John Baer - The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 5 — August 1922)

A sudden light dawned on the banker at this point.

“You’re going to hurry up their final effort,” he exclaimed. “I see it now.”

“Just so, Mr. Wines, and somebody’s due to stub a toe in the rush.”

He passed on into the aisle behind the row of cages, and paused at the door of cage number one.

“Same instructions as Saturday, Hackett, except bring all checks to me every fifteen minutes,” he said in low tones, “but especially watch for any large checks drawing out entire accounts. Send any of that character to me at once. And keep up your courage, Hackett,” he counselled the badly shaken teller. “I think this will be your last day on the grill.”

Up till the noon hour nothing out of the ordinary happened. An assistant, one Dykes, relieved Hackett for the coming hour and to him Cheever repeated the instructions already given to his predecessor. President Wines decided to imitate the detective as to luncheon that day and presently joined him in the directors’ room.

“Anything of importance?” he asked.

“Not yet, Mr. Wines,” Cheever answered, “but remember that the day is still young.”

Soon after, Dykes knocked at the door and passed in a dozen or so checks. Cheever with methodical exactness began lining the bits of paper across the table, but paused abruptly at the fifth check.

There was nothing about it to attract attention aside from the amount, five thousand dollars, and even that was not unusual for teller number one to handle every day. But the moment the detective read the name appended to the check, Wines, who was watching his every move attentively, noted that he suddenly gripped the table with his free hand until the knuckles showed white through the brown skin.

“What is it, Mr. Cheever?” he asked quickly, but the detective instead of answering countered with another question.

“Know him?” he shot back.

“Oh yes,” Wines answered, somewhat puzzled by the abrupt interrogation. “What do you find—”

But again Cheever cut him off.

“What do you know about him, Mr. Wines,” he demanded. “Give me facts, not fancies, remember.”

The President, somewhat ruffled, answered just a little stiffly.

“He is one of our largest individual depositors and deals in real estate largely, though I believe in a modest way buys and sells stocks and bonds.”

“Know him long?”

“Three months possibly, Mr. Cheever, though I fail to see—”

“You will presently,” the detective grunted.

“See what?” the other queried.

“The end of a perfect day,” Cheever answered shortly.

Then he handed the check to the now thoroughly perplexed President with this surprising injunction.

“Put that away in your desk, Mr. Wines, in a very private drawer, and lock it up. Also don’t let anybody see you put it away.”

As the dazed banker started to obey, the detective stopped him to add:

“And I want to see the bank detective at once.”

“He’s in the lobby, I think,” Wines replied. “I’ll send him in.”

When teller Number One returned from lunch Cheever met him at the door of his cage.

“I’m going to work in the back of your little shop this afternoon, Hackett,” he informed the teller. “I’ll be pretending to check over some figures or other, but in reality, Hackett, I’ll be listening to your chatter at the window. Get me?”

“I don’t know that I do entirely,” Hackett admitted frankly.

“You will, presently at any rate,” the detective assured him grimly. “And now Hackett, one thing more. Talk loud enough for me to hear everything, and don’t let any customer leave the window without pronouncing his name loud enough so that I can hear it distinctly.”

Cheever busied himself in the back of the cage, while the mystified teller turned to his duties at the counter. But while the detective checked and rechecked phantom errors, he was listening with alert intentness to the bits of conversation that floated back to him.

“What’s my balance, Mr. Hackett?” a man inquired presently. “I’m going over to Prescott this afternoon to pick up a block of city improvement bonds and guess I’ll have to wreck my account for a day or two.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Esseltine,” Hackett replied, “while I glance over our balance index.”

At the name, Cheever, with well simulated carelessness, dropped a pencil to the floor, and as he straightened up with it in his fingers glanced casually at the customer framed in the teller’s window.

He was a big, well-groomed man, with a keen, alert air, and that indefinable something that denotes a thorough knowledge with the world and its devious ways.

Hackett had now returned to the counter.

“A few cents over five thousand dollars, Mr. Esseltine,” he informed him respectfully.

“About what I had thought,” the other said as he pushed a check over to him. “I’ll leave the few cents for a nest egg.”

Cheever, without seeming to hurry, left the cage, passed along the aisle, and picking up his hat reached the lobby just as Esseltine turned from the teller’s window, stowing a sheaf of bank notes into a big morocco-covered wallet.

Cheever, noting with satisfaction that Hayes, the bank detective, was loitering in the lobby, reached the street door a deliberate step ahead of the man with the plethoric wallet.

Here he turned suddenly and confronted the big man.

“Mr. Esseltine,” he asked pleasantly, “didn’t you overdraw your account a trifle just now.”

“Who are you to ask so insulting a question?” Esseltine asked coldly.

“Who am I?” the detective replied evenly. “Oh, I’m Dan Cheever of Chicago. Lucky that I got here Monday instead of Tuesday, eh, Esseltine? I see that we understand each other, which simplifies matters. You’ll come quietly of course, which proves your good breeding. Hayes and I will step down to your office with you for a little friendly chat.”

Just at closing time Cheever reentered the bank and sauntered over to the President’s office. Entering, he seated himself leisurely in a leather chair and, waving aside the tumbling questions with which the excited President bombarded him, asked for teller number one.

“Sit down, Hackett,” the detective said genially when the teller appeared.

Then he turned on him a quizzical eye as he asked:

“How much were you short last week, remember?”

“I’d think so, Mr. Cheever,” Hackett assured him gloomily. “A man isn’t likely to forget four thousand dollars.”

“Four thousand,” Cheever mused, “plus five thousand today, makes nine thousand dollars. A tidy little sum, Hackett?”

“Five thousand today,” Hackett gasped.

“Sure enough,” the detective grinned amiably, “You didn’t expect anything but a grandstand finish, did you?”

“I’d say,” the irascible Wines flared up at this point, “that your levity is just a little misplaced, Mr. Cheever. Losing nine thousand dollars may seem a huge joke to you but most emphatically it’s mot to me.”

“Losing it is not so hard,” the detective chuckled, “if you get it back. See what Esseltine returns with his compliments.”

Then with deliberation he drew from his pocket a roll of bills wrapped about with a bit of string and tossed it carelessly across the table to the teller.

With an inarticulate cry, Hackett seized the roll, untwisted the string, and with feverish haste thumbed over the bills.

“About nine thousand there?” Cheever inquired when the count was finished.

“Just,” the teller nodded, "though I can hardly believe it. It seems too good. I’m certainly a grateful man, Mr. Cheever.”

“How did he get five thousand dollars today?” Wines asked excitedly.