CHAPTER X
THE TRADERS BANK
The morning after Halsey's return was Tuesday. Arnold Armstrong hadbeen found dead at the foot of the circular staircase at three o'clockon Sunday morning. The funeral services were to be held on Tuesday,and the interment of the body was to be deferred until the Armstrongsarrived from California. No one, I think, was very sorry that ArnoldArmstrong was dead, but the manner of his death aroused some sympathyand an enormous amount of curiosity. Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh, a cousin,took charge of the arrangements, and everything, I believe, was asquiet as possible. I gave Thomas Johnson and Mrs. Watson permission togo into town to pay their last respects to the dead man, but for somereason they did not care to go.
Halsey spent part of the day with Mr. Jamieson, but he said nothing ofwhat happened. He looked grave and anxious, and he had a longconversation with Gertrude late in the afternoon.
Tuesday evening found us quiet, with the quiet that precedes anexplosion. Gertrude and Halsey were both gloomy and distraught, and asLiddy had already discovered that some of the china was broken--it isimpossible to have any secrets from an old servant--I was not in apleasant humor myself. Warner brought up the afternoon mail and theevening papers at seven--I was curious to know what the papers said ofthe murder. We had turned away at least a dozen reporters. But I readover the head-line that ran half-way across the top of the Gazettetwice before I comprehended it. Halsey had opened the Chronicle andwas staring at it fixedly.
"The Traders' Bank closes its doors!" was what I read, and then I putdown the paper and looked across the table.
"Did you know of this?" I asked Halsey.
"I expected it. But not so soon," he replied.
"And you?" to Gertrude.
"Jack--told us--something," Gertrude said faintly. "Oh, Halsey, whatcan he do now?"
"Jack!" I said scornfully. "Your Jack's flight is easy enough toexplain now. And you helped him, both of you, to get away! You getthat from your mother; it isn't an Innes trait. Do you know that everydollar you have, both of you, is in that bank?"
Gertrude tried to speak, but Halsey stopped her.
"That isn't all, Gertrude," he said quietly; "Jack is--under arrest."
"Under arrest!" Gertrude screamed, and tore the paper out of his hand.She glanced at the heading, then she crumpled the newspaper into a balland flung it to the floor. While Halsey, looking stricken and white,was trying to smooth it out and read it, Gertrude had dropped her headon the table and was sobbing stormily.
I have the clipping somewhere, but just now I can remember only theessentials.
On the afternoon before, Monday, while the Traders' Bank was in therush of closing hour, between two and three, Mr. Jacob Trautman,President of the Pearl Brewing Company, came into the bank to lift aloan. As security for the loan he had deposited some three hundredInternational Steamship Company 5's, in total value three hundredthousand dollars. Mr. Trautman went to the loan clerk and, aftercertain formalities had been gone through, the loan clerk went to thevault. Mr. Trautman, who was a large and genial German, waited for atime, whistling under his breath. The loan clerk did not come back.After an interval, Mr. Trautman saw the loan clerk emerge from thevault and go to the assistant cashier: the two went hurriedly to thevault. A lapse of another ten minutes, and the assistant cashier cameout and approached Mr. Trautman. He was noticeably white andtrembling. Mr. Trautman was told that through an oversight the bondshad been misplaced, and was asked to return the following morning, wheneverything would be made all right.
Mr. Trautman, however, was a shrewd business man, and he did not likethe appearance of things. He left the bank apparently satisfied, andwithin thirty minutes he had called up three different members of theTraders' Board of Directors. At three-thirty there was a hastilyconvened board meeting, with some stormy scenes, and late in theafternoon a national bank examiner was in possession of the books. Thebank had not opened for business on Tuesday.
At twelve-thirty o'clock the Saturday before, as soon as the businessof the day was closed, Mr. John Bailey, the cashier of the defunctbank, had taken his hat and departed. During the afternoon he hadcalled up Mr. Aronson, a member of the board, and said he was ill, andmight not be at the bank for a day or two. As Bailey was highlythought of, Mr. Aronson merely expressed a regret. From that timeuntil Monday night, when Mr. Bailey had surrendered to the police,little was known of his movements. Some time after one on Saturday hehad entered the Western Union office at Cherry and White Streets andhad sent two telegrams. He was at the Greenwood Country Club onSaturday night, and appeared unlike himself. It was reported that hewould be released under enormous bond, some time that day, Tuesday.
The article closed by saying that while the officers of the bankrefused to talk until the examiner had finished his work, it was knownthat securities aggregating a million and a quarter were missing. Thenthere was a diatribe on the possibility of such an occurrence; on thefolly of a one-man bank, and of a Board of Directors that met only tolunch together and to listen to a brief report from the cashier, and onthe poor policy of a government that arranges a three or four-dayexamination twice a year. The mystery, it insinuated, had not beencleared by the arrest of the cashier. Before now minor officials hadbeen used to cloak the misdeeds of men higher up. Inseparable as thewords "speculation" and "peculation" have grown to be, John Bailey wasnot known to be in the stock market. His only words, after hissurrender, had been "Send for Mr. Armstrong at once." The telegraphmessage which had finally reached the President of the Traders' Bank,in an interior town in California, had been responded to by a telegramfrom Doctor Walker, the young physician who was traveling with theArmstrong family, saying that Paul Armstrong was very ill and unable totravel.
