Part 22

"Can you look me straight in the eyes and say that they haven't paid you for being blind? That they didn't suspect what you came to the dock for, and declared you in on the split? No! I didn't think you could!"

With that he flung her on a couch and moved toward the door. Just as his hand touched the knob he heard a voice behind him, half sob and half plea, cry, "Dick!"

Reluctantly he turned.

"Dick, as there's a God in heaven I didn't mean to double cross you. But they were on to me from the first. They planted some stamps in my pocket during the first week I was there and then gave me my choice of bein' pulled for thieving or staying there at double pay. I didn't want to do it, but they had the goods on me and I had to. They said all I had to do was to tell you that nothing crooked was goin' on--and they'll pay me well for it."

"While you were also drawing money from me, eh?"

"Sure I was, Dick. I couldn't ask you to stop my pay. You'd have suspected. Besides, as soon as you were done with me, they were, too."

"That's where the eight hundred and fifty dollars came from?"

"Yes, and a lot more. Oh, they pay well, all right!"

For fully a minute there was silence in the little apartment, broken only by the sobs of the girl on the couch. Finally Carr broke the strain.

"There's only one way for you to square yourself," he announced. "Tell me everything you know--the truth and every word of it!"

"That's just it, Dick. I don't know anything--for sure. There's something goin' on. No doubt of that. But what it is I don't know. They keep it under cover in the scale house."

"In the scale house?"

"Yes; they don't allow anyone in there without a permit. Somebody uptown tips 'em off whenever a special agent is coming down, so they can fix things. But none of the staff knows, though nearly all of them are drawin' extra money for keeping their mouths shut."

"Who are the men who appear to be implicated?"

"Mahoney, the checker for the company, and Derwent, the government weigher."

"Derwent!"

"Yes, he's in on it, too. I tell you, Dick, the thing's bigger than you ever dreamed. It's like an octopus, with tentacles that are fastened on everyone connected with the place."

"But no clue as to the location of the body of the beast?"

"Can't you guess? You know the number of their office uptown. But there's no use hoping to nab them. They're too well protected. I doubt if you can even get at the bottom of the affair on the dock."

"I don't doubt it!" Carr's chin had settled itself determinedly and his mouth was a thin red line. "I'm going to give you a chance to redeem yourself. Go back to work as usual on Monday. Don't let on, by word or gesture, that anything has changed. Just await developments. If you'll do that, I'll see that you're not implicated. More than that, I'll acknowledge you at the proper time as my agent--planted there to double cross the fraud gang. You'll have your money and your glory and your satisfaction of having done the right thing, even though you didn't intend to do it. Are you on?"

"I am, Dick. I won't say a word. I promise!"

"Good! You'll probably see me before long. But don't recognize me. You'll be just one of the girls and it'll probably be necessary to include you in the round-up. I'll fix that later. Good-by," and with that he was off.

Not expecting that Carr would be able to complete his plans for at least a week, Louise was startled when the operative arrived at the dock on the following Monday morning. He had spent the previous day in Washington, arranging details, and his appearance at the company's office--while apparently casual--was part of the program mapped out in advance. What was more, Carr had come to the dock from the station, so as to prevent the "inside man" from flashing a warning of his arrival.

Straight through the office he strode, his right hand swinging at his side, his left thrust nonchalantly in the pocket of his topcoat.

Before he had crossed halfway to the door of the scale room he was interrupted by a burly individual, who demanded his business.

"I want to see Mr. Derwent or Mr. Mahoney," replied Carr.

"They're both engaged at present," was the answer. "Wait here, and I'll tell them."

"Get out of my road!" growled the operative, pulling back the lapel of his coat sufficiently to afford a glimpse of his badge. "I'll see them where they are," and before the guardian of the scale house door had recovered from his astonishment Carr was well across the portals.

The first thing that caught his eye was the figure of a man bending over the weight beam of one of the big scales, while another man was making some adjustments on the other side of the apparatus.

