The Old Man in the Corner

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE THEFT AT THE ENGLISH PROVIDENT BANK

  "That question of motive is a very difficult and complicated one attimes," said the man in the corner, leisurely pulling off a huge pair offlaming dog-skin gloves from his meagre fingers. "I have knownexperienced criminal investigators declare, as an infallible axiom, thatto find the person interested in the committal of the crime is to findthe criminal.

  "Well, that may be so in most cases, but my experience has proved to methat there is one factor in this world of ours which is the mainspringof human actions, and that factor is human passions. For good or evilpassions rule this poor humanity of ours. Remember, there are the women!French detectives, who are acknowledged masters in their craft, neverproceed till after they have discovered the feminine element in a crime;whether in theft, murder, or fraud, according to their theory, there isalways a woman.

  "Perhaps the reason why the Phillimore Terrace robbery was neverbrought home to its perpetrators is because there was no woman in anyway connected with it, and I am quite sure, on the other hand, that thereason why the thief at the English Provident Bank is still unpunishedis because a clever woman has escaped the eyes of our police force."

  He had spoken at great length and very dictatorially. Miss Polly Burtondid not venture to contradict him, knowing by now that whenever he wasirritable he was invariably rude, and she then had the worst of it.

  "When I am old," he resumed, "and have nothing more to do, I think Ishall take professionally to the police force; they have much to learn."

  Could anything be more ludicrous than the self-satisfaction, theabnormal conceit of this remark, made by that shrivelled piece ofmankind, in a nervous, hesitating tone of voice? Polly made no comment,but drew from her pocket a beautiful piece of string, and knowing hiscustom of knotting such an article while unravelling his mysteries, shehanded it across the table to him. She positively thought that heblushed.

  "As an adjunct to thought," she said, moved by a conciliatory spirit.

  He looked at the invaluable toy which the young girl had tantalisinglyplaced close to his hand: then he forced himself to look all round thecoffee-room: at Polly, at the waitresses, at the piles of pallid bunsupon the counter. But, involuntarily, his mild blue eyes wandered backlovingly to the long piece of string, on which his playful imaginationno doubt already saw a series of knots which would be equallytantalising to tie and to untie.

  "Tell me about the theft at the English Provident Bank," suggested Pollycondescendingly.

  He looked at her, as if she had proposed some mysterious complicity inan unheard-of crime. Finally his lean fingers sought the end of thepiece of string, and drew it towards him. His face brightened up in amoment.

  "There was an element of tragedy in that particular robbery," he began,after a few moments of beatified knotting, "altogether different to thatconnected with most crimes; a tragedy which, as far as I am concerned,would seal my lips for ever, and forbid them to utter a word, whichmight lead the police on the right track."

  "Your lips," suggested Polly sarcastically, "are, as far as I can see,usually sealed before our long-suffering, incompetent police and--"

  "And you should be the last to grumble at this," he quietly interrupted,"for you have spent some very pleasant half-hours already, listening towhat you have termed my 'cock-and-bull' stories. You know the EnglishProvident Bank, of course, in Oxford Street; there were plenty ofsketches of it at the time in the illustrated papers. Here is a photo ofthe outside. I took it myself some time ago, and only wish I had beencheeky or lucky enough to get a snap-shot of the interior. But you seethat the office has a separate entrance from the rest of the house,which was, and still is, as is usual in such cases, inhabited by themanager and his family.

  "Mr. Ireland was the manager then; it was less than six months ago. Helived over the bank, with his wife and family, consisting of a son, whowas clerk in the business, and two or three younger children. The houseis really smaller than it looks on this photo, for it has no depth, andonly one set of rooms on each floor looking out into the street, theback of the house being nothing but the staircase. Mr. Ireland and hisfamily, therefore, occupied the whole of it.

  "As for the business premises, they were, and, in fact, are, of theusual pattern; an office with its rows of desks, clerks, and cashiers,and beyond, through a glass door, the manager's private room, with theponderous safe, and desk, and so on.

  "The private room has a door into the hall of the house, so that themanager is not obliged to go out into the street in order to go tobusiness. There are no living-rooms on the ground floor, and the househas no basement.

  "I am obliged to put all these architectural details before you, thoughthey may sound rather dry and uninteresting, but they are reallynecessary in order to make my argument clear.

  "At night, of course, the bank premises are barred and bolted againstthe street, and as an additional precaution there is always a nightwatchman in the office. As I mentioned before, there is only a glassdoor between the office and the manager's private room. This, of course,accounted for the fact that the night watchman heard all that he didhear, on that memorable night, and so helped further to entangle thethread of that impenetrable mystery.

  "Mr. Ireland as a rule went into his office every morning a littlebefore ten o'clock, but on that particular morning, for some reasonwhich he never could or would explain, he went down before having hisbreakfast at about nine o'clock. Mrs. Ireland stated subsequently that,not hearing him return, she sent the servant down to tell the masterthat breakfast was getting cold. The girl's shrieks were the firstintimation that something alarming had occurred.

  "Mrs. Ireland hastened downstairs. On reaching the hall she found thedoor of her husband's room open, and it was from there that the girl'sshrieks proceeded.

  "'The master, mum--the poor master--he is dead, mum--I am sure he isdead!'--accompanied by vigorous thumps against the glass partition, andnot very measured language on the part of the watchman from the outeroffice, such as--'Why don't you open the door instead of making thatrow?'

