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

In the face of such supposition, Hanley might plead his innocence as much as he pleased — but he could not contravert the facts as the searchers saw them.

“It’s tough, old man,” his attorney declared, “but we’ll do all we can for you.”

“Save your pains!” Hanley said with disgust. “It isn’t worth while. You see, the thing that poor Ah Fu did not know is that I was really honest—”

The lawyer suppressed a smile which Hanley was quick to note. It confirmed his resignation to his fate.

“Of course you think I’m lying — not about the murders — but about the money. Yet it’s gospel truth I’m telling. About five years ago one of my assistants got away with some twelve thousand dollars before I learned of it. I only found it out after Morely had told me to discharge him. Then, when he had disappeared, I was afraid to speak — naturally imagining-that Morely would think I’d reverted to type and was merely trying to clear myself by telling a fanciful tale. There was nothing but silence left for me, because the fellow had cleverly forged my handwriting in making false entries in my private set of books—”

“Did Ah Fu know that?” asked the lawyer, and Hanley shook his head.

“He couldn’t have known — but in some way or other he scented that something was not just right, and he undoubtedly supposed that I was the crook.”

“Would those false entries have been discovered by the auditor?” the attorney queried.

“Yes,” assented Hanley, “and I would have explained them. In that way I could have shown why the figures and the cash in the bank did not agree. Also that the thefts occurred while I had an assistant. Clayburne might have scoffed at me, but I meant to put every card on the table. With the books to show, I might have been able to make them believe me. As it stands, when they learn that the books are gone, they’re certain to consider that I destroyed them and killed Clayburne and Ah Fu in going about it.”

“Perhaps,” the lawyer agreed. “Is there anything in your private accounts or in your bank transactions that would suggest that you appropriated the money?”

“No,” said Hanley. “And nothing to show I didn’t. Yet, as a matter of fact, I’ve drawn only half my salary each month since I made the discovery. I wanted to put the money back and thus prevent all chance of my ever being accused. Clayburne arrived about a year too soon. I hadn’t quite made it good.”

For a moment he was silent, and then he shrugged his shoulders and laughed bitterly.

“As it stands, Ah Fu’s useless and foolish sacrifice not only fails to clear me, but establishes a motive which brands me as a crook as well as a murderer. He has even burned up the deposit book, which would show my honest efforts at restitution. I haven’t a Chinaman’s chance of proving that I’ve played straight since my first and only mistake.”

“I’m genuinely sorry for you, Hanley,” sympathized the attorney. “It’s rotten, too, after the devotion which prompted that crazy yellow heathen to give his life for you.”

“Be sorry for him, not for me,” Hanley smiled. “If the world’s going to think I stole Morely’s money after all his kindness, I’d just as leave be hung for murder. Poor Ah Fu did the best he knew how when he tried to help me out; but the foolish fellow will be tortured through eternity when he learns — as the dead surely must do — what a sorry mess his good intentions really made of things.”

My visitor dropped wearily into the chair across the desk from me, a look of horror on his pale, weak face.

“There’s been a murder!” he gasped thickly. “Old Levi Jones — Jones, the money lender! Stabbed! Safe opened and rifled — everything taken!”

“Who killed him?” I snapped.

“I–I don’t know.” He buried his face in his hands and sobbed softly for an instant. “I went there to rob him. I found somebody had beat me to it and had — killed — him! Oh, God! It’s horrible!” he ended, sobbing again.

“Let’s get the straight of this,” I commanded gruffly. Police chiefs are not usually the sweetest tempered men in the world, and I am no exception to the rule — especially when I have been without sleep for forty-eight hours, as in the present instance. “You say that old Jones is dead — murdered — his safe robbed? I’ve had no report of it. Now who the devil are you and how does it come that you know so much about the affair?”

My visitor stopped his snivelling abruptly.

“I’m Tompkins,” he answered shortly, as if the mention of his name settled the whole affair.

“That fails to enlighten me,” I growled. “Elucidate.”

“I am — or was until this afternoon — Jones’ clerk. We had a racket — a quarrel — and he fired me. Let me go with out a second’s notice. And he owed me four hundred dollars commission for dirty work that I’ve done for him. Refused to give me a cent of it. Told me to go to the devil when I threatened to tell the police of some of his crooked deals. Said that I was as deep in the mire as he was in the mud and that his word, because he was rich, would go farther than mine anyway. That’s why I — that’s the reason I went there to rob the safe tonight — just to get what was coming to me. I swear I didn’t intend to take a cent more than he owed me.”

I nodded comprehendingly.

“All right. Now go ahead with your story,” I said, a trifle more gently than before.

Tompkins dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief.

“I went to the office tonight just about midnight,” he explained, “intending to let myself in with my passkey. When we had our racket today the old man forgot to ask me for it and I was too sore to give it to him — me who’s done his dirty work for five years past and then getting fired that way.

“I knew that lie hadn’t had the combination on the safe changed, and he and I were the only ones who knew it. I knew that if I got the four hundred he owed me he’d never dare squeal. And even if he did I’d be far enough way by morning to be out of danger. You know where his office is? — fifth floor of the Torrence Building. I climbed the stairs rather than take the elevator, figuring on not taking any chances.

“I didn’t meet a soul on the way going up. The office was dark. I let myself in with my passkey, stood inside the door listening for an instant, then pulled down the shade so that there would no light show through the ground-glass panel of the door. Then I tiptoed my way to the two windows and pulled down their shades and then punched the electric-light button. I don’t know why I tiptoed. No one knew that I had been fired, and anyone in the building would have presumed, had they noticed me, that I was there working overtime, as I often have in the past. I suppose that it was the natural caution a man feels when he knows that he is somewhere he hadn’t ought to be.”

He hesitated a second. Then: “I suppose that you’ll think I’m a darned liar when I tell you what happened,” he finally resumed.

“Go ahead!” I said shortly.

“When the lights flashed on I naturally took a survey of the room. The safe was standing open with a lot of papers that had been in it strewn about the floor.

“I knew then that somebody had been there ahead of me — might be there then. You can bet that I lost no time in making for the door.

“I was scared — scared all over. I had that creepy feeling that a fellow gets at such times. And just as I got my hand on the knob I heard a noise from the private office — the office the old man uses — used, I mean — in which to receive his clients.