Derwent, who was facing the door, was the first to see Carr, but before he could warn his companion, the special agent was on top of them.

"Who are you? What business have you in here?" demanded the government weigher.

"Carr is my name," replied Dick. "Possibly you've heard of me. If so, you know my business. Catching sugar crooks!"

Derwent's face went white for a moment and then flushed a deep red. Mahoney, however, failed to alter his position. He remained bending over the weight beam, his finger nails scratching at something underneath.

"Straighten up there!" ordered Carr. "You--Mahoney--I mean! Straighten up!"

"I'll see you in hell first!" snapped the other.

"You'll be there soon enough if you don't get up!" was Carr's reply, as his left hand emerged from his coat pocket, bringing to light the blue-steel barrel of a forty-five. "Get--"

Just at that moment, from a point somewhere near the door of the scale room, came a shrill, high-pitched cry--a woman's voice:

"Dick!" it called. "Lookout! Jump!"

Instantly, involuntarily, the operative leaped sidewise, and as he did so a huge bag of raw sugar crashed to the floor, striking directly on the spot where he had stood.

"Thanks, Lou," called Carr, without turning his head. "You saved me that time all right! Now, gentlemen, before any more bags drop, suppose we adjourn uptown. We're less likely to be interrupted there," and he sounded a police whistle, which brought a dozen assistants on the run.

"Search Mahoney," he directed. "I don't think Derwent has anything on him. What's that Mahoney has in his hand?"

"Nothin' but a quarter, sir, an' what looks like an old wad o' chewin' gum."

Puzzled, Carr examined the coin. Then the explanation of the whole affair flashed upon him as he investigated the weight-beam and found fragments of gum adhering to the lower part, near the free end.

"So that was the trick, eh?" he inquired. "Quite a delicate bit of mechanism, this scale--in spite of the fact that it was designed to weigh tons of material. Even a quarter, gummed on to the end of the beam, would throw the whole thing out enough to make it well worth while. I think this coin and the wad of gum will make very interesting evidence--Exhibits A and B--at the trial, after we've rounded up the rest of you."

* * * * *

"And that," concluded Quinn, "is the story which lies behind that twenty-five-cent piece--probably the most valuable bit of money, judged from the standpoint of what it has accomplished, in the world."

"Derwent and Mahoney?" I asked. "What happened to them? And did Carr succeed in landing the men higher up?"

"Unfortunately," and Quinn smiled rather ruefully, "there is such a thing as the power of money. The government brought suit against the sugar companies implicated in the fraud and commenced criminal proceedings against the men directly responsible for the manipulation of the scales. (It developed that they had another equally lucrative method of using a piece of thin corset steel to alter the weights.) But the case was quashed upon the receipt of a check for more than two million dollars, covering back duties uncollected, so the personal indictments were allowed to lapse. It remains, however, the only investigation I ever heard of in which success was so signal and the amount involved so large.

"Todd, of the Department of Justice, handled a big affair not long afterward, but, while some of the details were even more unusual and exciting, the theft was only a paltry two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"Which case was that?"

"The looting of the Central Trust Company," replied the former operative, rising and stretching himself. "Get along with you. It's time for me to lock up."

XXII

"THE LOOTING OF THE C. T. C."

There was a wintry quality in the night itself that made a comfortable chair and an open fire distinctly worth the payment of a luxury tax. Add to this the fact that the chairs in the library den of William J. Quinn--formerly "Bill Quinn, United States Secret Service"--were roomy and inviting, while the fire fairly crackled with good cheer, and you'll know why the conversation, after a particularly good dinner on the evening in question, was punctuated by pauses and liberally interlarded with silences.

Finally, feeling that it was really necessary that I say something, I remarked upon the fierceness of the wind and the biting, stinging sleet which accompanied a typical January storm.

"Makes one long for Florida," I added.

"Yes," agreed Quinn, "or even some point farther south. On a night like this you can hardly blame a man for heading for Honduras, even if he did carry away a quarter of a million of the bank's deposits with him."

