Chapter IV: Chick Forms a Theory

It was eleven o’clock when Chick Carter, following the telephone instructions from Nick, entered Arthur Gordon’s business quarters in Wall Street to begin an investigation. He saw at once that the several clerks in the latticed inclosure were somewhat excited. Business appeared to have been suspended.

Chick found Mr. Beckwith in Gordon’s private office, adjoining the business inclosure, a man well in the sixties and of a nervous temperament.

“Thank Heaven, you have arrived, Mr. Carter,” said he, when Chick entered and introduced himself. “This is terrible, terrible! Gordon mysteriously missing. Miss Perrot gone. The vault robbed of----”

“Hold your horses, Mr. Beckwith,” Chick coolly interrupted, after closing the office door. “There is nothing in going over the traces. Nick has told me most of the circumstances, as far as known. Calm yourself, and answer my questions.”

“Well, well, I will try. But there is nothing I can tell you.”

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

“Sit down, then. Come on with your questions!”

“To begin with,” said Chick, complying, “have you seen any indications that Gordon and Pauline Perrot are in love, any sign of it on the part of either?”

“No, no, never!” Beckwith quickly asserted. “Mr. Gordon is a gentleman, and soon to be married. Miss Perrot knows her place, and has always kept it, so far as I have observed.”

“At what time did she and Gordon leave here yesterday afternoon?”

“I don’t know. They were the last to leave.”

“Who was the last before them?”

“I was. It then was about four o’clock. All the other clerks had gone.”

“Where was Mr. Gordon when you left?”

“Here in his private office. He was talking with Miss Perrot.”

“Was the door open?”

“Yes.”

“Was he dictating letters, or----”

“No, he was talking with her,” Beckwith interrupted. “I could not tell what he was saying, however, for both were talking in French.”

“Have they been in the habit of doing so?”

“Sometimes. Mr. Gordon speaks the language fluently and Miss Perrot is of French descent. I think that is one reason why he employed her when she applied for a situation.”

“Has her work been satisfactory?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“You are the cashier?”

“Yes. I have charge here, subject to Mr. Gordon’s orders, of course.”

“Did you close and lock the vault before leaving?”

“I did not. Mr. Gordon had been using two books that always are put in the vault,” Beckwith proceeded to explain. “I asked him if I should do so, and close it before leaving, but he replied that he would attend to it, and that I might go. I did so, of course, not knowing how long he might remain here.”

“That left Gordon and Miss Perrot alone here.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that the missing cash, bonds, and securities then were in the vault?” Chick inquired.

“I am positive about the cash, for I had put it in the vault within half an hour,” Beckwith replied. “The bonds and securities, however, were tied in several packages, and were in an interior drawer, or should have been. They have been there for nearly a month, as we have had no occasion to use them.”

“Did Miss Perrot know they were there?”

“She did.”

“Has she had access to the vault when in performance of her customary duties?”

“Yes, at times. Mr. Gordon frequently sent her to the vault for books, papers, or whatever he might want.”

“Could she have opened the interior drawer containing the bonds and securities?”

“Not without a key.”

“Who has a key to it?”

“Only Mr. Gordon and myself.”

“That drawer is always kept locked, I infer?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Could Pauline Perrot, by any means, have obtained an impression of your key to that particular drawer?”

“No, no, it would have been impossible,” Beckwith declared. “My keys are never out of my possession.”

“How about Gordon’s?”

“It might have been possible, Mr. Carter. He sometimes leaves his ring of keys hanging in the lock of his roll-top desk, after having opened it. I have seen them there, and cautioned him about it. But it is a habit of his.”

“I see,” Chick nodded. “How recently, speaking positively, can you say that the bonds and securities were in the drawer?”

“Three days,” Beckwith said promptly. “I then added a package to them. I don’t think I have opened the drawer since then.”

“Has Gordon done so?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Is there any time during business hours, Mr. Beckwith, that Pauline Perrot could have removed the bonds and securities without being seen?”

“Possibly.”

“At what time?”

“When I and some of the other clerks were out to dinner. Mr. Gordon always was here at that time. No one in the outer office would have thought it strange if Miss Perrot went into the vault. It would have been inferred that Mr. Gordon had sent her. I don’t see, nevertheless, how she could possibly have concealed the packages.”

“Pockets in her underskirts,” Chick said tersely. “That would have been child’s play. I suspect, Mr. Beckwith, that that is how the theft was committed.”

“But the cash----”

“That’s another matter,” Chick interrupted. “She may have found a chance to slip into the vault and get it before she and Gordon left there yesterday afternoon. How much cash is missing?”

“Two thousand dollars. It was in notes of large denomination, and in packages confined with paper straps.”

“Was any cash left in the vault?”

“Yes, considerable, and all of the specie.”

“That seems to confirm my belief,” said Chick. “If the theft had been deliberately committed, with no occasion for haste and fear of detection, the thief would have taken all of the bank notes, at least.”

“I see the point,” Beckwith bowed.

“And I have not the slightest doubt that Pauline Perrot was the thief,” Chick added. “Do you know whether she left here in company with Gordon?”

“I know she did not,” Beckwith replied. “I have inquired in the other offices in this corridor. I could find only one person who saw Mr. Gordon leave. He was alone and was carrying a leather suit case. Mr. Dayton saw him come out and head for the corridor and stairway leading to the side door of the building.”

“Does Gordon usually go that way?”

“I don’t remember ever having seen him do so.”

“Who is Mr. Dayton?”

