“I suppose,” Bennett said, “you’ve already subjected E. G. Bailey, president of the bank, to the background check I was about to undertake.”
“I have,” James said. “E. G. Bailey, years ago, was a wildcatter in the Louisiana oil fields. His partner back in those days was none other than our old friend, Lou Orloff.”
“Each, I imagine, went his own way,” Bennett said, “Orloff into the intricacies of high finance, Bailey into small-town banking.”
“Correct. But Orloff was probably a secret stockholder in that bank. At any rate, he must have set up the dummy accounts there, with his old friend Bailey’s knowledge, planning later to transfer the money to South America. And that’s why Orloff was heading for Bonaparte after he left Kansas City — to complete the transfer arrangements with Bailey. After which he intended to meet his secretary in New Orleans and then skip to Rio.”
Bennett lit a cigarette.
“What else have you been up to?”
“I just opened an account in the bank — as the James Sales Company. Sales of what, I’ll leave to your imagination, just as I left it to the bank’s. But it was a highly instructive afternoon. My initial deposit was big enough to command the attention of the highest echelon in the Bank of Bonaparte. And among other things I learned that E. G. Bailey has been out of town for three days. He’s expected back later today, though, and I have an appointment to meet him at one P.M. tomorrow. But next Monday he’s going out of town again. What happened to you?”
Bennett told James how he had followed Orloff’s — and Wilson’s — trail from Arkansas to Bonaparte.
James turned off the road and parked in front of a white frame restaurant.
“Here we are,” James said. “But before we go in describe for me once more that man Gordon who occupied the farm in Arkansas, the one who bought it from Ira Wilson.”
Bennett did so.
“Well,” James said, “in the back seat of this car is a manila envelope containing a photograph of E. G. Bailey. And unless I miss my guess, the man you saw on that farm was not a Mr. Gordon of Fort Smith. It was E. G. Bailey, the president of the Bank of Bonaparte.”
Bennett reached back, opened the envelope, and looked carefully inside.
“You’re right,” he said slowly. “Now, that’s a funny way for a Louisiana bank president to spend his time — digging holes on a tract of bottomland in Arkansas.”
“It sure is,” James replied. He opened the door. “And it kind of brings all the pieces in this puzzle into place, too. Let’s eat. Then you’re going back to New Orleans, while I make inquiries of whatever local authorities handle vital statistics. I want you to buy me something in New Orleans. What you buy, I’m going to sell to E. G. Bailey when I see him tomorrow. It will be the one and only transaction of the James Sales Company. But it may wind up as the most important sale I ever made.”
Sam Powell walked out of a hearing room in the Federal courthouse in Little Rock, Arkansas. Bennett and James were waiting in the corridor.
Powell shoved a cigar into his mouth and grinned. “It’s going to take time to unravel the details, but we just got a look at Orloff’s ledger. It shows there should be at least six million, maybe more, of that stolen money in the Bank of Bonaparte, under dummy names which Orloff and Bailey set up, and which our stockholders now stand an excellent chance of recovering. Not to mention the value of Orloff s diamonds.”
James chuckled. “Poor old E. G. Bailey. He sure looked startled the other morning when Ted and I and those Federal marshals stepped from behind the Wilson farmhouse and caught him lugging that strongbox from the woods to his car.”
“Poor Lou Orloff, you mean,” Powell replied. “He spent a lifetime building up his house of cards. And then...”
“Then,” Bennett said, “he wound up in a pauper’s grave in Bonaparte, Louisiana, as John Doe.”
The three men strolled down the hall and into an empty courtroom.
They sat down. The hearing into Orloff s affairs would reconvene in half an hour.
“Orloff’s death,” James said, “was the direct result of his own greed and suspicion. Orloff was injured in that crash, but he was a strong and fearless man. He’d absorbed a number of bullets, once, and survived to win a medal. So he put the safety of his strongbox first, and his own welfare second. When he crawled out of that wrecked car and saw that Prentiss was dead, Orloff decided to hide his strongbox then and there. He wasn’t about to let any stranger he might meet in the next few hours know about that strongbox — especially policemen who might turn up at any time to investigate the accident. And even if he persuaded someone, as he ultimately persuaded Ira Wilson, to drive him to the sanitarium in Bonaparte, he feared he might become unconscious during the ride, and the strongbox might be stolen. He was also afraid of being hospitalized in that sanitarium, perhaps anesthetized for hours or days at a time, with the strongbox lying around for anyone to pick up.”
“As I understand it,” Powell said, “Orloff pried a hubcap off the rear wheel of the wrecked car and used that as a digging tool to bury the strongbox on the Wilson farm.”
“That’s right,” Bennett said. “Then, the strongbox taken care of, he finally gave some consideration to himself. He stumbled to Wilson’s house and bribed Wilson to drive him to Bonaparte, to the sanitarium, where he knew Bailey could arrange to keep his admittance a secret, since Bailey owned the place. But the delay in seeking medical attention, plus his exertions in burying his strongbox, proved fatal. According to the doctor at the sanitarium, who talked readily enough when Federal authorities questioned him, Orloff died less than twelve hours later.”
“He died,” James added, “without disclosing the spot where he’d buried the box. Orloff did tell Bailey it was somewhere on the farm, though, and ordered Bailey to buy the farm and get Wilson off the property — to forestall Wilson’s digging it up by accident. But Orloff had faith, to the end, that he’d recover from his injuries and dig up that strongbox himself.”
“So Bailey,” Bennett said, “posed as a man from Fort Smith and bought the farm. He also conceived the impersonation ‘red herring’ — the false Orloff — when the real Orloff died. He realized that unless another Orloff turned up somewhere, the authorities would start tracing Orloff’s movements from New York. They might learn about the accident in Arkansas, might start digging up the Wilson farm, too. Bailey conferred with Orloff’s secretary. Both knew about the actor, Herb Vann. Bailey paid the secretary to find Vann and arranged for him to assume Orloff’s identity in Rio for a few months. The villa in Rio had already been purchased, the secretary had Orloff’s passport so everything was set. All that was necessary was for Vann to show up in Rio, with the secretary at his elbow to guide him over the rough spots.”
“The purpose of the deception,” James said, “was to give Bailey enough time to buy the farm, get Wilson moved off, and start digging for the strongbox on his own. That’s how he was spending his time when Bennett showed up to investigate the accident he was digging. It was a job he wanted to do alone. Like Orloff, he didn’t trust anyone to help him. Because the strongbox now meant an awful lot to E. G. Bailey — as much as it had meant to Lou Orloff, when Orloff was alive. The diamonds inside were only a minor consideration. The big thing was, if Bailey could find and destroy Orloff’s ledger, he could then transfer all that money from Orloff’s dummy accounts into dummy accounts of his own, without fear that the ledger would ever turn up to trap him — a neat little gain of more than six million dollars, and no taxes. No wonder he was willing to spend a little money to maintain Vann as the false Orloff.”