"Huh? Who's been looting the local treasury?" I asked, thinking that I was on the point of getting some advance information.

"No one that I know of," came from the depths of Quinn's big armchair. "I was just thinking of Florida and warm weather, and that naturally led to Honduras, which, in turn, recalled Rockwell to my mind. Ever hear of Rockwell?"

"Don't think I ever did. What was the connection between him and the quarter-million you mentioned?"

"Quite a bit. Rather intimate, as you might say. But not quite as much as he had planned. However, if it hadn't been for Todd--"

"Todd?"

"Yes--Ernest E. Todd, of the Department of Justice. 'Extra Ernest,' they used to call him, because he'd never give up a job until he brought it in, neatly wrapped and ready for filing. More than one man has had cause to believe that Todd's parents chose the right name for him. He may not have been much to look at--but he sure was earnest."

* * * * *

Take the Rockwell case, for example [Quinn went on, after a preliminary puff or two to see that his pipe was drawing well]. No one had the slightest idea that the Central Trust Company wasn't in the best of shape. Its books always balanced to a penny. There was never anything to cause the examiner to hesitate, and its officials were models of propriety. Particularly Rockwell, the cashier. Not only was he a pillar of the church, but he appeared to put his religious principles into practice on the other six days of the week as well. He wasn't married, but that only boosted his stock in the eyes of the community, many of which had daughters of an age when wedding bells sound very tuneful and orange blossoms are the sweetest flowers that grow.

When they came to look into the matter later on, nobody seemed to know much about Mr. Rockwell's antecedents. He'd landed a minor position in the bank some fifteen years before and had gradually lifted himself to the cashiership. Seemed to have an absolute genius for detail and the handling of financial matters.

So it was that when Todd went back home on a vacation and happened to launch some of his ideas on criminology--ideas founded on an intensive study of Lombroso and other experts--he quickly got himself into deep water.

During the course of a dinner at one of the hotels, "E. E." commenced to expound certain theories relating to crime and the physical appearance of the criminal.

"Do you know," he inquired, "that it's the simplest thing in the world to tell whether a man--or even a boy, for that matter--has criminal tendencies? There are certain unmistakable physical details that point unerringly to what the world might call 'laxity of conscience,' but which is nothing less than a predisposition to evil, a tendency to crime. The lobes of the ears, the height and shape of the forehead, the length of the little finger, the contour of the hand--all these are of immense value in determining whether a man will go straight or crooked. Employers are using them more and more every day. The old-fashioned phrenologist, with his half-formed theories and wild guesses, has been displaced by the modern student of character, who relies upon certain rules which vary so little as to be practically immutable."

"Do you mean to say," asked one of the men at the table, "that you can tell that a man is a criminal simply by looking at him?"

"If that's the case," cut in another, "why don't you lock 'em all up?"

"But it isn't the case," was Todd's reply. "The physical characteristics to which I refer only mean that a man is likely to develop along the wrong lines. They are like the stars which, as Shakespeare remarked, 'incline, but do not compel.' If you remember, he added, 'The fault, dear Brutus, lies in ourselves.' Therefore, if a detective of the modern school is working on a case and he comes across a man who bears one or more of these very certain brands of Cain, he watches that man very carefully--at least until he is convinced that he is innocent. You can't arrest a man simply because he looks like a crook, but it is amazing how often the guideposts point in the right direction."

"Anyone present that you suspect of forgery or beating his wife?" came in a bantering voice from the other end of the table.

"If you're in earnest," answered the government agent, "lay your hands on the table."

And everyone present, including Rockwell, cashier of the Central Trust Company, placed his hands, palm upward, on the cloth--though there was a distinct hesitation in several quarters.

Slowly, deliberately, Todd looked around the circle of hands before him. Then, with quite as much precision, he scanned the faces and particularly the ears of his associates. Only once did his gaze hesitate longer than usual, and then not for a sufficient length of time to make it apparent.

