CHAPTER XVII

BEHIND THE OLD BOOKS

“Now, Larry, tell us all about it,” invited Mr. Bentfield a little later, when, with his lawyer, he had greeted the young reporter in his private office of the bank. It was past midnight, and, had any one looked into that room, he might have wondered what brought the three there, to hold a secret conference.

“Well, I made two strange discoveries,” Larry answered. “I think, Mr. Bentfield, that we are about at the end of the trail. I can’t promise you the million dollars, but I believe I can name the thief. He’s the one I have suspected from the first. Now for my evidence.”

Larry quickly went over all his work on the bank mystery case from the beginning. Then he gave more details of his location of the tell-tale bricks, so near Witherby’s boarding place, telling of seeing the man at the window, trying on the false beard.

“And now comes the climax,” went on Larry, as he told of finding the thousand-dollar bill, and the false, sandy moustache.

“By Jove!” exclaimed the lawyer, “I never would have believed it! Of course, he’s the guilty one, Bentfield. You should notify the police, and have him arrested at once. In fact, I think I would not wait for his return. He may never come back. Send word out to this place, where he has gone on business for you, and have him taken into custody there. Get him out of bed if necessary. He may have the million with him.”

“Poor fellow!” said the bank president softly. “It is sad to think of it. I am just beginning to realize how hard it must be for a bank clerk, on a comparatively small salary, to see millions of dollars every day, and know that he must not touch them. And most of them are young fellows, with a love for the pleasures of life. It is hard, very hard! A great temptation!”

“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed the lawyer gruffly. “They should resist temptation. The money is not theirs. If they take it they must suffer the consequences. Call up the police at once, and have them arrest this fellow. I congratulate you, young man,” he said to Larry. “You have worked up a difficult case in a masterly manner. I congratulate you. Yes, hum!”

“It isn’t finished yet,” said Larry, who had seen many a good story go to pieces at the last minute. “Wait until we get the thief, and the million.”

“Oh, we as good as have the thief, but I can’t say so much for the money,” spoke the lawyer, confidently.

“All I ask,” said Larry, “is that you will see that I get the first information on this case. I want the story exclusively. That is why I have worked so hard on it--to get a ‘beat’ for the _Leader_.”

“You shall have it, you shall have it,” said the bank president slowly. “Poor fellow! Poor Witherby! I suppose there is no other way than to have him arrested?” He looked at the legal gentleman anxiously.

“A way out? Of course not, my dear sir. He must be arrested. Call up the police at once.”

“I suppose I’ll have to,” sighed Mr. Bentfield. “And yet I had great hopes of that young man. He had a hasty temper, but he was getting control of it. Too bad--too bad.”

He reached for the telephone on his desk, but Larry stayed his hand.

“One moment, Mr. Bentfield,” said the young reporter. “I think, now that this case seems likely to come to an issue, that we had better be sure of our ground.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, in all likelihood, Witherby will deny that he took the money.”

“But we can prove that he had part of it in his possession!” exclaimed the lawyer testily.

“I’m afraid not,” went on Larry. “Thousand-dollar bills are not so very uncommon. No one knows the numbers of the stolen ones, it seems. And, it has been my experience, that no matter how good the evidence, or how complete the case against a criminal, he will deny it, in the hope of puzzling a jury.”

And as Larry spoke thus he could not help thinking of how it might affect Grace Potter--to know that her friend and distant relative was a bank thief. Larry almost wished he did not have to solve the mystery.

“Well, I suppose you are right,” admitted the lawyer. “I have had very little practice in criminal cases.”

“What do you suggest, Larry?” asked the banker.

“I think that we should go carefully over the ground, and see if there are any weak points,” replied the young reporter. “If we have to resort to circumstantial evidence we ought to be able to show, step by step, how the chain of evidence is made up. In the first place, would it have been possible for Witherby to have gotten to the bag that morning, after the million dollars was put in it?”

“I think it would,” answered the president. “Suppose we go out into the main room, and look over the ground? It may help us on the case.”

The three went out into the dimly lighted “cage” where, during business hours, so much money changed hands.

