“Here?”
“Right here. You are always in your shop during banking hours, are you not?”
“Of course. I carry my lunch, so I’m not even away at lunch time.”
“Good. With your penchant for doing exactly what is needed at exactly the right time, I am certain that our alarm buzzer, although placing a new responsibility on your shoulders in the unlikely event of a bank robbery, will in no way discommode or harm you. And I might add that the bank will naturally expect to pay you a small stipend for your cooperation.”
She flushed with pleasure. “What would I have to do?” she asked.
“If the alarm buzzer should ever ring, you merely go at once to your telephone there, Miss Coe...” I indicated her telephone on a counter at the back of the shop, “... and place an emergency call to the police, giving them a prearranged signal. That is all. Your responsibility then ceases. You see, it’s very simple.”
“I’m sure I could do that, if that’s all there is to it,” Miss Coe said, glancing at her wall clock a little guiltily, as though she feared she were three stitches late on a hat promised a customer one minute from then. “And I won’t say that a bit of extra income won’t be more than welcome.”
By the end of the week the buzzer was installed in her shop. The system was thoroughly tested, and it worked perfectly. On our first “dry run”, the squad of police arrived at the bank just four minutes from the time they received their telephone call from Miss Coe. The insurance people, satisfied with their inspection of the system and my recommendation of Miss Coe, granted us the lower insurance rate forthwith.
Since a daily test of the wiring circuit, to assure its constant readiness, was specified in our insurance agreement, I arranged with Miss Coe that at exactly three o’clock each day, I would press the button under my desk at the bank and ring the buzzer in her shop. That was as far as the daily test needed to go; it was expected that Miss Coe’s telephone would always be operative but if, in the event it were out of order or in use when the buzzer should ring, Miss Coe could merely nip into the shop next door and telephone the police from there.
For two years it seemed that Miss Coe would never be called upon to display her reliability in behalf of the bank’s depositors. We had no bank robbery, nor even an attempted one. I tested the alarm buzzer each day at three; Miss Coe continued to make fetching hats for Robbsville’s ladies undisturbed; and each month I mailed her a small check for her participation in the bank’s alarm system.
You can readily see now, I am sure, why I had no qualms whatever when our bank robbery finally did occur. This was the event for which the police, Miss Coe and I had so carefully prepared. This was the actual happening that our rehearsals had merely simulated. I knew that our outside robbery alarm was in perfect working order. I knew that Miss Coe was in her shop, ready to act, as dependable and unfailing as the stars in the heavens,
So, far from being startled or apprehensive, I really felt a certain pleasurable excitement when I looked up from my desk just before closing time that afternoon, and saw the three masked bandits presenting their weapons to our staff and terrified patrons. In common with the other occupants of the banking room, I slowly raised my hands over my head at the robbers’ command. Simultaneously and unnoticed, however, I also pressed my knee against the alarm button under my desk.
I could picture clearly the exact sequence of events that would be set in train by that movement of my knee. Miss Coe’s buzzer would sound. She would perhaps sit immobile for a shocked second at her work table. She would drop the hat she was working on, and cross speedily to her telephone. She would place her emergency call to the police with splendid calm. And then she would wait confidently for the news from me that our bank robbers had been circumvented or captured.
Unfortunately, as I found out later, Miss Coe did none of these things.
What she did do, when the alarm buzzer sounded in her shop, was merely to glance at the clock on her wall, rise impatiently from her sewing stool and cross the room, and there, (bless her methodical heart!) push the minute hand of the wall clock ahead ten minutes so that it pointed to exactly three o’clock.
Experience Is Helpful
by Rog Phillips
In this day of far-flung corporations, distinct advantages are open to the traveling man. It follows, “Nothing is ever gained without something first being ventured!”
When Mark Spencer paid off the cab and saw his boss’ car parked at the curb, it was as though he had known unconsciously all along, from the day he had been promoted out of the shop to the newly created job of Special Field Engineer, two years ago.
The boss’ car parked in front of his apartment building. Mark looked up at the windows of the third floor apartment where he lived. They were dark.
He went slowly to the driver’s side of the sleek car and stooped down, peering through the window. It was Hugo Rice’s car, all right. And the keys dangled from the ignition. That was a bad habit Hugo had, leaving his keys in the car. And now that Mark thought of it, Hugo had other bad habits, like carrying a gun in the glove compartment.
Rejecting the whole thing, Mark Spencer straightened up and shook his head violently, then looked again. He was still on the darkened street; the car was still there; the apartment windows up above stared at the sky, ignoring him. He wished, suddenly and fervently, that he were still in Chicago where he was supposed to be for another day. Then he wouldn’t know...
It occurred to him that he still didn’t know for sure. There could be lots of explanations. He set his suitcase down and carefully opened the car door and took the keys, closing the door with gentle pressure that brought only a faint click. He put the keys in his pocket and picked up his suitcase.
With his own keys he let himself into the building, and hid his suitcase in the janitor’s closet under the stairs before ascending the thickly padded stairs to the third floor. His apartment was 3C. He pressed his ear to the door panel, then slipped the key into the lock, turning it gently until the door gave inward.
A moment later he was inside.
The bedroom door was open a few inches. There was no light, but there didn’t need to be; there were sounds. Mark Spencer took a step forward, his fingers stretching into claws. Then, slowly, he stepped back and out into the hall, closing the door.
There had been one other time, about six months ago, when Mark had come home a day early. That time he had called Claire from the airport before catching a taxi. He thought of that time now. Claire had seemed slightly breathless over the phone that time, but nothing had seemed wrong to his unsuspicious mind when he arrived home.
But Hugo hadn’t seemed particularly glad to see him back the next morning at work. Mark could understand why, now. Hugo had been routed out of bed the night before and had probably had to check in at some hotel for the rest of the night — because Hugo undoubtedly told his own wife, Mildred, that he was going “out of town”.
Mildred. How was she going to take this? A rather plain woman in her forties, but with a quiet pride at being Mrs. Hugo Price. It would kill her.
Mark stopped on the second floor landing and half turned, looking back up the infinitely lonely stair well. What was this going to do to him?
It would cost him his job, of course, besides kicking Claire out of the apartment and suing her for divorce. He would have to get a job as a machinist again, somewhere. Jobs of Special Field Engineer didn’t grow on trees.
He was a good field engineer. He had found he had a special talent for working the bugs out of highly complex instruments and machines in the field. But Hugo, after being exposed for what he was, could hardly be expected to give him a high recommendation.