“I don’t see why. It was quite easy, looking at it in retrospect; anybody with a good job and a little money to invest every month could have done it. All he’d have to do is study stocks the way your father did.” He smiled faintly, like a man remembering some golden age that was gone. “And get into the market when the Dow was in the two hundred to three hundred range, good solid shares were selling at five or six times earnings, and the big glamour issues were still to come.
“I first met him in New York in 1945. I’d just got out of the Army and was with Merrill Lynch. He had about twelve thousand dollars in savings and what I thought were very sound ideas on how he wanted to invest it. I’ve handled his business ever since. We had arguments, plenty of them—most of which he won—and I’ll have to admit that more than half the time he was right.
“Traditionally, you think of shipmasters and seamen as shellbacks and old fogies about a century behind the times, but in the matter of investments Captain Romstead was oriented toward the future all the way. He believed in the new technology—electronics especially, computers, and aerospace. He’d been a radioman himself—”
“I didn’t know that,” Romstead said.
“Yes. You see, when he first got his officer’s papers, he was still sailing in Norwegian ships, before he became a U. S. citizen. And in those days it was quite common—as he explained it to me—for one of the mates of a Norwegian ship to double as wireless operator. So he had both tickets then.
“It was more or less natural then—especially after he started sailing out of here—for him to see the potentialities of the new electronics issues like Ampex, Varian, and Hewlett-Packard. He also bought IBM and Xerox at prices—and before multiple splits—that would make strong men break down and cry if you started talking about them now. And of course, shipmasters were making very good salaries by then; he was working steadily and buying more stock all the time. His portfolio was worth a million or a little over as far back as 1965.”
“Good,” Romstead said. “Now, for the second part—the pruning job when he liquidated that two hundred and fifty thousand. How does that jibe with your twenty-seven years’ experience with him?”
“It doesn’t,” Winegaard said flatly. “As my grandchildren would say—no way.”
“It was that bad?”
“A child with a pair of scissors could have done just as well.” Winegaard took from his desk a list consisting of three pages clipped together. “This is a copy of our latest statement to him—that is, the shares we held for him in street name. What he did was simply to sell everything on the first page, except for one minor item at the bottom of it. Without going into detail about it, this included two issues we’d bought for him only the week before and that we were very high on, and another he’d had for less than a month and that was performing even better than we’d expected. It makes no sense at all that he would sell these.
“And on the next two pages there were three stocks we’d already more than halfway decided to unload. Approximately the same amount of money involved, around ninety thousand. I argued with him, or tried to, but he cut me off very abruptly. He didn’t want to argue about it, he said. Sell at the market opening and deposit the proceeds in his checking account as soon as possible.”
Romstead was conscious of growing excitement. Now they were getting somewhere. “Well, look—did he specifically mention the sum two hundred and fifty thousand as the amount he needed?”
“No, he didn’t. He’d know, of course, from the previous closing quotations within a few thousand what the list would bring—barring some upheaval in the market overnight. Actually, the proceeds after commission came to something a little over two hundred and fifty-three thousand.”
“And what was the item at the bottom of the first page that he didn’t sell?”
“Some warrants. Fifteen hundred dollars altogether, around that.”
“In other words, he completely ignored everything on the other two pages. And when you tried to bring up some stocks that were listed on these pages is when he cut you off?”
“Hmmmm, yes. That’s about it.”
“How did he sound to you? Was there anything unusual about his voice or mode of expression?”
“No. Not at all. Your father, let’s face it, could be quite brusque and impatient when he wanted action instead of conversation.”
“No,” Romstead said. “I don’t think that’s the reason he cut you off.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think he was being forced to liquidate those stocks, and the people who were leaning on him didn’t know—for some reason—that there were two more pages. Otherwise, they’d have got it all.”
“Good God! Do you think a thing like that is possible?”
“What other explanation can you think of?”
“But how could they hope to get the money? It would be in the bank. And bankers, before they cash checks for a quarter million dollars, are apt to ask for a little identification.”
“No. They expected to get it in cash—which is exactly the way they did get it. Before they killed him.”
* * *
The double glass doors of the Northern California First National Bank were at street level, and with the wide windows on each side it was possible for anyone to see the whole interior. It was high-ceilinged with ornate chandeliers and a waxed terrazzo floor. On the left, in front and extending more than halfway back, was a carpeted area behind a velvet rope which held the officers’ desks. On the right in front was more of the terrazzo lobby extending to wide carpeted stairs leading downward, no doubt to the safe-deposit vaults. Beyond these areas there were tellers’ windows on both sides, and then at the back a railing, several girls at bookkeeping machines, and the iron-grille doorway into the open vault. Down the center there were three chest-high writing stands with glass tops.
One uniformed guard was on duty at the desk at the head of the stairs to the safe-deposit vaults, and he could see another tidying up the forms at the rearmost of the writing stands. Three of the tellers’ windows were open, and there were six or seven customers. This is where they did it, Romstead thought, in front of everybody. They had to be good. He went in.
Owen Richter’s desk was just inside the entrance to the carpeted area. Richter himself was a slender graying man with an air of conservatism and unflappable competence, and Romstead was forced to concede it didn’t seem likely the eyes behind those rimless glasses ever missed much that went on in the bank or were often fooled by what they saw. He introduced himself and explained why he was here. Richter shook his head.
“There’s not a chance, Mr. Romstead. It’s exactly as I told the police, and the executor—Bolling, isn’t it? Your father, when he came in and picked up that money, was sober, entirely rational, and alone.”
“He couldn’t have been,” Romstead said. “It was completely out of character, something he simply wouldn’t do.”
“Oh, as for that, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve known Captain Romstead for close to ten years. He was very sound and conservative and highly competent in managing money. And because I did know him and knew this was totally unlike him, I was suspicious myself when he first telephoned me, that Monday before the withdrawal, and said he was going to want that amount of money in cash. It’s irregular. And also foolish and highly dangerous. I tried to talk him out of it, but got nowhere. He simply said to expedite the clearance, that he wanted the money by Wednesday, and hung up.
“As you’re probably aware, there are certain types of swindlers who prey on older people, and while I was sure the con man who’d pick your father for a victim would be making the mistake of his life, I made a note to be on the lookout when he came in, just to be sure there was no third party lurking in the background. I also alerted Mr. Wilkins, the security officer on duty in the main lobby here. He knew the captain by sight, of course.”