"No," he finally said. "I'd give every one of you a clean bill of health. Apparently you're all right. But," and he laughed, "remember, I said 'apparently.' So don't blame me if there's a murder committed before morning and one or more of you is arrested for it!"

That was all there was to the matter until Todd, accompanied by two of his older friends, left the grill and started to walk home.

"That was an interesting theory of yours," commented one of the men, "but wasn't it only a theory? Is there any real foundation of fact?"

"You mean my statement that you can tell by the shape of a man's head and hands whether he has a predisposition to crime?"

"Yes."

"It's far from a theory, inasmuch as it has the support of hundreds of cases which are on record. Besides, I had a purpose in springing it when I did. In fact, it partook of the nature of an experiment."

"You mean you suspected some one present--"

"Not suspected, but merely wondered if he would submit to the test. I knew that one of the men at the table would call for it. Some one in a crowd always does--and I had already noted a startling peculiarity about the forehead, nose, and ears of a certain dinner companion. I merely wanted to find out if he had the nerve to withstand my inspection of his hands. I must say that he did, without flinching."

"But who was the man?"

"I barely caught his name," replied Todd, "and this conversation must be in strict confidence. After all, criminologists do not maintain that every man who looks like a crook is one. They simply state and prove that ninety-five per cent of the deliberate criminals, men who plan their wrong well in advance, bear these marks. And the man who sat across the table from me to-night has them, to an amazing degree."

"Across the table from you? Why that was Rockwell, cashier of the Central Trust!"

"Precisely," stated Todd, "and the only reason that I am making this admission is because I happen to know that both of you bank there."

"But," protested one of the other men, "Rockwell has been with them for years. He's worked himself up from the very bottom and had hundreds of chances to make away with money if he wanted to. He's as straight as a die."

"Very possibly he is," Todd agreed. "That's the reason that I warn you that what I said was in strict confidence. Neither one of you is to say a word that would cast suspicion on Rockwell. It would be fatal to his career. On the other hand, I wanted to give you the benefit of my judgment, which, if you remember, you requested."

But it didn't take a character analyst to see that the Department of Justice man had put his foot in it, so far as his friends were concerned. They were convinced of the cashier's honesty and no theories founded on purely physical attributes could swerve them. They kept the conversation to themselves, but Todd left town feeling that he had lost the confidence of two of his former friends.

It was about a month later that he ran into Weldon, the Federal Bank Examiner for that section of the country, and managed to make a few discreet inquiries about Rockwell and the Central Trust Company without, however, obtaining even a nibble.

"Everything's flourishing," was the verdict. "Accounts straight as a string and they appear to be doing an excellent business. Fairly heavy on notes, it's true, but they're all well indorsed. Why'd you ask? Any reason to suspect anyone?"

"Not the least," lied Todd. "It's my home town, you know, and I know a lot of people who bank at the C. T. C. Just like to keep in touch with how things are going. By the way, when do you plan to make your next inspection?"

"Think I'll probably be in there next Wednesday. Want me to say 'Hello' to anybody?"

"No, I'm not popular in certain quarters," Todd laughed. "They say I have too many theories--go off half cocked and all that sort of thing."

Nevertheless the Department of Justice operative arranged matters so that he reached his home city on Tuesday of the following week, discovering, by judicious inquiries, that the visit of the examiner had not been forecast. In fact, he wasn't expected for a month or more. But that's the way it is best to work. If bank officials know when to look out for an examiner, they can often fix things on their books which would not bear immediate inspection.

Weldon arrived on schedule early the following morning, and commenced his examination of the accounts of the First National, as was his habit.

As soon as Todd knew that he was in town he took up his position outside the offices of the Central Trust, selecting a vantage point which would give him a clear view of both entrances of the bank.

"Possibly," he argued to himself, "I am a damn fool. But just the same, I have a mighty well-defined hunch that Mr. Rockwell isn't on the level, and I ought to find out pretty soon."

