Garbett opened his suitcase and extracted a bottle and a corkscrew. While Peter Riddick waited expectantly, the crook sent the steel deep into the cork.
“Have you got a glass?” asked Garbett, a trace of nervousness in his manner. He had made a mistake; he was about to open the bottle of solvent.
“I’ll get one,” the bank president said, and departed with a smile of anticipation.
The moment he was out of the room, Garbett tore the corkscrew out, and hastily changed bottles. Almost at once the white-haired man returned with two glasses. He saw Garbett trying to force a crumbling corkscrew into place.
“Very poor steel. Sorry.” The crook laughed at his own futile efforts. As fast as he thrust the corkscrew down it crumbled into bits.
Peter Riddick was plainly puzzled; he tapped the corkscrew with a blunt finger. The steel flaked off, and fell to the floor, and he rubbed it with his shoe. Now, the flakes were a fine powder that disappeared into the rug beneath his foot.
Finally, the contents of the other bottle were sampled and approved, and then the crook was taken on a tour of the bank. He was shown the safe, and its various burglar-proof features, the workings of the time-lock, and an explanation of the way the safe was made fireproof. Garbett professed a total lack of knowledge of bank safes, though such was far from the case.
Garbett felt not the slightest twinge of conscience. His profession was, in his opinion, an ancient and dishonorable one, but it was nevertheless his profession. From early days, according to the history he studied in college, there had been those who by skill or brute force, by cleverness or wit, had made their living in the same manner. By thrift and hard work, some men and nations' rose to prosperity, and then other men, or other nations, came and conquered, or stole.
“This is an honest man — an honest man from New York,” said Mr. Riddick, introducing Garbett to the office force of the bank. And Garbett acknowledged the soft impeachment, and shook hands with them all.
At luncheon the crook met Mrs. Riddick, a matronly, gray-haired woman who dressed in startling elegance. The lady had soft hands, splashed with diamonds, earrings that contained two large blazing stones; a crescent pin of white fire sent sparks from her ample bosom. And Garbett’s eyes held an odd expression as he saw the lavish use she made of such expensive bits of carbon.
In the afternoon Peter Riddick returned to the bank, while the crook strolled about the rambling streets of the town. He walked aimlessly, a frown of concentration on his face, as he planned his actions for later in the evening.
The train for Washington left at 9:45 from the railroad station at the southern end of the town. Riddick’s house was halfway between the bank and the station, five minutes from either one. Doubtless they would escort him to the station, and wait there with him until he had left the town.
Garbett stopped in his walk, and stared at the signboard as he thought. He must devise some way to keep the Riddicks from going with him to the station. He needed thirty minutes — an hour would be far better — between the time he left the house and the time the train left.
Also, he wanted to know whether the bank was guarded at night. If there was a watchman, that individual would have to be silenced. Doubtless there was a police force in the town too; he must make inquiries.
Garbett came to himself, and his eyes read the signboard. Up to this time, he had been too busy thinking to look.
Garbett chuckled with amusement and strolled toward the garage. The Riddicks could be disposed of very simply. He remembered, now, that Mrs. Riddick had drawn the conversation during luncheon to artistic channels. Of course she wanted to go to the “Cabaret and Dance” that evening; she was just the sort of woman who would desire to shine in society. Her diamonds insisted upon an audience.
A grime and grease covered mechanic willingly ceased his languid investigations into the interior of a flivver and indulged in the luxury of a new listener.
“We’ve only got one policeman,” he said, in answer to a question, “and he’s the worse one in the United States. Prohibition ruined Pop Gordon; he’s tried more recipes than any man in the county, and he makes the worst hooch in the State. Why, he fed some of his stuff to a yellow dog I found, and the dog chewed up a tire casing trying to get the taste out of his mouth!”
“Then who looks after traffic, and keeps an eye on things at night?”
“Nobody,” answered the mechanic. “There’s not much traffic anyhow. Well, the next day, I saw that yellow dog looking sick, and—”
Garbett let the youth continue, and finally satisfied himself that he had nothing to fear from an unwelcome interrupter. By the time the garage monologist had come to the end of his seventh saga of the town of Velma it was time for dinner.
As he smoked a cigarette after the evening meal, the crook recalled his promise to Mazie. He had promised her “something for her hair,” yet he had not made a single purchase so far. A kerosene motor chugged in the cellar of the Riddick home, manufacturing electricity for the illumination of the house. Resplendently attired in a jade canton crepe evening gown, with bouffant draperies over the hips, Mrs. Riddick wore, also, her complete collection of diamonds.
"Since you insist upon our going,” she said, when she returned to the room after a short absence, “I think we had better start.”
Garbett rose instantly and took her opera cloak from her hands. She wore a bar pin of astonishing brilliancy in her hair at the side. The pin was crescent-shaped, large, with the usual simple clasp.
Peter Riddick clambered into his overcoat and put his hand on the electric light button preparatory to pressing it. Mrs. Riddick held her cloak closely about her. Garbett stood near her, waiting until the lights should be extinguished. When they went out he would take the pin.
“We are sorry that you are going,” said the bank president, as darkness dashed into the room. “An honest man, such as you, Mr. Garbett, is a rarity. But I know—”
At the words “honest man,” Garbett had unclasped the crescent bar pin, and by the time the sentence was finished he had slipped it into his pocket. Mazie was going to have a souvenir for her hair!
Turning, the crook followed Mrs. Riddick from the room, leaving Peter Riddick to follow from the farther corner. The hour was 8:30, so he had plenty of time.
The walk through the crisp, fragrant air to the station was a pleasure. Not a cloud threatened from the sky; there was no moon; only the faint radiance of stars softened the darkness. Once in the railroad station, Garbett opened his suitcase and took out the bottle of Danny’s solvent.
He had, in the breast pocket of his coat, an eye-dropper, and he made sure that this was in working order. The station clock read 8:37. Garbett waited five minutes more, and then retraced his steps as far as Riddick’s home. Then the crook turned down an alley, passed in the rear of the garage and the drug store, and kept on to the back entrance of the bank.
His mind was at ease; he even had an explanation prepared in case he was stopped. Next door to the bank was the hall where the “Cabaret and Dance” was in progress. If questioned, Garbett was prepared to say that he had changed his mind and thought he would look in on the festivities until train-time, but had lost his way in the darkness owing to his unfamiliarity with the town. The explanation might not be convincing, but if said with an air of surprise and apology it would probably be believed.
He reached the rear door of the bank without trouble and extracted a short bar of aluminum from a pocket. With this he pushed down the cork in the bottle of solvent until the liquid rose above it. Then he pressed the rubber bulb of the eye-dropper and half-filled the glass tube. He carefully squirted the solvent into the keyhole of the door, directing the stream toward the bolt.