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Page 65
The footsteps receded down the stairs. And my thoughts reverted
into the old channels of dull despair.
I weighed the chances of Bristol's seeking me there; and, eager as
I was to give them substance, found them but airy--ultimately was
forced to admit them to be nil.
So I lay, whilst only a few hundred yards from me a singular scene
was being enacted. Bristol, a prisoner as helpless as myself,
watched the concluding business of the day being conducted in the
bank beneath him; he watched the lift descend to the strongroom
--the spying apparatus being slightly adjusted in some way; he saw
the clerks hastening to finish their work in the outer office, and
as he watched, absorbed by the novelty of the situation, he almost
forgot the pain and discomfort which he suffered . . .
"This little peep-show of ours has been real useful," Dexter
confided out of the darkness. "I got an impression of the key of
the strongroom door a week ago, and Carneta got one of the keys of
the safe only this morning, when she lodged her box of jewellery
with the bank! I was at work on that key when you interrupted me,
and as by means of this useful apparatus I have learnt the
combination, you ought to see some fun in the next few hours!"
Bristol repressed a groan, for the prospect of remaining in that
position was thus brought keenly home to him.
The bank staff left the premises one by one until only a solitary
clerk worked on at a back desk. His task completed, he, too, took
his departure and the bank messenger commenced his nightly duty of
sweeping up the offices. It was then that excitement like an
anaesthetic dulled the detective's pain--indeed, he forgot his
aching body and became merely a watchful intelligence.
So intent had he become upon the picture before him that he had not
noticed the fact that he was alone in the office of the Congo Fibre
Company. Now he realized it from the absolute silence about him,
and from another circumstance.
The spying apparatus had been left focussed, and on to the screen
beneath his eyes, bending low behind the desks and creeping,
Indian-like, around, toward the head of the stair which communicated
with the strongroom and the apartment used by the messenger, came the
alert figure of Earl Dexter!
It may be a surprise to some people to learn that at any time in
the day the door of a bank, unguarded, should be left open, when
only a solitary messenger is within the premises; yet for a few
minutes at least each evening this happens at more than one City
bank, where one of the duties of the resident messenger is to clean
the outer steps. Dexter had taken advantage of the man's absence
below in quest of scrubbing material to enter the bank through the
open door.
Watching, breathless, and utterly forgetful of his own position,
Bristol saw the messenger, all unconscious of danger, come up the
stairs carrying a pail and broom. As his head reached the level
of the railings The Stetson Man neatly sand-bagged him, rushed
across to the outer door, and closed it!
Given duplicate keys and the private information which Dexter so
ingeniously had obtained, there are many London banks vulnerable to
similar attack. Certainly, bullion is rarely kept in a branch
storeroom, but the detective was well aware that the keys of the
case containing the slipper were kept in this particular safe!
He was convinced, and could entertain no shadowy doubt, that at
last Dexter had triumphed. He wondered if it had ever hitherto
fallen to the lot of a representative of the law thus to be made
an accessory to a daring felony!
But human endurance has well-defined limits. The fading light
rendered the ingenious picture dim and more dim. The pain
occasioned by his position became agonizing, and uttering a stifled
groan he ceased to take an interest in the robbery of the London
County and Provincial Bank.
Fate is a comedian; and when later I learned how I had lain strapped
to my bed, and, so near to me, Bristol had hung helpless as a
butchered carcass in the office of the Congo Fibre Company, whilst,
in our absence from the stage, the drama of the slipper marched
feverish to its final curtain, I accorded Fate her well-earned
applause. I laughed; not altogether mirthfully.
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