“Here is where the bank-notes were put into the bag,” said Mr. Bentfield, pointing to a low desk. “I know, because I was present at the time. It was one of the biggest transactions we ever undertook, and I wanted no mistakes. I saw the bundles of notes put into the steel-mesh-lined bag. It was then locked, and set close to the chief cashier’s desk, on the floor. There were a number of clerks and tellers all around, and it would have been impossible for a stranger--an outsider--to have come in the cage. We can easily prove that, if Witherby sets up, as a defense, that some one other than a bank employee might have committed the theft.”

“After the bag was placed on the floor, what happened?” asked Larry, who wanted to refresh his memory.

“It stayed there until it was picked up, to be taken to the other bank. Then the theft was discovered, as you know.”

Larry looked around the cage. It was like most banks. In front of the brass grill work, and inside of it, was a long desk, at about the height of a man’s chest. It was at this desk that the various tellers and bookkeepers worked, and took in the money from depositors, or paid it out through little wickets.

On the other side of the cage was a similar long desk, at which several bookkeepers could work on the sloping top. This desk was not used by the public at all, but at it the bank’s books were made up, money counted and put into packages, and similar things done. Underneath this desk were several closets, or compartments, closed by sliding doors.

“What are they for?” asked Larry, pointing to the closets.

“Oh, unimportant books are kept in them, and some of the clerks use them to put their rubbers or umbrellas in. Nothing of any account,” and Mr. Bentfield opened several of the doors. Many of the compartments were empty, and in one was a small valise.

“Whose is that?” asked Larry.

“Oh, it belongs to some of the clerks, I suppose,” answered the president. “Often they go out of town for week-end visits. To save time so as not to have to go back home, or to their boarding-places, after the bank closes, they bring their valises down here with their change of clothes in, and take the train from here. That is nothing.”

“No,” agreed Larry. His gaze went farther about the cage and rested on the open door of a sort of closet, or vault. It was practically a vault, for there was a heavy iron portal to it.

“Is that where you keep the bank’s money, Mr. Bentfield?” Larry asked, with a smile. “It does not seem to be a very safe place.”

“No, that’s a vault where we keep old ledgers that are out of use. We file them away merely for reference. They are seldom looked at, and sometimes we burn them up. The vault is fire-proof, and that’s the most that can be said of it. I don’t know why the door wasn’t closed to-night. Some one was careless.”

Hardly knowing why he did it, Larry walked into this vault. There was an incandescent lamp swinging from the ceiling by a green cord. The young reporter reached up, and switched it on. He still had no particular object in his actions. It was more to cover every bit of the ground, so as to be in a position to testify accurately, in case he was called on as a witness, as would be probable.

There were rows and rows of old ledgers on the shelves of the vault. Big, heavy books, some of them nearly a foot thick. Their gold-lettered backs stood out in the glow of the electric light.

“I shouldn’t want to carry many of those books around,” said Larry, as he raised his hand to push against one of the largest, and so judge of its weight. “They are pretty heavy. I should think----”

But he never finished that sentence. For, as his fingers came in contact with the back of the old ledger it moved--it slid in on the shelf, and, not only did that book move, but also the one next to it. And Larry knew, full well, that not by a mere pressure of his fingers could he move one of the heavy books on the shelf, to say nothing of two.

“What is it? What is the matter?” demanded Mr. Bentfield, attracted by something strange in the young reporter’s action. “Have you found anything of importance?”

Larry did not answer. He tried to push a book that stood next to the two which he had been able to move with such ease. He found it impossible.

Only by exerting considerable strength was he able to slide the other old ledger back. But it was different in the case of the first two. They moved at a touch. There could be but one reason. They were dummies!

As this thought flashed into Larry’s mind he reached up and, taking hold of the tops of the light ledgers, he pulled them toward him. They came away amid a cloud of dust, leaving a gaping space in the row of books.

And then something tumbled from the place they had occupied. A bag--a leather bag, which rolled over and over on the floor of the vault to the very feet of the president. The leather backs of the old ledgers had been glued to the bag, and, when Larry pulled, they came out from the row of books, bringing the bag with them. But the glue had not held well, and the weight of the bag, once it was off the shelf, had pulled it loose.

There it lay, on the floor, and Larry stood holding the backs of the ledgers, from which the covers and pages had been cut with a sharp knife. But it was the bag on which all eyes rested.

“It’s the bank’s bag! The bag that held the million dollars!” cried the president, leaning over to grasp it. “It’s the bag for which the dummy one was exchanged! What an amazing discovery!”

“See if the million is in it!” hoarsely suggested Larry.