witness to the tableau. He knew that the man must have been bewildered and apprehensive when they went off for a ride together—and pleased by their return. He fancied he could discern the person lolling in the shadows of the big oak across the street. He swung down the steps, whistling jauntily.
Phyllis slept not at all that night. Cliff, serene and untroubled, slumbered heavily. For two years he had planned this thing, had surveyed it from every angle. He had made an intensive personal study of the men with whom he would have to deal: Of Robert Warren, the president; of Garet Jenkins, the cashier; of each member of the board of directors. He had studied their mental processes, had deliberately built up their confidence in him and his integrity. He had known in advance that Warren would do just about as he had done and that his opinion would sway the board of directors. He knew that the matter would be hushed up and that the investigation would be conducted with the most rigid secrecy. He knew that detectives would appear the following morning, would remain there for some time—and that they would find nothing. He knew that eventually the conclusion would be reached that there had been, in fact, no robbery at all, but that the hundred thousand dollars had never reached the bank vaults.
He would be watched carefully for one month, two, three. Then the matter would be filed away as an unsolved mystery. Above everything, the bank was not desirous of a scandal. In the absence of sufficient evidence to convict they'd permit him his freedom. And the perfect normalcy of his life would convince them speedily that he was free from guilt.
He reached the bank the following morning at precisely his regular time, not a minute early or a minute late. He held a brief conference with the three assistant paying tellers and apportioned to each his quota of cash from the vault, which was a part of his individual cage. Then quite phlegmatically he answered a summons to the office of the president. And as he entered the door he recognized in the three strangers who faced him the detectives.
Cliff was somewhat amused. He knew that the glances they bestowed upon him were surcharged with deep and dark suspicion. Money had disappeared from the cage of the chief paying teller; ergo, the chief paying teller had stolen it. They’d start out on that theory—and butt their heads against a stone wall. He realized that Robert Warren was talking, that he was being introduced.
“The detectives; this is Mr. Peter Jamieson, representing the Bonding company. And Mr. Carl Burton, of the Banker's Protective Association.” He hesitated a moment as he turned toward the third stranger. Then: “This other gentleman is also here to represent the Bankers' Protective Association. Mr. Wallace, Mr. Hanvey—Mr. James Hanvey.”
Cliff started visibly. Jim Hanvey! He'd heard of the man—a detective with an enviable reputation. But he had envisioned Jim Hanvey as a person tall and sinewy, and with a saturnine face and deep-set flashing eyes. This man——
The hand which the great detective extended to him was limp and clammy, the man himself utterly negative. He was a large man, true; but his shoulders were rounded and from them the coat of his cheap ready made tweed suit hung like a smoking jacket. Above a thick red neck rose the head—huge, fat, shapeless. Three floppy chins, an apoplectic expression, a wide, loose-lipped mouth. And eyes——
Those eyes fascinated Wallace, not because they were marvelous eyes but because he could not reconcile himself to the fact that they were capable of seeing anything. They were large eyes, and round like a baby's. In color they were a passive gray—fishlike. They rested on Wallace's as their hands met, and then the lids closed slowly over them like a film, rising just as deliberately. It was more an ocular yawn than a blinking of eyes. Cliff felt within him a contempt for the man, instant and instinctive, then pulled himself together with a jerk. He knew that would never do. Jim Hanvey bore an international reputation, such a one as could not be attained through inefficiency.
Jamieson was nearer Cliff's conception of an efficient detective. Medium build, dapper, dynamic, with blazing eyes and a competent manner. He liked Jamieson, knew that he would know how to cope with him. Jamieson was a practical detective, and Jamieson was, there in the rôle of a friend. It was most decidedly to the interest of the bonding company to establish his innocence. Burton, too, radiated efficiency. He was tall and broad and had deep-set brown eyes which looked out keenly from under heavy lashes. He was there to convict, but Cliff did not fear him. Burton, like Jamieson, was too normal a man to inspire apprehension. But Hanvey, Hanvey of the slow blinking, fishy eyes—Hanvey was a disturbing quantity. Cliff didn’t like Hanvey.
Hanvey was speaking. Cliff noted that the others deferred to the ponderous, uninspired-looking individual.
“H'm! You're the paying teller, Mr. Wallace?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kind of funny—the hundred thousand gettin' lost thataway, wasn't it?”
Cliff was annoyed. The man wasn’t even grammatical.
“Rather peculiar—yes.”
“Ain’t got any idea how it happened, have you?”
“No.”
“No chance of any one sort of slippin’ an arm through the cage window and grabbin’ it, huh?”
Bah! the man was an idiot.
“Hardly that.”
“Kinder makes us believe that it must have been done by somebody inside the cage. Ain't that so?”
“That is the obvious conclusion.”
“Well, now—so it is. So it is.” Hanvey produced a golden toothpick, which he regarded fondly. “Awful funny thing how money gits to go thisaway. Awful funny. Ain't it, Jamieson?”
“Yes—yes indeed.” Cliff glanced curiously at the competent Jamieson. He fancied that Jamieson would appear annoyed by Hanvey's cumbersomeness. But instead he saw the two other detectives hanging worshipfully upon Hanvey's words.
Peculiar—it was impossible that Hanvey possessed keen intelligence. And yet——
Hanvey nodded heavily. “That's all, Mr. Wallace. I reckon that’s about all I need from you.”
All? It was nothing—less than nothing. One or two absurd, meaningless questions; a ridiculous voicing of the thought that some one might have stolen a hundred thousand dollars in currency from under his very eyes. And Jim Hanvey was reputed to be a great detective.
Cliff Wallace was bothered. The very somnolent heaviness of Jim Hanvey begot apprehension. He had no idea how to cope with it. The man was too utterly guileless, too awkward of manner. His ponderous in difference must cloak a keen, perceptive brain. Jamieson and Burton—well, Cliff knew just what they were thinking. He’d always know what they were thinking. But Hanvey—never. He didn’t even know that Hanvey was thinking. He was an element which the paying teller had not foreseen. Frank suspicion was easy to combat. Through his head there flashed the shibboleth of the Bankers’ Protective Association: “We get a man if it takes a lifetime—even though he has stolen only a dollar. It’s the principle of the thing.”
He shook off the thought of Jim Hanvey, but throughout the day watched the ponderous, big-jowled man lumber about the lobby and through the cages, those great fishy eyes blinking with a deliberation which reminded him of a man making physical effort to remain awake. Occasionally Cliff looked up to find the glassy eyes staring at him through the bars of his cage, the detective's unpressed tweed suit against the marble shelf. His eyes would flash into those of the detective, then would come that interminably slow blinking, and Hanvey would move away apologetically. Once Wallace Shivered.
That was the beginning. Hanvey during the days that followed did absolutely nothing. Jamieson and Burton, on the other hand, worked busily and thoroughly. They pored over the list of customers for whom checks had been cashed on the day of the money's disappearance. And finally they came to the pay-roll check of Sanford Jones & Co. They called Cliff into conference with them, Burton doing the questioning.
“Who presented the Jones company check, Mr. Wallace?”
Cliff steeled himself to