J. Thorne - The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 5 - August 1920)

"What question?"

"Do you pay that reward of fifty thousand dollars for the return of the million, or must the thieves be included in the delivery?"

"Damn the thieves! That is, of course, you understand — we must do our duty to society, uphold law and order at whatever cost to ourselves, consider the public weal and the demands of justice, and—"

"Then, I understand, the money and the securities will be enough?"

"Have you negotiated for their return — eh — that is, I mean can you deliver them — if we don't insist on apprehending the—"

"I can."

"You can! You mean it? My dear Mr. Carranaugh! You don't know what a load you are lifting from my heart! You surely—?"

"I surely can."

"All of it?"

"Every sou — less the fifty thousand."

"You mean they—?"

"No. I mean me. If I turn over the whole thing to you, without a dollar or a bond missing, do I get the fifty thousand?"

Snedeker's eyes narrowed as he gazed straight into Carranaugh's and Carranaugh's eyes were blandly wide open as he gazed back. Snedeker sighed, cleared his throat twice as if something was sticking in his thorax, finally squeezed out:

"You do."

"Will you be good enough to put that on paper?"

"Do you doubt my—"

"I'm not doubting anything. Merely a matter of form, of business procedure, of — shall we say? — ordinary banking precaution, Mr. Snedeker."

"Can you do it?"

"You can lay your hands on that million in less than five minutes after you sign that promise to pay — or you needn't pay."

Snedeker wrote hastily for a few minutes, made the wholly illegible scrawl that passed for his signature and handed the paper to Carranaugh with an explosive:

"There! Now show me!"

Carranaugh read the instrument, nodded in satisfaction with its provisions, folded and placed it carefully in his wallet and the wallet in his inside vest pocket, and with a deliberation maddening to the banker, heaved himself to his feet.

"If you'll just step this way, Mr. Snedeker."

Leading the banker into the general offices of the Totem National, where they immediately became the focal point of every eye in the place, Carranaugh stopped in front of the treasure vault from which the million had so mysteriously disappeared.

"Open the door, please."

The guardian of the door looked from the big man to the president and the latter, frankly mystified and curious, nodded. As they stepped inside the detective said:

"I first want to show you how this vault was entered and the money taken out. If I turned it over to you first I'm afraid you would lose your interest in this feature of my discoveries."

"All right. Only hurry."

As had been said, Carranaugh would have made a good actor if he had not been a better detective, as his ensuing actions proved, nothing of their histrionic value being lost because his audience was limited to one.

With much the air of Macbeth in the "apparition scene" he advanced to the center of the vault, making an impressive gesture with his arm calling Snedeker's attention to the floor, upon which he tapped lightly with his foot.

It is permissible exaggeration to say that Snedeker's eyes threatened to pop out of his head as, fascinated, they saw one of the floor plates, one of the three-inch chrome steel supposedly impregnable floor plates, part company with its fellows and drop out of sight, to be replaced a moment later by the head and broad shoulders of a man who turned a very dirty but grinning face up to look into the banker's own, remarking:

"Hello, Jim. All O.K.?"

"Wh — wh — wh — what?" gasped Snedeker.

"This is my partner, Thomas Peiperson, of the Seattle Advertising Service, Mr. Snedeker. Mr. Snedeker — Mr. Peiperson. We'll explain all the details later. Just now you must be more interested in the money. Come on, Tom."

The banker nodded, having no words to express his feelings just then, and followed silently after Carranaugh and Peiperson as they led the way to the door of the safe-deposit vault.

It must be confessed, here and now, that for all his mystification, all his eagerness, Snedeker was not as nervous as his two outwardly calm but inwardly anxious guides, whose nerves were on a wire-edge. They had bet on a long shot, were gambling to a large extent upon what they felt were probabilities beyond reasonable doubt, but still probabilities.

It was just possible, for all the evidence upon which their belief was based, for all the feasibility of their theory, for all their confidence in their deductions, that the thieves had not hidden the million where Carranaugh and Peiperson felt they must have hidden it. They might even be right in the place of concealment originally chosen but again there was the possibility that it no longer held the treasure, that it subsequently had been removed to a place of greater safety for the thieves.

So it was that there were three, instead of only one, extremely nervous men who watched the vault attendant unlock with his masterkey boxes numbered 358-359-360, three of the largest boxes in the vault, the three boxes' that had been rented by one Seth C. Seeley.

Sometime later, when the contents of the three boxes had been most carefully counted and checked, when every dollar and ounce of gold, every bond and security, every item of value down to the last sheet of government revenue stamps that had been missing were accounted for, when that paper signed by Snedeker had been exchanged for a Totem National checking account made out to the joint credit of James Carranaugh and Thomas Peiperson, when Snedeker had telephoned to certain gentlemen in a tone of voice suggesting injured innocence triumphant over undeserved criticism, when Jim had told their story with such emendations and additions as his imagination suggested were called for by its proper presentation and to the due credit of one Peiperson and himself, when these and sundry lesser matters had been attended to, a smiling and affable Snedeker asked of a smiling and equally courteous Carranaugh:

"Now that everything of importance has been attended to, suppose you gentlemen go to lunch with me and later tell me how the trick was worked and how you are going to catch the thieves."

"The luncheon today — with pleasure. The explanation next week — with equal pleasure. But the thieves, Mr. Snedeker — don't you think it only fair to leave the glory of catching them to Chief Stein and his men? Surely we should grant them that consideration, not usurp their special prerogatives. Mr. Peiperson and I are not common cops, man hunters, bloodhounds willing to sacrifice value for victims. We are simply, may I say, mathematicians who put two and two together for the benefit of the financial interests of the community. Of course we could catch the men responsible for this outrage on you and your bank if we wanted to stoop to the lower problems of our arithmetical hobby — but you hardly would expect us to do that, I am sure, any more than you would stoop to the practices of a pawnbroker. I know you wouldn't. Your own position at the head of your profession enables you to appreciate our standing and feelings at the head of ours. So we may call the case closed, the problem solved, may we not? Thank you."

With which, to Peiperson, deliciously ironical effrontery, and, to Snedeker, properly phrased and satisfactory ending of what had been a very unpleasant experience which he would be glad to forget completely as soon as possible, Carranaugh rose to his feet and mutely signified his readiness to add several more superfluous pounds to his weight.