CHAPTER XVIII

A CLUE

Coatless men and bareheaded women made up the excited company before the Clinkerport Bank, while shrill-voiced children circled the outskirts. It was like a circus or a street-fair day for the youngsters.

But among the adults there were grave faces. This disaster was a very real one to many who had scrimped and saved--like the Bassetts--for a bank account.

The Clinkerport Bank was a "one man institution." If Arad Thompson had mismanaged it, or had not taken sufficient precautions against burglary, the result might be a lasting blow to the community.

These people were not familiar enough with law and with banking affairs to understand why the Clinkerport Bank should be closed if the institution itself--and Arad Thompson--had not "gone broke" through the robbery that was reported.

"What d'ye think of it? What d'ye think, Tobias?" demanded Ezra Crouch of the lightkeeper when the latter approached the scene. "Ain't it a shame--a rascally shame? That Arad Thompson----"

"I hadn't heard tell that Arad burgled his own bank. Did he, Ez?"

"Wal, no. I dunno as he did," admitted the much-wrought-upon Mr. Crouch, who had never deposited a dollar in the bank in all his shiftless career and probably never would. "But Arad's responserble, ain't he?"

"I cal'late," agreed Tobias mildly. "Guess we better give him a chance to straighten things out----"

"I guess you ain't heard much about it, Tobias," interrupted the busy-tongued Ezra. "Something mighty funny about this robbery. Arad called in all the money he could an' seemed to get his cash-drawer crammed with it, jest so's 'twould make a good haul for these burglars. A hundred and forty thousand dollars! My!"

"Does seem a whole lot o' money to take chances with," admitted Tobias.

"Huh! And why does Arad, fust-off, telegraph to some feller they call a 'bank examiner' and get him down here on the airly train? And why does he shut the bank up as tight as a herrin' can and put a sign on the door? That's what _I_ want to know."

"Time'll tell. I wouldn't get excited if I was you, Ez," advised the lightkeeper soothingly.

"Wal, that Arad Thompson----"

"I know. We got to watch him--and that wheel chair. Where is he?"

"Inside. In his office," snorted Ezra Crouch.

"Smokin' twenty-five cent _see_-gars an' takin' it easy."

"Looks suspicious," agreed Tobias, his eyes twinkling. "These times it does seem as though a feller _must_ have come by his money dishonest if he smokes quarter cigars. Hullo, Mr. Compton!"

Compton kept one of the general stores. He was a bald-headed, keen-eyed man. His smile was rather grim as he acknowledged the lightkeeper's greeting.

"Good-day, Tobias. What you and Ezra doing? Going to get a rope and pick out a good tree for a necktie party? To hear some of these folks talk you'd think Arad had robbed his own self."

"How was it done?" asked Tobias.

"Plain to be seen. Back window forced from the outside. They must have worked a long time on those window-bars, to saw 'em through. But they opened the safe by learning the combination."

"Get out!"

"Fact. Didn't hurt the lock none. Either they knew the combination 'fore they started in, or they was smart enough to puzzle it out."

"They knowed the combination because they knowed it," snorted Ezra Crouch cryptically.

"But where was the watchman?" Tobias asked.

"Doped," said Compton. "You know Bill Purvis? Good man, but never any too smart. Always keeps his lunch basket and bottle of cold tea on a beam under the shed back of the post-office. Everybody in town knew 'twas there and that Bill took a snack about 'leven o'clock, or a little later.

"They drugged his tea last night, and he woke up under the shed just before four o'clock this morning. He see the bank window open and the bars bent up and he ran to Arad's house. Arad telephoned a message to the telegraph operator at the station, who put it through for this bank examiner, before he even tucked his shirt in, so they say."

"Yep," ejaculated the suspicious Mr. Crouch. "Looks mighty like Arad knowed the bank had been robbed, spang off!"

"He could easy guess it," said Compton, with a dry chuckle, "considering the look of that back window."

"I see," said Tobias. "Nobody ever could accuse Arad Thompson of being slow."

"Oh, he's smart enough," sneered Ezra. "That's what we all air worried about."

The lightkeeper asked the storekeeper:

"Mr. Compton, haven't they found any of them there clues ye read about? Burglars always leave clues, don't they?"

"There's the open window and the sawed bars," returned Compton.

"Huh!" sneered the sparrowlike Ezra, "they couldn't very well take 'em away with them, could they?"

Tobias gave him no further heed. He was "studying."