That was how things stood that Tuesday evening. The Traders' Bank hadsuspended payment, and John Bailey was under arrest, charged withwrecking it; Paul Armstrong lay very ill in California, and his onlyson had been murdered two days before. I sat dazed and bewildered. Thechildren's money was gone: that was bad enough, though I had plenty, ifthey would let me share. But Gertrude's grief was beyond any power ofmine to comfort; the man she had chosen stood accused of a colossalembezzlement--and even worse. For in the instant that I sat there Iseemed to see the coils closing around John Bailey as the murderer ofArnold Armstrong.
Gertrude lifted her head at last and stared across the table at Halsey.
"Why did he do it?" she wailed. "Couldn't you stop him, Halsey? It wassuicidal to go back!"
Halsey was looking steadily through the windows of the breakfast-room,but it was evident he saw nothing.
"It was the only thing he could do, Trude," he said at last. "Aunt Ray,when I found Jack at the Greenwood Club last Saturday night, he wasfrantic. I can not talk until Jack tells me I may, but--he isabsolutely innocent of all this, believe me. I thought, Trude and Ithought, we were helping him, but it was the wrong way. He came back.Isn't that the act of an innocent man?"
"Then why did he leave at all?" I asked, unconvinced. "What innocentman would run away from here at three o'clock in the morning? Doesn'tit look rather as though he thought it impossible to escape?"
Gertrude rose angrily. "You are not even just!" she flamed. "You don'tknow anything about it, and you condemn him!"
"I know that we have all lost a great deal of money," I said. "I shallbelieve Mr. Bailey innocent the moment he is shown to be. You professto know the truth, but you can not tell me! What am I to think?"
Halsey leaned over and patted my hand.
"You must take us on faith," he said. "Jack Bailey hasn't a penny thatdoesn't belong to him; the guilty man will be known in a day or so."
"I shall believe that when it is proved," I said grimly. "In themeantime, I take no one on faith. The Inneses never do."
Gertrude, who had been standing aloof at a window, turned suddenly."But when the bonds are offered for sale, Halsey, won't the thief bedetected at once?"
Halsey turned
with a superior smile.
"It wouldn't be done that way," he said. "They would be taken out ofthe vault by some one who had access to it, and used as collateral fora loan in another bank. It would be possible to realize eighty percent. of their face value."
"In cash?"
"In cash."
"But the man who did it--he would be known?"
"Yes. I tell you both, as sure as I stand here, I believe that PaulArmstrong looted his own bank. I believe he has a million at least, asthe result, and that he will never come back. I'm worse than a paupernow. I can't ask Louise to share nothing a year with me and when Ithink of this disgrace for her, I'm crazy."
The most ordinary events of life seemed pregnant with possibilitiesthat day, and when Halsey was called to the telephone, I ceased allpretense at eating. When he came back from the telephone his faceshowed that something had occurred. He waited, however, until Thomasleft the dining-room: then he told us.
"Paul Armstrong is dead," he announced gravely. "He died this morningin California. Whatever he did, he is beyond the law now."
Gertrude turned pale.
"And the only man who could have cleared Jack can never do it!" shesaid despairingly.
"Also," I replied coldly, "Mr. Armstrong is for ever beyond the powerof defending himself. When your Jack comes to me, with some twohundred thousand dollars in his hands, which is about what you havelost, I shall believe him innocent."
Halsey threw his cigarette away and turned on me.
"There you go!" he exclaimed. "If he was the thief, he could returnthe money, of course. If he is innocent, he probably hasn't a tenth ofthat amount in the world. In his hands! That's like a woman."
Gertrude, who had been pale and despairing during the early part of theconversation, had flushed an indignant red. She got up and drewherself to her slender height, looking down at me with the scorn of theyoung and positive.
"You are the only mother I ever had," she said tensely. "I have givenyou all I would have given my mother, had she lived--my love, my trust.And now, when I need you most, you fail me. I tell you, John Bailey isa good man, an honest man. If you say he is not, you--you--"
"Gertrude," Halsey broke in sharply. She dropped beside the table and,burying her face in her arms broke into a storm of tears.
"I love him--love him," she sobbed, in a surrender that was totallyunlike her. "Oh, I never thought it would be like this. I can't bearit. I can't."
Halsey and I stood helpless before the storm. I would have tried tocomfort her, but she had put me away, and there was something aloof inher grief, something new and strange. At last, when her sorrow hadsubsided to the dry shaking sobs of a tired child, without raising herhead she put out one groping hand.
"Aunt Ray!" she whispered. In a moment I was on my knees beside her,her arm around my neck, her cheek against my hair.
"Where am I in this?" Halsey said suddenly and tried to put his armsaround us both. It was a welcome distraction, and Gertrude was soonherself again. The little storm had cleared the air. Nevertheless, myopinion remained unchanged. There was much to be cleared up before Iwould consent to any renewal of my acquaintance with John Bailey. AndHalsey and Gertrude knew it, knowing me.