Robert Alter - 101 Mystery Stories

“This is all he’s got on him” he said.

“What?” Cox exploded. “Listen, Sam, I saw him put that money into his overcoat pockets.”

“Well, it’s not there now.”

“Of course it’s not there,” Blanchard said. He turned slightly, keeping his hands up, but his face was flushed with anger. “I told you I didn’t commit any robbery.”

Cox opened the folded piece of paper he held. “This is the note he gave me, Mr. Hoffman. Read it for yourself.”

Hoffman took the note. It had been fashioned of letters cut from a newspaper and glued to a sheet of plain white paper, and it said: Give me all your big bills, I have a gun. If you try any heroics, I’ll kill you. I’m not kidding. The bank president put voice to the message as he read it.

“He’s not carrying any weapon, either,” Sam said positively.

“I believed the note about that,” Cox said, “but I made up my mind to shout nonetheless. I just couldn’t stand by and watch him get away with the bank’s money.”

“I don’t know where you got that note,” Blanchard said to Cox, “but I didn’t give it to you. I handed you a slip of paper, that’s true enough, but it was just a list of those rolls of coins and you know it.”

“You claim Cox gave them to you?” Hoffman asked him.

“Certainly he did. In exchange for twenty-eight dollars, mostly in singles.”

“I didn’t give him any coin rolls,” Cox said with mounting exasperation. “I did exactly what it says in that note. I gave him every large bill I had in the cash drawer. The vault cart happened to be behind me too, since my cage was the only one open, and he told me to give him what was on that as well. He must have gotten twenty-five or thirty thousand altogether.”

“You’re a liar,” Blanchard snapped.

“ You’re the only one who’s lying!”

“I don’t have your damned money. You’ve searched me and I don’t have it. All I’ve got is about twenty-four dollars in my wallet.”

“Well,” Hoffman said darkly, “ somebody has it.”

At that moment two plainclothes detectives entered the bank, summoned by a hurried telephone call from one of the other Midwestern officials. They introduced themselves without preamble; one was named Salzberg, a lumbering and disheveled man with small, bright eyes; the other, named Flynn, was gray-mustached, the owner of a prominent veined nose.

Salzberg appeared to be the one in charge. He instructed the guard to lock the bank doors, and in a dog-eared notebook wrote Hoffman’s and Cox’s names, and Blanchard’s, taken from the driver’s license in the pigskin wallet. He took the holdup note from Cox, balancing it gingerly on the palm of his hand, then put it into an envelope which appeared from, and disappeared again into, an inside pocket of his rumpled suit.

He looked very surprised when Hoffman told him that Blanchard had been searched, and that the money had not been found on him. He said, “All right, let’s hear what happened.”

Cox related his version of the affair. Salzberg, writing laboriously in his notebook, didn’t interrupt. When the teller had finished, Salzberg turned to Blanchard. “Now, what’s your story?”

Blanchard told him about the rolls of coins. “I wanted them for a poker game some friends of mine and I set up for tonight.” He made a wry mouth. “I’m supposed to be the banker.”

“He also claims to have given Mr. Cox a list of what he wanted in the way of coins,” Hoffman said.

“The only note he gave me was that holdup note,” Cox said with thinly controlled anger. “He must have gotten those coins elsewhere, had them in his pocket when he came in here.”

Blanchard’s anger was just as thinly contained. He said to Salzberg, “Listen, why don’t you check his cage? That list of mine has got to be around here somewhere.” He glared at Cox. “Maybe you’ll even find your damned missing money. I’ve heard stories of embezzling tellers trying to frame an innocent—”

“Are you suggesting that I stole the bank’s money?” Cox shouted.

Hoffman looked astonished. “Mr. Cox has been a trusted, valued employee of Midwestern National for almost four years.”

“Well, I’ve been a trusted, valued employee of Curtis Tool and Die for a hell of a lot longer,” Blanchard snapped. “What does any of that prove?”

“All right, all right.” Salzberg tapped his teeth with his pen, speculatively. After a moment he said, “Flynn, question the other employees; maybe one of them saw or heard something. Mr. Hoffman, I’d appreciate it if you’d detail someone to find out exactly how much money is missing, and whether or not this list Blanchard claims to have given can be found. You might as well have Mr. Cox’s cage and possessions gone through too.”

Cox was disbelieving. “You mean you’re taking this thief s word over mine?”

“I’m not taking anybody’s word, Mr. Cox,” Salzberg said calmly. “I’m just trying to find out what happened here today.” He paused. “Would you mind emptying all your pockets for me?”

Purplish splotches appeared on Cox’s cheeks, but his voice was icily controlled when he said, “No, I do not mind. I have nothing to hide.”

It appeared that he hadn’t, as far as his person went. He did not have either the list of coins of an appreciable amount of money.

Salzberg sighed. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go over it again...”

Some time later, Hoffman and Flynn rejoined the group. A check of receipts and records had revealed that a total of $35,100 was missing. No list of coins had been found in or about Cox’s cage, and a careful audit of the rest of the bank’s funds had failed to show an unexplained overage in another teller’s cash supply. None of the employees Flynn had questioned had been able to shed any light on the matter; no one had been near Cox’s cage at the time Blanchard had been there, and no one had had any idea that things were amiss until Cox shouted to the guard to stop Blanchard.

Salzberg looked pointedly at Blanchard. “Well, Mr. Cox doesn’t seem to have the money, and it doesn’t seem to be here in the bank. This alleged note of yours isn’t here, either. How can you explain that?”

“I can’t,” Blanchard said. “I can only tell you what happened. I didn’t steal that money!”

Salzberg turned to the guard, Sam. “How far outside did he get before you collared him?”

“No more than a couple of steps.”

“Did he have time to pass the money to an accomplice?”

“I doubt it. But I wasn’t paying any attention to him until Mr. Cox yelled.”

“I don’t know much about big money,” Blanchard said coldly, “but thirty-five thousand must be a lot of bills. I couldn’t have passed that much to somebody in the couple of seconds I was outside the bank.”

“He’s got a point,” Sam admitted.

“Why don’t you search the guard?” Blanchard asked in a voice heavy with vitriol. “Maybe I passed the money to him.”

“I was expecting this,” Sam said. He stepped over to Flynn, raising his arms. “Shake me down and we’ll get the idea I had anything to do with this out of everybody’s mind.”

Flynn searched him expertly and, not surprisingly, the guard was clean. “What are we going to do?” Hoffman asked. “That money has to be somewhere, and this man Blanchard obviously knows where.”

“Maybe,” Salzberg said carefully. “Anyway, it looks like we’ll have to take him downtown and see what we can do there about shaking his story.”

“Go ahead, then,” Blanchard snapped, “but I want a lawyer present while I’m questioned. And if charges are pressed against me, I’ll sue you and the bank for false arrest.”