dead to the second.
In a matter of moments, Burton had the enormous door open. It moved easily on its perfectly balanced hinges.
Again switching on the lights, he moved into the interior of the strongroom and surveyed the steel-walled section where the gold had been stacked the previous day—
Had been stacked?
Burton dragged to a standstill, staring. His common sense said one thing and his brain and eyes said another.
There was no gold! Not a brick, not an ingot, a trace! The steel-walled corner specially used for such deposits was empty.
By very slow degrees Burton found the power of movement He turned and began to run, yelling for members of the staff in general, and for Joseph Mackinley in particular.
A teller arrived first—the chief teller—and he nearly collided with Burton as he came dashing up the basement steps.
“What’s, the matter, Mr. Burton?” he asked in surprise. “Something happened?”
“The—the gold in the vault,” Burton gulped, his eyes staring. “It’s not there!”
“Not there! But that’s impossible!”
“I know it’s impossible, you fool, but it’s happened! At least I think it has.”
“Think it has!” the teller exclaimed, glancing back at the others crowding down the basement steps.
“Maybe my eyes are wrong, or something.” Burton was looking sick. “Go and look, Edwards. Go and look!”
Burton swayed. He might even have fallen if the assortment of tellers and cashiers around him hadn’t supported him. Edwards went leaping down the stairs and a ghastly silence followed.
Then he came back slowly into view.
“Yes,” Edwards said, staring up. “It’s gone! The whole lot of it! It was ceiling-high when it was put in.”
“Where’s Mr. Mackinley?” Burton asked abruptly.
“Not here yet, sir. It’s only a little after nine.”
“Yes. Yes—of course.”
Burton shook himself and tried to get a grip on things. Slowly he went up the remainder of the stairs and then stood in the tiled hall, thinking.
The staff came up behind him, waiting.
“I suppose,” Burton said at last, “that I should send for the police immediately—but I’d better wait and see what Mr. Mackinley says. In the meantime I’ll check if the closed-circuit TV cameras picked anything up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As you say, Mr. Burton.”
Everybody was extraordinarily polite, and nobody knew what to make of the situation. Gradually the staff disbanded and moved to their different working positions in readiness for the day’s business.
As for Burton, he was almost deaf, dumb and blind to everything—as well he might be. The gold had been entrusted to him.
Outside Mackinley, he was the only one who knew the combination of the time lock. Whichever way he looked at it, the situation was alarming.
Pulling himself together, Burton let himself into the room containing the