A Canadian Bankclerk Part 26

The teller felt his head throb. Penton grinned sceptically.

"My dear man," he said, "you're mixed. The money was only left out for an hour, you say. No one was in here but myself."

Evan felt a chill. He was just as sure Penton had stolen one of those hundred dollar packages as he was that one had been stolen.

"Check your blotter," went on the manager, with a strange accent and a fearful glow in his colorless eye; "you couldn't possibly have paid out an extra hundred in silver. Good G----! man, you're crazy."

Mechanically the teller went over the additions in his blotter. That was always the first thing to do in a cash difference that looked like a mistake in addition. The blotter was found correct. Next came the vouchers. Penton worked a.s.siduously on them with the teller. His mind somewhat clarified by checking, Evan began to think. Penton had said it was impossible to pay out one hundred dollars too much over the counter in silver--as it was. If he could trace the silver back to when the cash had been checked before, the difference could easily be located in the silver. He offered the suggestion. The manager made a gesture of impatience.

"I tell you," he said, "there must be a mistake somewhere; either in your work, or else you paid out one hundred dollars too much in bills and--you've been counting the silver wrong for days or weeks, that's it!"

Nelson knew he had not. Fortunately for him the manager had checked the cash a week before, and initialed it as correct. While Penton followed with his eyes, Evan ran over his cash-statement book, showing the decrease in silver each day to be about twenty-five dollars.

Market days always took about one hundred and twenty-five dollars. But there was a falling off between Monday and Tuesday this week of two hundred and twenty-eight dollars.

Penton stared gla.s.sily a moment, as the boys had often seen him do.

Then his cunning came to the rescue, as it always did.

"That bag you have been counting as five hundred dollars has only contained four packages. The loss is away back somewhere, and this is a coincidence. There has been a double error."

Evan knew differently, but felt that he could not say anything plausible. He was silent. Penton waited a moment before remarking:

"It'll come pretty hard on you, old man, with your salary."

So diabolically triumphant was Penton's tone that it filled Nelson with a horror.

"I'll quit the bank before I'll put it up," he said, gutturally.

"That would make things look suspicious," replied Penton.

So it would! Evan had not thought of that. Penton seemed to have figured the situation out fully; directly he said:

"Well, let's sit down and write head office the particulars. They may let you off, seeing you are getting only three hundred and fifty dollars."

Realizing his powerlessness, Evan obeyed. For the first time in his Banfield management Penton took command. He was self-possessed; acted like one who was right at home. Probably he was, in that kind of a game.

Nelson wrote unsteadily in longhand to his manager's dictation, and was strengthened in the conviction that Penton had stolen that parcel of silver. Usually the manager composed hesitatingly, especially when addressing head office, but now he was glib, and seemed familiar with his subject. He even appeared to be in suppressed good humor over the matter.

"Don't look so grim, old man," he said, oilily, "they'll not make you put it up. Why, that would be absurd, on your allowance."

An idea struck Evan. Penton, if he had taken the money, probably hoped his teller's low salary would influence head office toward leniency.

The amount was not so very large; it was, indeed, just about the proper amount to take. One hundred dollars was such a common loss in banking, it would not look suspicious. Anything more would have aroused inquiry, while anything less would scarcely have been worth stealing.

The thing had been well executed; taking one package from the bag and tying it up again, then innocently desiring to check the cash next day, all showed thought; and it occurred to Nelson that Penton's head was just the shape for such thought. He had not been dragging at his upper lip in vain: he had extracted a piece of strategy, which had originated in the cerebrum. There was a peculiar sympathy between Penton's lips and his brain, anyway: what the former craved satisfied the latter.

Women are accused of having a monopoly on intuition, but men have a corner on "hunches." From the moment his eyes rested on three parcels of silver where there had been four, Evan had a hunch that Penton was the thief. The trickery of it was so in accord with the expression of Penton's eye!

"But who has taken it?" said the manager, when the head office letter was finished.

"Either you or I," said Evan; "no one else has been here."

Penton grinned. It mattered not what he did, appearances would remain as they were--and that was not against the manager any more than against the teller.

"Go home and get a sleep, old man," said Penton; "we may be able to think the thing out to-morrow."

The tone of the manager's "old man" rang in Nelson's ears all evening.

He rebelled against Penton's insinuating manner; like the touch of his hand it was coldly, clammily smooth.

In his room the teller sat worrying. Mrs. Terry called up to him that he had a visitor. Evan asked her to send him up. It was Henty.

"Here's a letter for you," said the junior; "I didn't see you at the post office and thought you would be glad to get this. The mail was just closing when I left."

"Thanks," said Evan. "Wait till I read it; I want to tell you something."

Henty chewed the end of a fat five-cent cigar while Evan read the letter, which was from his mother. It read:

"Dear Evan,--We always enjoy getting your letters. They don't tell us much about yourself, to be sure, except that you are well. That is the main thing. Be sure and keep on your heavy underwear until the end of April, and don't wash your hair too often. I do hope that boarding-house of yours is good to you. I'm making a fruit cake which we will express to you in a day or two. If you could take care of a barrel of apples we'd be glad to send one.

"Just think, you have been away from home over two years now. Dear me, it seems like ten. Lou is still the tantalizer she always was. Father keeps busy and well as usual. We all look forward to having you back at summer holidays. When do you expect to arrive? Be sure and let us know ahead. Frankie Arling was in the other day, and asked about you.

Hoping to hear from you soon.

"MOTHER."

Nelson sighed and handed the letter over to Henty. A. P. blushed as he read it. His red corpuscles had a habit of rus.h.i.+ng to the surface, like a shoal of small sea-fish, at the slightest disturbance of their element.

"I guess a fellow never forgets home," he said, thoughtfully.

"No, I guess not," replied Evan. "Every morning when I wake I feel as if I am somewhere on a visit."

"By gosh," said Henty, "so do I--except that Mrs. Wilson doesn't use me much like a welcome visitor. I always have to break the ice to get into my water pitcher."

Nelson did not smile. In fact, he had not heard: he was thinking of the disappointment coming to his mother if he should have to make good the one hundred dollars loss and miss his holidays.

"There's trouble down at the office, Henty," he said, slowly.

The genial junior raised his eyes in wonder.

"Drunk again?"

"No," said Evan, "worse than that. Someone has stolen a hundred dollars."

"The d.i.c.kens!"

Nelson related him the story. A. P. drank it in with the expression of a child listening to Andersen's fairy tales. And he asked just as practical questions as a child asks.

"Do you suspect anybody?"

Evan smiled: he was growing tired of tragedy.