“He is the American agent for an English pottery concern. He has an office on the opposite side of the adjoining corridor. The elevator boy has told me that Miss Perrot left soon after four, and that she was alone. Dayton is sure it was later than that when he saw Mr. Gordon.”

“You could find no one else who saw him?”

“No, sir. I have made exhaustive inquiries.”

“Did Mr. Gordon bring in a suit case yesterday, or was there one here that you know of?” Chick questioned.

“I don’t think he has brought one in recently,” said Beckwith, shaking his head. “There may have been one here, however, in that closet,” he added, pointing to a door in one corner of the private office.

Chick arose and looked into the small wardrobe closet, but it contained nothing of special significance. He turned back, closing the door and remarking:

“You must do nothing about this matter, nor give it further publicity, until you hear from me again, or from Nick. I do not wish to question you further, but I will have a look at the vault.”

Beckwith arose to conduct him to it.

Chick made only a brief inspection of the vault, however, finding nothing further on which to base an opinion, and he then repeated his instructions to Beckwith and the other clerks and departed.

He did not immediately leave the building. He went, instead, to verify Beckwith’s statements by having a brief interview with the one man said to have seen Gordon departing the previous afternoon.

Chick found his office door a little farther down the corridor. It bore a neatly printed sign:

“Edgar Hereford Dayton, Agent.”

“Humph! That’s a good bit English, don’t you know,” he said to himself, while he scrutinized the name. “I guess ’e come from Staffordshire, all right. I’ll have a look at him.”

Trying the door, Chick found that it yielded, and he stepped into the small but well-equipped office. There was a wardrobe closet, a roll-top desk, and on a table lay a pile of illustrated business catalogues.

A man seated at the desk turned deliberately in his swivel chair and gazed at his visitor through a pair of gold-bowed glasses. He was a man of medium build, clad in a rather striking plaid suit.

He appeared to be about forty years old, a man with brown hair and a carefully trimmed beard, eyebrows that curved upward at the outer ends, a quite florid complexion, and eyes that had a keen and searching expression.

“Good morning,” said Chick, after closing the door. “You are Mr. Dayton?”

“Yaas, surely,” was the reply, with a rather affected drawl. “What can I do for you?”

“My name is Carter,” said Chick. “I have been talking with Mr. Beckwith, the cashier over in Gordon’s office. He----”

“Oh, yaas!” Dayton cut in, with more manifest interest. “He was telling me about a bad mess over there, deucedly bad, I judge. I say, you’re not an inspector, are you?”

Chick smiled and took the chair to which Dayton politely waved him.

“That is what they call men of my vocation in England,” he replied. “Here, in America, we are detectives.”

“Yaas, yaas, I see,” nodded Dayton, laughing and showing his teeth. “I don’t quite get away from the home lingo, you know.”

“I inferred that you were English.”

“Yaas, that’s right, Mr. Carter. I’ve been over ’ere only a few months. Don’t ’ang round New York but part of the time. Traveling ’ere and there most of it. But I ’ave to ’ave an office ’ere, you know. I say, what can I do for you?”

Not for a moment had his keen, intent eyes left the face of the detective.

“Well, Beckwith was telling me that you saw Gordon leaving his office yesterday afternoon,” said Chick, declining a cigarette the Englishman now tendered, while he lit one for himself.

“Yaas, surely. I told Beckwith so.”

“Can you tell me precisely what time it was when you saw Gordon?”

“Well, no, I really don’t think I can,” Dayton drawled thoughtfully. “I can ’it mighty near it, though.”

“What time would you say, Mr. Dayton?”

“Well, I lunched late with Percy Brigham, a Lunnon friend ’oo is over ’ere. It must ’ave been four o’clock when I left him. I’d say it was quarter past four when I saw Mr. Gordon, then leaving his office. I was unlocking my door, and he passed right by me.”

“Are you acquainted with him?”

“Yaas, in a small way.”

“Did he speak when passing?”

“No, he did not, the which ’it me kind of funny,” said Dayton. “He looked a bit bunged up by something, I thought, so I didn’t speak to him. He went round to the back corridor, don’t you know, and that was the last I saw of him.”

“You told Beckwith, I think, that he was carrying a suit case.”

“Yaas, so he was,” Dayton quickly nodded. “A leather suit case, and I thought he must be going away.”

“Did you observe anything else about him?” Chick inquired. “Did he appear pale, or as if mentally disturbed?”

“Waal, yaas, I’d say he looked a bit punk around the ears,” Dayton drawled slowly. “I wouldn’t want you to bank too ’eavy on what I’m saying, though, for I saw him only a moment, don’t you know. I don’t think as ’ow I can add to it.”

Chick Carter was of the same opinion. There was something very insipid in this Englishman’s voice and manner, aside from his expressive eyes, and despite that he somehow impressed Chick as one whom he had seen before, the latter decided that he had nothing to gain by interrogating him further.

Chick thanked him for his information, therefore, then arose and departed. Seeking the street, he hailed the first taxicab he could see, and at once started for the Gordon residence to report to Nick.

Mr. Edgar Hereford Dayton sat for a long time gazing at his desk. The minutes crept away far more rapidly than he imagined. All the while, too, his eyes had a gleam and glitter doubly intense than before.

He arose, at length, and shook his fist at the closed door.

Then, opening the wardrobe closet, he drew out a suit case, into which, with what it already contained, he crowded--a blue dress, hat, and veil, a woman’s underskirt, and smaller articles that scarce need mention.