CHAPTER XL

THE COMBINATIONS AT THE BANK.

For the pursuit of ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, which Bret Harte once attributed to his famous “Heathen Chinee,” Barrows couldn’t have selected a better place than those back rooms in Marsten’s house. Marsten’s place cost him a hundred dollars a month in rent, which was about twice what a house in that locality in New Haven is worth to the ordinary, law-abiding citizen. But Marsten never felt that he was paying too much. It was a house that was very hard to get into, for one thing.

From the street it looked like an ordinary place. True, the windows were nearly always dark, but that was the owner’s own business. The front door looked very innocent. If you wanted to get in, you found an ordinary wooden door, which was open. Behind that was a panel of shaded glass, through which nothing of what went on inside was visible, although a strong electric light shone down on any visitor who rang the bell. That bell was a work of art in itself. It established an electric current which resulted, by a complicated and most ingenious system of mirrors, in revealing, to an observer carefully stationed for the purpose within the house, the appearance of whoever rang it. If the guard was made suspicious, the door was not opened, no matter how hard the bell might be rung.

A few favored visitors, for greater convenience, were intrusted with a code way of ringing that bell, which secured immediate admittance, at any hour of the day or night, for Marsten had friends who were likely, at almost any time, to require a quick and readily available hiding place. For Marsten was in the habit, when gambling profits were a trifle slow, of doing some extra business in the way of receiving stolen goods. He was very careful about this, and Detective Jones and the other shining lights of the New Haven police had not even suspected this phase of his activities as yet.

This secret signal for gaining quick admittance to the house was changed every few days, by way of precaution, lest, in some manner, some person hostile to Mr. Marsten and his way of making a living should discover it. Riggs, Foote, Barrows, Bascom, and a few others knew of it, and at half past ten promptly on the night of the day on which Dick Merriwell made his deposit of five thousand dollars in the Elm National Bank, Riggs pressed the button twice in long rings, and then three times in very rapid succession. It was the right code signal, and he was admitted at once, to be greeted with a smile by Marsten.

“You’re very lucky, Mr. Riggs,” said Marsten. “There are times when I am afraid that my friend Barrows is misguided, but he has been greatly moved by the wrongs and sufferings of men in your position. As long as his motives are good, I know of no reason why I should take it on myself to criticize the means he uses to reform bad conditions. Follow me. I will take you to him.”

Riggs, when he was taken upstairs, had to wait a few minutes for Barrows. He found himself in what looked like a miniature machine shop. There were several peculiar instruments around. One resembled a vacuum cleaner. Then there were a number of delicate tools, all attached to lengths of insulated wire, with plugs at the other end, evidently adapted to use with an ordinary electric-light circuit. In one corner of the room, a young man bent over a desk, industriously plying a very fine camel’s-hair brush. He had half a dozen of these brushes, of incredible delicacy, each resting on a little dish of paint, of different colors. This young man, who might have been recognized as Bascom, the wireless operator of the _Marina_, had Jim Phillips been there, paid no attention at all to Riggs. He seemed to have plenty to keep him busy without displaying any idle curiosity, and he worked as if he were fascinated by his task, and took an artistic pride in doing it as well as it could be done.

Then Barrows entered, brisk, confident, looking more like the man who had been so sure of success before the defeat of his plans for making a killing on the boat race at New London.

“All right, Riggs,” he said. “I think it looks pretty well. Now we want to get right down to business. There’s no use wasting time here. They might make an inspection of your books before you expected them, you know, and the sooner things are straightened out so that you have nothing to fear, the better you will feel. Have you got those numbers?”

“Yes,” said Riggs, taking a notebook from his pocket. “Here is a record of every bank note above ten dollars in value that was in the vaults to-night. And here are the numbers that I substituted in the official record. I passed up all that are likely to be used in the course of business to-morrow, and worked simply with the reserve cash, that would not be touched except in an emergency. All our customers make it a point to give us a few days’ notice, when possible, before making a large withdrawal, so that we can be ready for them without any trouble. But there is nothing of that sort in sight for several days.”

“Good,” said Barrows. “Now we shall be able to arrange that part of it all right. Bascom, I want you to listen with me now, to the questions I shall ask Riggs and to his answers. This is your part—and it is the hardest part of the whole business, in a way.”

