She tiptoed around. Yes — everything was right. She repacked her bag to make sure. She could take only a few things so it would look as if all of her thing’s were there. No one knew just what she had. The bit of paper in the corner of it — the woman’s hair — her clothes — she touched it gingerly. She could get rid of that easily enough.
Yes — the signs of disorder — the window. The police wouldn’t think it was a burglar — they were just clever enough for that — yet, she hoped, not too clever...
She felt around, felt the familiar things. She could see a little from the street lamp, outside— It was nearly time to go. Dennison — would things come out the way she had planned? The apartment! The closet! Did she dare? Dare? She had to, now. There was nothing else to do. She started in to sob, kneeling at the side of her bed.
“Oh, Stuart,” she sobbed, “come back to me, come back to me. Oh God...”
She could leave, now. She could get a ticket, go on to Chicago. That would be best. She didn’t know anyone in Chicago. It was surprising how few people she knew any place. In Chicago, she’d go to the Y. W. C. A., take a new name, find a position, even let her hair grow, maybe.
A new name? Any name. She’d think one up. Only she mustn’t change her initials. That would be bad luck, unless she got married. Any name but Irene Graham...
She pinned on her hat. She could go, now. She was hungry. She went into the kitchen. Where, in the dim light, she saw the pie she had made. Why not take a piece? She didn’t care much for blueberry pie. She wondered, now, why she had bothered — how she had had the nerve to make it. Why not eat a piece, as long as it was there. They might blame a neighbor — the police, anyone. She cut a piece of pie, ate it. It was good pie. Too good for what it was made for. To think of all the pies she had made during the two years, for Dennison. Stuart — she had loved him — really had. Well, he’d get what was coming to him. She’d forget it all — these two years — Stuart Dennison — the apartment — the — inside the closet...
She opened the front door, carefully. There was no one in sight. She closed the door after her, quietly, and, suitcase in hand, went out to catch her train.
VIII
The newspaper dropped from Irma Martin’s fingers. So — it was over. Really over. Dennison was dead. He had “paid for his crime with his life,” as the newspapers had said.
Mrs. Martin shuddered. She must get over being so nervous. She knew that. She stood up, began to gather together the blue and white breakfast dishes. Funny! She laughed, a bit mirthlessly, to herself. Funny, that she had happened to eat that piece of blueberry pie.
The Phantom Check
by George Bruce Marquis
I
It was nearly six o’clock, and yet James Hackett, teller number one of the Wallula State Bank, tarried in his cage. Again and again he cast up his totals, recounted his cash, and thumbed over the big pile of checks which littered his counter, and still his columns refused to balance.
The cashier of the bank, Thomas Ector, passed down the aisle on his way out, but noting the teller still at work paused.
“What’s wrong, Hackett?” he inquired.
“My cash simply won’t balance, Mr. Ector,” Hackett replied.
“Throw it into the Over and Short Account, Hackett,” Ector advised him. “A few cents more or less won’t matter.”
“A few cents!” And Hackett turned his flushed face toward the cashier. “I wish it were only a matter of a few cents. I’m short one thousand dollars!”
“A ‘one’ is the easiest mistake in the world to make,” Ector smiled. “Unlock the door and let me run over your figures.”
“Well, here’s hoping,” Hackett sighed. “I’ve run those columns up and down, crossways and slanting till I honestly couldn’t add two and two and be sure of the result.”
“You’ve just got excited,” Ector declared as he picked up the ribbon from the adding machine and began to compare it with the stack of checks.
“How much cash did you start with this morning?” he presently inquired.
“Five thousand dollars. Mr. Gray counted it out and I rechecked it before I opened my window. It was correct.”
The cashier ticked off the deposit slips, and last of all counted the cash. Then he began to cast up the final results, humming a little tune as he did so. Presently he ceased humming, while a puzzled frown crept gradually over his features.
“What’s wrong here?” he argued with himself, “you’re off, too.”
“How much?” Hackett asked a little unsteadily.
“It looks like a thousand dollars,” Ector admitted reluctantly, “but I must have made a mistake. Here, wait till I run it over again.”
But his second checking was as fruitless as his first. Hackett was undoubtedly short one thousand dollars.
Ector stood drumming on the counter for a bit, lost in thought. Then he had a sudden inspiration.
“Did you cash any thousand dollar checks or drafts today?” he asked surdenly.
“A dozen, maybe,” the teller answered. “You know I handle most of the big accounts, a number of real estate firms, besides the business of half a dozen of the biggest stores. A thousand dollars in change with them is nothing uncommon. Often they draw out more.”
“Then you’ve simply mislaid or lost one of their checks,” Ector declared with certitude. “Dump out that waste paper basket and let’s go through it.”
The basket was duly emptied and its contents examined with microscopic care, but without results. Besides, Hackett got down on his hands and knees and poked and prodded in vain under the desks and filing cabinets in a vain hope that a check was hidden there.
“A draft of air may have carried it out through your window,” Ector suggested finally, “but that’s hardly likely. Still, I’ll tell the janitor to look sharp when he sweeps up.”
“But what shall I do?” Hackett asked in despair.
“Do, what can you do?” the cashier answered. “You couldn’t make that big a mistake in change and you haven’t duplicated a deposit of that size. The only thing I can think of is for you to try and make a list of all the thousand dollar items and see if you have overlooked one.”
“I won’t be able to sleep a wink tonight, Mr. Ector.”
“Well, you may be able to ferret it out, then,” so the other consoled him. “I’ve often done that, I know. I’ll bet you that in the morning you’ll have the laugh on yourself for some foolish oversight or other.”
“Well, I certainly hope so,” Hackett ejaculated fervently. “Twelve years in that cage and never anything like this before.”
“Forget it, Jimmy,” and the cashier slapped him on the back in friendly fashion. “We all make them, and generally find them, too. That’s the best part.”
But the morning did not bring the promised relief. Instead, Hackett entered his cage pale and shaken and the other six tellers were in little better frame. The phenomenal loss had been whispered about the bank and each man wondered if it would be his turn that day. The result was that all the tellers worked over time that evening adjusting numerous little mistakes that under ordinary circumstances would never have occurred.
All of them, however, were able to eventually reduce their errors to a matter of a few cents, except teller number one.
Ector walked down the passageway back of the cages at five-thirty to find them all empty save Hackett’s. Here he paused.