Then events began to move even quicker than he had hoped.

The first thing he noted was that Jafferay, one of the bookkeepers of the C. T. C., slipped out of a side door of the bank and dropped a parcel into the mail box which stood beside the entrance. Then, a few minutes later, a messenger came out and made his way up the street to the State National, where--as Todd, who was on his heels--had little trouble in discovering--he cashed a cashier's check for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, returning to the Central Trust Company with the money in his valise.

"Of course," Todd reasoned, "Rockwell may be ignorant of the fact that Weldon doesn't usually get around to the State National until he has inspected all the other banks. Hence the check will have already gone to the clearing house and will appear on the books merely as an item of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars due, rather than as a check from the Central Trust. Yes, he may be ignorant of the fact--but it does look funny. Wonder what that bookkeeper mailed?"

Working along the last line of reasoning, the government operative stopped at the post office long enough to introduce himself to the postmaster, present his credentials, and inquire if the mail from the box outside the Central Trust Company had yet been collected. Learning that it had, he asked permission to inspect it.

"You can look it over if you wish," stated the postmaster, "but, of course, I have no authority to allow you to open any of it. Even the Postmaster-General himself couldn't do that."

"Certainly," agreed Todd. "I merely want to see the address on a certain parcel and I'll make affidavit, if you wish, that I have reason to suppose that the mails are being used for illegal purposes."

"That won't be necessary. We'll step down to the parcel room and soon find out what you want."

Some five minutes later Todd learned that the parcel which he recognized--a long roll covered with wrapping paper, so that it was impossible to gain even an idea of what it contained--was addressed to Jafferay, the bookkeeper, at his home address.

"Thanks! Now if you can give me some idea of when this'll be delivered I won't bother you any more. About five o'clock this afternoon? Fine!" and the man from Washington was out of the post office before anyone could inquire further concerning his mission.

A telephone call disclosed the fact that Weldon was then making his examination of the Central Trust Company books and could not be disturbed, but Todd managed to get him later in the afternoon and made an appointment for dinner, on the plea of official business which he wished to discuss.

That afternoon he paid a visit to the house of a certain Mr. Jafferay and spent an hour in a vain attempt to locate the bank examiner.

Promptly at six o'clock that official walked into Todd's room at the hotel, to find the operative pacing restlessly up and down, visibly excited and clutching what appeared to be a roll of paper.

"What's the matter?" asked Weldon. "I'm on time. Didn't keep you waiting a minute?"

"No!" snapped Todd, "but where have you been for the last hour? Been trying to reach you all over town."

"Great Scott! man, even a human adding machine has a right to take a little rest now and then. If you must know, I've been getting a shave and a haircut. Anything criminal in that?"

"Can't say that there is," and Todd relaxed enough to smile at his vehemence. "But there is in this," unrolling the parcel that he still held and presenting several large sheets of ruled paper for the examiner's attention. "Recognise them?"

"They appear to be loose leaves from the ledgers at the Central Trust Company."

"Precisely. Were they there when you went over the books this morning?"

"I don't recall them, but it's possible they may have been."

"No--they weren't. One of the bookkeepers mailed them to himself, at his home address, while you were still at the First National. If I hadn't visited his house this afternoon, in the guise of a book agent, and taken a long chance by lifting this roll of paper, he'd have slipped them back in place in the morning and nobody'd been any the wiser."

"Then you mean that the bookkeeper is responsible for falsifying the accounts?"

"Only partially. Was the cash O. K. at the Central Trust?"

"Perfectly."

"Do you recall any record of a check for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars upon the State National drawn and cashed this morning?"

"No, there was no such check."

"Yes, there was. I was present when the messenger cashed it and he took the money back to the C. T. C. They knew you wouldn't get around to the State before morning, and by that time the check would have gone to the clearing house, giving them plenty of time to make the cash balance to a penny."

"Whom do you suspect of manipulating the funds?"