“All right,” said Bascom, looking up for the first time. “You needn’t worry about my part of the game. I’ll be there with bells on. I’m tired of needing money. This will set me up for life.”

“Now, in the first place,” said Barrows, “is there a watchman in the bank?”

“No,” said Riggs, “they trust so much to their new safety and burglar-proof devices that they’ve changed that. There’s a man who patrols the whole block that the bank is in. He passes up and down in front every fifteen minutes. He goes around behind, too, and can look right in through the barred windows at the room that leads into the vault. There’s always a light in that room.”

“That’s bad,” said Barrows. “I suppose he passes there every fifteen minutes, too. That wouldn’t give you time enough, Bascom. We’ll have to get rid of him for an hour or two.”

“Leave that to me,” said Bascom coolly. “We won’t let a detail like that interfere with our plans. Not if I know myself.”

“How about the combinations?” asked Barrows, next. “And the key to the front door? Could you get those?”

“I’ve got an impression of the front-door key,” said Riggs. “I couldn’t get one of the keys, though. I was afraid I’d make them suspicious if I asked for one, and I didn’t dare take a chance. As for the combinations, I’ve got some, but not all of them. Here is the combination for the gate of the vaultroom. I’ve got it for the outer door of the vault, too. The inner door of the vault I couldn’t get. And, once you’re inside the big vault, there’s an old-fashioned safe; that’s about the only one of the old things they kept. That’s used to lock up currency. The packet of hundred-dollar bills that Merriwell deposited to-day is in that.”

Barrows turned to Bascom.

“Can you manage on that?” he asked.

“What’s the type of that vault?” asked the wireless expert tersely.

Riggs told him.

“All right,” nodded Bascom. “I probably couldn’t open it if I didn’t have the outer combination. But those people make their inner and outer doors on the same principle, and I can find out what the inside combination is in ten minutes, if I’ve already opened the outer gate. As for the safe inside, there isn’t a safe made before nineteen hundred that would fool me for ten minutes on the combination. I can get that by listening to the tumblers. Those old soft-iron safes were hard to break, but easy to open if you had good ears and understood the principles of combination locks.”

“Then it’s going to be a regular burglary?” asked Riggs.

“Of course it is,” snapped Barrows. “How else did you suppose we were going to work it? It’s going to be a regular burglary—but a darned sight different from the ordinary ones you read about. You can go down to the bank the morning after it’s been pulled off, and you won’t hear a word about it. Thanks to you, we’ve been able to take precautions that will delay detection for several days.”

Riggs, fascinated, seemed to want to hang around. But Barrows had sucked him dry, and had no further use for him. So Riggs had to go, still in the dark as to when the burglary was to be attempted.

“That deposit of Merriwell’s is a bit of luck,” said Barrows, turning with a smile to Bascom when they were alone. “Makes it a lot easier for us to queer his game. I know what it’s for, too. He’s made some friends of mine pretty sore by the way he’s threatened their lumber interests up in Maine. We’ll be killing two birds with one stone if we land him.”

“Oh, let up on Merriwell,” said Bascom angrily. “You’ll queer this game yet if you insist on dragging in your personal quarrels, Barrows. You ought to be content to work the plant and let it go at that. You’ll have money enough after this business to do Merriwell up without half trying. Hire some one to do it for you and keep out of it yourself. No use taking unnecessary risks.”

“I’m not going to,” said Barrows. “That’s what I roped this lad Foote in for. He’s going to pull my chestnuts out of this fire for me, though he doesn’t know it, and if he gets burned doing it, it will be his lookout, not mine.”

“I forgot about Foote,” conceded Bascom. “Still I wish you’d stick to one thing at a time. This business is delicate enough, without mixing up a lot of other things with it that don’t belong at all. You may see that when it’s too late, and be sorry you were so rash.”

“You’re as bad as Harding,” said Barrows angrily. “I’m just holding Foote in reserve if anything goes wrong with the plan. This looks like a first-class game, and a safe one. But that business at New London taught me not to leave anything to chance. That watchman worries me. If we fall down at all, it’s going to be on account of him. But I guess we can guard against that. I’ll see Foote to-night, and we’ll put it over to-morrow night. That give you time enough?”

“Sure,” said Bascom. And so it was agreed.