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

A knock at the door announced the arrival of the first batch of checks, and now the detective took them from the clerk’s fingers and proceeded to lay them out separately on the table, face up. They formed two tolerable rows pretty well across the length of the big mahogany table, proving that Hackett’s job was at least not a sinecure.

A cursory inspection showed that he was dealing with people accustomed to think in considerable sums, for Cheever found checks among them ranging up to five thousand dollars.

“Handles the big bugs,” the detective grunted. “No penny-ante bunch this time, Dan.”

With the checks laid out end to end, Cheever, beginning at the upper left hand corner, subjected each in turn to a careful and exacting scrutiny. To use the legal phrase, “all four corners,” were examined both with the naked eye and later with the aid of a powerful reading glass. He had scarcely completed this, when the second handful of checks arrived. These in their turn were treated in the same manner as the first. By noon the top of the table was carpeted with long lines of checks, as if so many giant snowflakes had fallen and lay there still unmelted.

“Mr. Cheever,” a voice which he recognized as that of President Wines called from the passageway.

The detective opened the door, and the thick eddying tobacco smoke which poured out made the President fairly gasp.

“I work best under the cover of smoke screen,” Cheever grinned.

“Well, you’ve got a real one if I’m any judge,” Wines declared with conviction. “I dropped round to take you to lunch.”

“I’m not eating lunch, today,” Cheever assured him dryly. “All I want is a drink of water.”

“There’s a drinking fountain back in the cloakroom yonder,” and Wines jerked a thumb toward an arched doorway in the rear of the bank. “But how’s this? Do detectives subsist solely on smoke?”

“When I’m on a job, I’m on the job,” Cheever answered sententiously. Now he drew a bunch of keys from his pocket, found a skeleton that fitted the door, locked it nonchalantly, and sauntered along to the cloakroom whistling a medley of popular airs. The President watched him in undisguised wonder till he passed out of sight, if not of sound.

In a few minutes he was back and, re-entering the room, closed the door behind him. Quite mechanically his eye swept the table with its long lines of checks, then paused abruptly in its roving contemplation. One of the spaces mas empty!

It was the first check in the seventh line, a check for five hundred dollars he remembered, though the name of the maker eluded him. An odd name though, and one he would know if he chanced to glimpse it again. The door was locked when he returned after his brief absence. How, then, had it been removed?

Then it occurred to him that it had probably been blown from the table by the draft caused by opening the door, but a careful search failed to bring it to light.

Cheever stood up and considered the perplexing problem. After a moment he began to try the windows in turn, to at last discover that one opening out on the President’s office was unlocked, though closed. Without doubt a person could have entered the room by that window.

And now as he stood there lost in this most amazing mystery, his glance wandered again to the empty space and lingered there. A bit of ash was visible, as if flicked from the tip of a cigarette, a pale thin drift, and yet visible on the mahogany background. With a heavy glass he studied it long and carefully, finally testing it gingerly with a wet finger-tip. Then with a puzzled frown he swept this bit of evidence into an envelope and stowed it away in an inside pocket.

The bank closed at noon on Saturdays, and now Cheever, gathering up the checks, stepped out into the corridor and halted back of cage number one. Hackett was struggling with his figures, and now he turned about at the sound of the detective’s footsteps, showing a pale, twitching countenance, the face of a man well gone on the road to a nervous collapse.

“Mr. Hackett,” said Cheever, “you’ll be short again.”

“Again?” the teller stuttered.

“Yes, again, five hundred at least.”

Hackett buried his face in his trembling hands.

“Is that all you can tell me?” he moaned bitterly.

“Well, not all perhaps—” But before the detective could finish he was interrupted by President Wines who had appeared unnoticed along the corridor.

“What’s that you were saying, Mr. Cheever?” he broke in impulsively. “Do we stand another loss?”

“Only five hundred this time,” Cheever assured him coolly. “You’re getting off — lucky today.”

“Lucky?” came the explosive reply.

“Yes, it might have been five thousand instead of five hundred. "

“You don’t seem very badly cut up over it,” Wines remarked pointedly. “We could have determined that fact without bringing you clear from Chicago to tell us.”

“Mr. Wines,” Cheever said coldly, “there are trains running back to Chicago even from Wallula, I understand. "

“I didn’t mean it that way, quite,” Wines apologized hastily. “Of course we want you to go ahead in your own way.”

“Well, I will then. I’ve an idea, too. that Monday will see the end of this business.”

“Why do you say that?” Wines inquired hopefully.

“A thing or two I’ve run onto today. And that’s about all I care to say about it now. Mr. Wines, I’m going to think this thing through, and I don’t mind telling you that I’ve some things to think about.”

“You won’t tell us what your opinion is now, I infer,” the President remarked regretfully.

The detective shook his head.

“I don’t like to make guesses,” he replied. “If wrong, they only occasion regret, and if correct — well, sometimes they’re premature.”

“Meaning that there might be a leak that would serve to warn the criminals?”

Cheever nodded. “An injudicious remark might ruin everything. I will say this, however, we’re dealing with a mighty smooth article in the way of a crook.”

“I can believe that, at any rate,” Wines assured him feelingly.

“I’m going into retirement at some quiet hotel until Monday morning,” Cheever informed him. “If we have luck, we’ll plug the leak then. So long.”

At ten o’clock Monday morning, Cheever entered the bank and strolled over to the President’s room. He found that gentleman in a fine fury. He was holding in his hand a copy of the Wallula Gateway, the only morning paper published in the city.

“Look here, Mr. Cheever,” and he laid his trembling finger on a front-page article.

Cheever took the paper and calmly perused the article which under heavy caps hinted at certain mysterious losses suffered in the past week by the bank, ending with the information that the bank had secured the services of the great detective Cheever, who would arrive from Chicago on Tuesday to undertake an investigation of the affair.

“Why the agitation, Mr. Wines?” the detective inquired mildly.

“Why, they’ve given the criminal the very information that you insisted must be kept secret,” Wines sputtered. “It simply lets the cat out of the bag.”

“Nay, rather spills the beans, Mr. Wines, only they’re not our beans this time.”

“I don’t understand how they got the information,” Wines continued indignantly.

“Well I do,” Cheever grinned. “They got it from yours truly. And now wait a minute, Mr. Wines, before you blow up. You’ll notice that the paper says that I’ll be on the job Tuesday. Well don’t forget that this is merely Monday.”