Octavus Roy Cohen
Jim Hanvey, Detective
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066429294
Table of Contents
Jim Hanvey, Detective
FISH EYES
CLIFFORD WALLACE was noticeably ill at ease. He worked intensively yet mechanically at his post in the Third National Bank, within the narrow confines of a cage bearing the inscription Paying Teller Number One. Horizontal lines of worry creased his forehead and a single lock of white stood out with startling clarity against the deep brown of his hair.
Beside him were piled great stacks of money divided into neat packages. Behind his back the huge doors of the cash vault gaped, disclosing more money. At the right of his cage were the inclosures of the three other—the junior—paying tellers. The marbled lobby of the big bank was a welter of discordant activity, of impatience—the clink of silver, the soft shuffling of new bank notes, the slamming of ledgers, the hum of banking during the rush hours.
To-day was the busiest of the month for Paying Teller Number One. To-day came due the pay rolls. of the three largest corporations in the industrial district of which this city was the metropolis. More than a million and a quarter dollars in cash occupied the cage with Cliff Wallace; a million and a quarter dollars in silver and bills, only a few of the latter in denominations of more than one hundred dollars. It was Wallace's task to make up these pay-rolls and deliver them to the armed men who came with the checks. He was sorting the money now, indifferent to the exasperated stare of the little man outside the window who impatiently rattled his own modest pay-roll check for $208.
Behind the irate little man a line formed slowly—two or three other representatives of small businesses, then a strikingly pretty young woman in a blue coat suit, and behind her, two stalwarts from the Garrison Coal, Iron and Steel Company. Cliff knew the proportions of the check they carried—$278,000. Real work there, work requiring intense concentration. It was so easy to make an error of a few hundred dollars when one dealt casually in single amounts greater than a quarter million. Cliff received the little man's check and counted the money deftly, cramming it into a canvas sack. He was visibly annoyed when the man insisted on opening the sack and counting the money for himself. Cliff's eyes sought those of the pretty girl and a brief glance of understanding passed between them. Both were taut of muscle and tense of nerves; upon the face of each was an unnatural pallor.
The little man completed his count, closed his canvas sack and moved off pompously. The next man in line presented his check and received his money. So, too, did the next. The girl pushed her check through the window—the pay-roll check of the wholesale hardware company for which she worked; $728.56. With it she presented a leather satchel. Cliff Wallace unlocked the barred window of his cage to take the satchel. He placed it on the shelf at his right, the shelf containing the mountains of bills. Again that look of under standing—of apprehension—passed between them. They spoke with simulated casualness.
“Good morning, Phyllis.”
“Good morning, Cliff.”
That was all. Yet, save for those first glances, they avoided each other's eyes. The oldish-young paying teller sorted out the amount of her pay roll. And then, working discreetly, swiftly and dexterously, he piled beside it a small stack of new bills. In that stack of bills was a hundred thousand dollars; one thousand one-hundred-dollar bank notes. Once he permitted his eyes to rove restlessly about the lobby. They paused briefly on the gray-coated figure of the bank’s special officer, who lounged indifferently near the Notes and Discounts Window. Apparently the bank detective had neither thought nor care in the world. Reassured, yet with no diminution of his nervousness, Cliff Wallace returned to the task in hand.
Into the girl’s brown leather satchel he put the amount of her pay-roll check, and then he crammed into it also the one hundred thousand dollars.
His face was ghastly pale as he faced her once more. The hand that held the satchel trembled violently. He conscripted a smile which he intended to be reassuring, and the smile with which she answered him was so obviously an effort that it seemed to shriek her guilt. For a second they remained rigid, staring into each other's eyes, then the envoys of the Garrison Coal, Iron and Steel Company coughed impatiently and the girl moved away. The paying teller fingered the $278,000 check nervously, his eyes remaining focused on the blue coat suit which was moving with horrid slowness toward the whirling doors that opened onto the street. And finally she disappeared and Cliff Wallace breathed a sigh of infinite relief. Thus far nothing had been noticed. He gave his attention to the task of assorting huge stacks of bills for the Garrison Company.
Meanwhile the girl in the blue coat suit turned into the swirl of traffic on the city's main thoroughfare. She threaded her way through the crowd, walking with unnecessary swiftness, with the single thought in her mind of putting as much space as possible between herself and the Third National Bank. Her fingers were wrapped tightly about the handle of the brown leather satchel, her face bore a fixed rigidity of expression, her heart was pounding beneath the plain tailored waist she wore. It seemed incomprehensible that the transaction in Cliff Wallace's cage had gone unnoticed. It had been so simple—so absurdly simple.
And now she was making all haste toward the office where she worked. Cliff had warned her that she must return promptly from the bank in order that the inevitable investigation should disclose no suspicious lapse of time.
She turned up a side street and thence into a gaunt, red-brick building labeled Sanford Jones & Co. Biting her lips with a fierce effort at self-control, she entered the building and turned immediately into the women's washroom. Trembling fingers found the door key and turned it. Then making certain that she was alone in the room she took from the shelf a large piece of brown wrapping paper which she had placed there earlier in the morning—that and a bit of twine.
She dropped to her knees, opened the satchel and took from it the one hundred thousand dollars. She felt a vague amazement that so much money should be of such small bulk. She arranged the bills neatly in three stacks of equal height and wrapped them carefully in the brown paper. Then with the package securely tied with twine she closed the satchel, unlocked the washroom door and swung into the office. No one had noticed