Deeks shrugged. “Anybody who puts his mind to it could do the trick,” he said.
And, he thought later, that statement was entirely true. His scheme had been foolproof. He could have gone on for an unlimited time, casually disrupting the Bank’s innermost gears, slowly increasing the scope of his sabotage. So long as he was reasonably careful nobody could possibly catch him. It was a brilliant scheme, and it would inevitably have destroyed the Bank.
Fortunately for the Bank, he’d had the vision to convert the scheme to his own permanent and respectable advantage. Another man might not have been that clever.
Mr. Fannington broke in on these thoughts. “Jeb,” he said, “how old are you?”
“Fifty-seven.”
“I’m only sixty-two,” the PRESIDENT said, “but I had a check-up a few weeks ago. I might as well admit it: the doctor tells me it’s time to quit.”
“You’re joking,” Deeks said.
“No. I’m not. The old ticker.” He patted his breast. “But let’s not go into it. I tell you, Jeb, because I’m going to recommend to the board that you step into my shoes.”
“That’s — that’s — what can I say, Mr. Fannington?”
“Don’t say anything. But get a check-up yourself. Before I throw you to the wolves, I want to be sure you’re in top shape. Physically, I mean. I know now what a—” he patted his chest again — “thing like this can do to a man’s business worth.”
“I’ll do it, of course.”
Deeks did. He spent a whole morning in the doctor’s office. He expected to return for more tests in the afternoon, and made only one appointment for the day — the talk to the students from the business school. He planned to speak to them briefly about the virtues of efficiency, relentless and spotless no-margin-for-error efficiency, as the backbone of a good banking operation; then he would turn them over to Wardell, the new chief teller.
He sent for Warded to explain the visit. Warded listened respectfully, nodded his head several times, and then turned to go. At the door he stopped.
“Mr. Deeks,” he said.
“Yes, Warded?”
“You’ve been so busy lately I’ve hesitated to ask to see you.”
“What about?”
“Well, sir, in the last two or three months — and I just can’t account for it — I’ve spent night after night working overtime...”
Deeks’s stomach tightened. A sharp pain told him he had just bit his tongue.
“Yes?” he said.
“I wouldn’t bother you, Mr. Deeks, except that I think this is — wed — symptomatic of some pretty basic troubles.”
“What is?”
“Well, in the last months something’s gone badly wrong with our tallying system. We’ve got regular discrepancies between the deposit slip figures and the money actually deposited.”
Deeks felt dizzy.
“It just isn’t traceable, Mr. Deeks. We can’t find anything that points—”
“Never mind!” Deeks said. “I’ll talk to you about it later.”
“Yes, sir,” Warded said, and he left.
Deeks leaned his head on his hand, and tried to straighten out his mind. But he could only straighten it to the first ready big kink: “Whoever it is, he can’t be caught; whoever it is, he can’t be stopped.”
He pushed the buzzer for his secretary.
“Yes, sir?” she said at the door.
“When those schoolboys come,” he said, “send them right to Mr. Warded. I can’t see them today.”
“But, Mr. Deeks,” she said, “you called the whole thing off yesterday.”
“I did?”
“Yes sir. Here... just a second.”
She disappeared for a moment, and came back with the appointment calendar. She set it down before him and put her finger on the 1:30 line. Dean Nelson s banking students had been crossed out, and over the black line was written, in a scrawl that might or might not have been his, Please cancel. J. D.
“So I called the dean, of course,” the secretary said. “He tried to be nice about it, but I could tell he was milled. If you don’t mind my suggesting it, Mr. Deeks, a nice letter—”
“That will be all,” Deeks said.
When she closed the door he leaped to his feet, paced to the window and back to his desk and back to the window.
His brain was stuck in one deepening groove. Over and over it repeated, “Whoever it is, whoever it is, whoever it is...” The telephone snapped the string. He picked it up and said, “I’m not taking any calls, Miss Barr.”
“Mr. Deeks,” she said, “Colonel Sykes is on the phone.”
“Oh,” he said. “Put him on.”
“Deeks,” the colonel said, “I don’t suppose this could be a joke, but if it is, it’s backfired.”
“What’s that, Colonel?” Deeks asked in a faint voice.
“I received three separate form notices from the bank today, all saying my account was overdrawn and would I please come in to discuss it with Miss Ashenby.”
“Why, that’s—”
“Even if it were overdrawn,” the colonel continued, “don’t you think one notification would have been enough? And, incidentally, unless somebody in that organization has embezzled a great deal of money, Deeks, I am not overdrawn.”
“But that’s absolutely—”
“How many of our depositors get such notices, Deeks? What kind of confidence do you suppose this sort of thing builds in the community? It’s damn fortunate it happened to be me, because...”
For five minutes Deeks said “Yes, sir” into the phone without knowing what he was yessing. He did not remember saying goodbye to the colonel; suddenly he was holding the phone and no voice was coming out of it. Slowly he put the instrument back to its cradle, and then he let his chin drop to his chest. He sat there, hardly breathing, his shoulders hunched, his eyes closed, for many minutes.
Then he sat up, inhaled deeply, and reached for the phone. There was only one thing to do.
“Get me Mr. Fannington,” he said to his secretary, and when the PRESIDENT was on the phone, he said, “Mr. Fannington, I took your advice. I went to the doctor for a check-up.”
“Oh, good,” Mr. Fannington said. “I’m glad you did that.”
“I have to tell you, Mr. Fannington,” Deeks said, “the doctor says it’s time for me to give up, too. He says I’d better quit while — while the quitting’s good.”
On the Day of the Rose Show
by Q. Patrick[5]
Lieutenant Timothy Trant of the New York Homicide Bureau lounged in holiday idleness on the terrace of his sister Freda’s Connecticut home, watching a small scarlet plane buzz through the cloudless morning sky toward Poughkeepsie. Behind him, in the living room, he heard Freda’s voice as she picked up the ringing phone.
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Weiderbacker... A burlesque queen?... how perfectly terrible for you... no, I don’t blame you at all. And on the day of the rose show, too!...”
Trant knew that the local garden club rose show was taking place at Mrs. Weiderbacker’s that afternoon. He knew, too, that Mrs. Weiderbacker was going to read Freda’s Inaugural Address as a proxy since his sister, who had just been re-elected president, had been urged by her doctor to stay home and nurse a summer cold. But how the rich and formidable Mrs. Weiderbacker could have become tangled with a burlesque queen was a new and fascinating development.
“What, Mrs. Weiderbacker?” Freda’s telephone voice had shot up an octave. “The speech hasn’t arrived? But I mailed it yesterday. How scandalous... Oh, Daisy will? How sweet of her.”
Daisy Groves, Trant knew, was Freda’s dearest friend, the wife of Gordon Groves, Mrs. Weiderbacker’s long-suffering nephew who lived with her and managed her estate.
5
© 1952 by United Newspapers Magazine Corporation; originally titled “Revolvers and Roses”