“Why do you say that?” Wines inquired hopefully.
“A thing or two I’ve run onto today. And that’s about all I care to say about it now. Mr. Wines, I’m going to think this thing through, and I don’t mind telling you that I’ve some things to think about.”
“You won’t tell us what your opinion is now, I infer,” the President remarked regretfully.
The detective shook his head.
“I don’t like to make guesses,” he replied. “If wrong, they only occasion regret, and if correct — well, sometimes they’re premature.”
“Meaning that there might be a leak that would serve to warn the criminals?”
Cheever nodded. “An injudicious remark might ruin everything. I will say this, however, we’re dealing with a mighty smooth article in the way of a crook.”
“I can believe that, at any rate,” Wines assured him feelingly.
“I’m going into retirement at some quiet hotel until Monday morning,” Cheever informed him. “If we have luck, we’ll plug the leak then. So long.”
IV
At ten o’clock Monday morning, Cheever entered the bank and strolled over to the President’s room. He found that gentleman in a fine fury. He was holding in his hand a copy of the Wallula Gateway, the only morning paper published in the city.
“Look here, Mr. Cheever,” and he laid his trembling finger on a front-page article.
Cheever took the paper and calmly perused the article which under heavy caps hinted at certain mysterious losses suffered in the past week by the bank, ending with the information that the bank had secured the services of the great detective Cheever, who would arrive from Chicago on Tuesday to undertake an investigation of the affair.
“Why the agitation, Mr. Wines?” the detective inquired mildly.
“Why, they’ve given the criminal the very information that you insisted must be kept secret,” Wines sputtered. “It simply lets the cat out of the bag.”
“Nay, rather spills the beans, Mr. Wines, only they’re not our beans this time.”
“I don’t understand how they got the information,” Wines continued indignantly.
“Well I do,” Cheever grinned. “They got it from yours truly. And now wait a minute, Mr. Wines, before you blow up. You’ll notice that the paper says that I’ll be on the job Tuesday. Well don’t forget that this is merely Monday.”
A sudden light dawned on the banker at this point.
“You’re going to hurry up their final effort,” he exclaimed. “I see it now.”
“Just so, Mr. Wines, and somebody’s due to stub a toe in the rush.”
He passed on into the aisle behind the row of cages, and paused at the door of cage number one.
“Same instructions as Saturday, Hackett, except bring all checks to me every fifteen minutes,” he said in low tones, “but especially watch for any large checks drawing out entire accounts. Send any of that character to me at once. And keep up your courage, Hackett,” he counselled the badly shaken teller. “I think this will be your last day on the grill.”
Up till the noon hour nothing out of the ordinary happened. An assistant, one Dykes, relieved Hackett for the coming hour and to him Cheever repeated the instructions already given to his predecessor. President Wines decided to imitate the detective as to luncheon that day and presently joined him in the directors’ room.
“Anything of importance?” he asked.
“Not yet, Mr. Wines,” Cheever answered, “but remember that the day is still young.”
Soon after, Dykes knocked at the door and passed in a dozen or so checks. Cheever with methodical exactness began lining the bits of paper across the table, but paused abruptly at the fifth check.
There was nothing about it to attract attention aside from the amount, five thousand dollars, and even that was not unusual for teller number one to handle every day. But the moment the detective read the name appended to the check, Wines, who was watching his every move attentively, noted that he suddenly gripped the table with his free hand until the knuckles showed white through the brown skin.
“What is it, Mr. Cheever?” he asked quickly, but the detective instead of answering countered with another question.
“Know him?” he shot back.
“Oh yes,” Wines answered, somewhat puzzled by the abrupt interrogation. “What do you find—”
But again Cheever cut him off.
“What do you know about him, Mr. Wines,” he demanded. “Give me facts, not fancies, remember.”
The President, somewhat ruffled, answered just a little stiffly.
“He is one of our largest individual depositors and deals in real estate largely, though I believe in a modest way buys and sells stocks and bonds.”
“Know him long?”
“Three months possibly, Mr. Cheever, though I fail to see—”
“You will presently,” the detective grunted.
“See what?” the other queried.
“The end of a perfect day,” Cheever answered shortly.
Then he handed the check to the now thoroughly perplexed President with this surprising injunction.
“Put that away in your desk, Mr. Wines, in a very private drawer, and lock it up. Also don’t let anybody see you put it away.”
As the dazed banker started to obey, the detective stopped him to add:
“And I want to see the bank detective at once.”
“He’s in the lobby, I think,” Wines replied. “I’ll send him in.”
When teller Number One returned from lunch Cheever met him at the door of his cage.
“I’m going to work in the back of your little shop this afternoon, Hackett,” he informed the teller. “I’ll be pretending to check over some figures or other, but in reality, Hackett, I’ll be listening to your chatter at the window. Get me?”
“I don’t know that I do entirely,” Hackett admitted frankly.
“You will, presently at any rate,” the detective assured him grimly. “And now Hackett, one thing more. Talk loud enough for me to hear everything, and don’t let any customer leave the window without pronouncing his name loud enough so that I can hear it distinctly.”
Cheever busied himself in the back of the cage, while the mystified teller turned to his duties at the counter. But while the detective checked and rechecked phantom errors, he was listening with alert intentness to the bits of conversation that floated back to him.
“What’s my balance, Mr. Hackett?” a man inquired presently. “I’m going over to Prescott this afternoon to pick up a block of city improvement bonds and guess I’ll have to wreck my account for a day or two.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Esseltine,” Hackett replied, “while I glance over our balance index.”
At the name, Cheever, with well simulated carelessness, dropped a pencil to the floor, and as he straightened up with it in his fingers glanced casually at the customer framed in the teller’s window.
He was a big, well-groomed man, with a keen, alert air, and that indefinable something that denotes a thorough knowledge with the world and its devious ways.
Hackett had now returned to the counter.
“A few cents over five thousand dollars, Mr. Esseltine,” he informed him respectfully.
“About what I had thought,” the other said as he pushed a check over to him. “I’ll leave the few cents for a nest egg.”
Cheever, without seeming to hurry, left the cage, passed along the aisle, and picking up his hat reached the lobby just as Esseltine turned from the teller’s window, stowing a sheaf of bank notes into a big morocco-covered wallet.
Cheever, noting with satisfaction that Hayes, the bank detective, was loitering in the lobby, reached the street door a deliberate step ahead of the man with the plethoric wallet.