"Mr. Compton," he said again, "I've noticed them winder bars. They are master thick."

"You are right, Tobias."

"Nobody could saw through one of them--not with a meat saw--in a short time. And I have read that them sort of saws is made out o' watch springs. Mighty flimsy they must be. 'Twouldn't be like cutting cheese with a dull knife."

"I believe you, Tobias."

"If Bill Purvis," went on the lightkeeper reflectively, "went for his lunch about 'leven, then them burglars couldn't have been sawin' on the bars much before midnight. Humph! Let's go 'round there and take a squint."

Tobias and the storekeeper, with Ezra Crouch tagging them, entered the lane between the bank building, which was built of cement blocks, and the post-office, which was a frame structure. The window in question overlooked a stableyard at the back.

"I give it as my opinion," said the lightkeeper, "that them burglars couldn't have worked here till after Bill was dead to the world in that shed yonder. Else he'd have seen 'em."

"You're right, Tobias."

"And look at them bars," continued the lightkeeper. "Ha'f as thick as my wrist. How'd you like to stand here--on a flimsy box, 'tis likely--and saw away at them two bars? For how long? I cal'late 'twas something of a job. 'Twould take more'n _one_ hour--nor yet _two_!"

"Uh-huh!" agreed the storekeeper.

"And then they crawled in and worked on the door of the vault, and got it open. Well, well! That must have taken some time, too. And they got clean away with the money before four o'clock?"

"They worked quick," said Compton.

"But they couldn't work quick sawin' them bars. That would take just so much time, however smart they was."

"Well?"

"Why," said Tobias, "I don't see how they could have done it all in one night."

Ezra Crouch laughed raucously. "O' course they done it last night," he said. "If they'd cut the bars before, somebody would have seen it."

"Not so sure," Tobias rejoined. "I give it as my opinion that they must have worked here before--mebbe on several nights. Almost sawed through the bars and smutched dirt over the cracks to hide 'em. About all they had to do last night was to force the bars apart after Bill was asleep. And then they got in and worked on the safe."

"But why didn't Bill Purvis see 'em the other nights?" Compton wanted to know.

"Like enough because he was sleeping like he was last night," Tobias rejoined promptly. "Nobody had to drug his tea. You always see Bill Purvis wanderin' around before folks go to bed. But who ever kept tabs on him after 'leven or twelve o'clock? I cal'late Bill rolled out of the hay this morning 'bout his usual time and found the bank robbed."

"I swanny!" murmured Ezra.

"It might be like you say, Tobias," agreed Mr. Compton.

"Yes. It might. Huh! What's this?"

The lightkeeper stooped and picked something out of the sand just under the forced window. It was a small, flat, gold penknife. There were a few gold links attached to one end. It had been torn from a watch chain.

"I give it as my opinion," murmured Tobias, "that it was scraped off as the feller worked his way in over that winder-sill. I reckon, Mr. Compton, here is a real clue."

"Huh!" muttered the doubting Ezra. "I don't believe Arad Thompson ever wore that dinky little thing."

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed the amused lightkeeper. "I don't guess Arad was anywhere hereabout when the burglars crawled in at that window. And he never wore this here doo-dad on his watch chain, nohow."

He shook his head, staring at the penknife reflectively. He had seen that knife--or one much like it--before. In whose possession?

"Cal'late I better see Arad about this," he said finally. "When the perlice come to take holt on this case, Arad will want to give them all the help he can."

"Then," said Compton, the storekeeper, with growing admiration, "you don't believe this robbery was done by nary couple of burglars that come to town last night and got clean away before morning?"

"I don't know about their getting away," said Tobias. "Maybe it would be well to look about to see who's missing. But these burglars must have been in town some time and knowed all about the bank and Bill Purvis. No doubt o' that, Mr. Compton."

"Wal," croaked Ezra Crouch, his eyes like big porcelain buttons, "who's gone away since last night? _I_ dunno, 'less 'tis old Miz Janey Ring that's gone down to Harbor Bar to visit with her darter-in-law."

"Oh, sugar!" snorted Tobias.

"And it ain't sure they got away by train," said the storekeeper. "Who has gone out by boat, or left in an automobile?"

"That's what I say," Tobias observed, still staring at the gold knife. "Maybe them burglars ain't left town at all. No tellin'. Humph! I cal'late I'd better give this to Arad."

He walked to the side door of the bank--the door opening on the lane--and punched the button.