  "Mrs. Ireland is not the sort of woman who, under any circumstances,would lose her presence of mind. I think she proved that throughout themany trying circumstances connected with the investigation of the case.She gave only one glance at the room and realized the situation. On thearm-chair, with head thrown back and eyes closed, lay Mr. Ireland,apparently in a dead faint; some terrible shock must have very suddenlyshattered his nervous system, and rendered him prostrate for the moment.What that shock had been it was pretty easy to guess.

  "The door of the safe was wide open, and Mr. Ireland had evidentlytottered and fainted before some awful fact which the open safe hadrevealed to him; he had caught himself against a chair which lay on thefloor, and then finally sunk, unconscious, into the arm-chair.

  "All this, which takes some time to describe," continued the man in thecorner, "took, remember, only a second to pass like a flash throughMrs. Ireland's mind; she quickly turned the key of the glass door,which was on the inside, and with the help of James Fairbairn, thewatchman, she carried her husband upstairs to his room, and immediatelysent both for the police and for a doctor.

  "As Mrs. Ireland had anticipated, her husband had received a severemental shock which had completely prostrated him. The doctor prescribedabsolute quiet, and forbade all worrying questions for the present. Thepatient was not a young man; the shock had been very severe--it was acase, a very slight one, of cerebral congestion--and Mr. Ireland'sreason, if not his life, might be gravely jeopardised by any attempt torecall before his enfeebled mind the circumstances which had precededhis collapse.

  "The police therefore could proceed but slowly in their investigations.The detective who had charge of the case was necessarily handicapped,whilst one of the chief actors concerned in the drama was unable to helphim in his work.

  "To begin with, the robber or robbers had obviously not found their wayinto the manager's inner room through the bank
premises. James Fairbairnhad been on the watch all night, with the electric light full on, andobviously no one could have crossed the outer office or forced theheavily barred doors without his knowledge.

  "There remained the other access to the room, that is, the one throughthe hall of the house. The hall door, it appears, was always barred andbolted by Mr. Ireland himself when he came home, whether from thetheatre or his club. It was a duty he never allowed any one to performbut himself. During his annual holiday, with his wife and family, hisson, who usually had the sub-manager to stay with him on thoseoccasions, did the bolting and barring--but with the distinctunderstanding that this should be done by ten o'clock at night.

  "As I have already explained to you, there is only a glass partitionbetween the general office and the manager's private room, and,according to James Fairbairn's account, this was naturally always leftwide open so that he, during his night watch, would of necessity hearthe faintest sound. As a rule there was no light left in the manager'sroom, and the other door--that leading into the hall--was bolted fromthe inside by James Fairbairn the moment he had satisfied himself thatthe premises were safe, and he had begun his night-watch. An electricbell in both the offices communicated with Mr. Ireland's bedroom andthat of his son, Mr. Robert Ireland, and there was a telephone installedto the nearest district messengers' office, with an understood signalwhich meant 'Police.'

  "At nine o'clock in the morning it was the night watchman's duty, assoon as the first cashier had arrived, to dust and tidy the manager'sroom, and to undo the bolts; after that he was free to go home to hisbreakfast and rest.

  "You will see, of course, that James Fairbairn's position in the EnglishProvident Bank is one of great responsibility and trust; but then inevery bank and business house there are men who hold similar positions.They are always men of well-known and tried characters, often oldsoldiers with good-conduct records behind them. James Fairbairn is afine, powerful Scotchman; he had been night watchman to the EnglishProvident Bank for fifteen years, and was then not more than forty-threeor forty-four years old. He is an ex-guardsman, and stands six feetthree inches in his socks.

  "It was his evidence, of course, which was of such paramount importance,and which somehow or other managed, in spite of the utmost careexercised by the police, to become public property, and to cause thewildest excitement in banking and business circles.

  "James Fairbairn stated that at eight o'clock in the evening of March25th, having bolted and barred all the shutters and the door of the backpremises, he was about to lock the manager's door as usual, when Mr.Ireland called to him from the floor above, telling him to leave thatdoor open, as he might want to go into the office again for a minutewhen he came home at eleven o'clock. James Fairbairn asked if he shouldleave the light on, but Mr. Ireland said: 'No, turn it out. I can switchit on if I want it.'

  "The night watchman at the English Provident Bank has permission tosmoke, he also is allowed a nice fire, and a tray consisting of a plateof substantial sandwiches and one glass of ale, which he can take whenhe likes. James Fairbairn settled himself in front of the fire, lit hispipe, took out his newspaper, and began to read. He thought he had heardthe street door open and shut at about a quarter to ten; he supposedthat it was Mr. Ireland going out to his club, but at ten minutes to teno'clock the watchman heard the door of the manager's room open, and someone enter, immediately closing the glass partition door and turning thekey.

  "He naturally concluded it was Mr. Ireland himself.

  "From where he sat he could not see into the room, but he noticed thatthe electric light had not been switched on, and that the managerseemingly had no light but an occasional match.

  "'For the minute,' continued James Fairbairn, 'a thought did just crossmy mind that something might perhaps be wrong, and I put my newspaperaside and went to the other end of the room towards the glass partition.The manager's room was still quite dark, and I could not clearly seeinto it, but the door into the hall was open, and there was, of course,a light through there. I had got quite close to the partition, when Isaw Mrs. Ireland standing in the doorway, and heard her saying in a veryastonished tone of voice: 'Why, Lewis, I thought you had gone to yourclub ages ago. What in the world are you doing here in the dark?'

  "'Lewis is Mr. Ireland's Christian name,' was James Fairbairn's furtherstatement. 'I did not hear the manager's reply, but quite satisfied nowthat nothing was wrong, I went back to my pipe and my newspaper. Almostdirectly afterwards I heard the manager leave his room, cross the halland go out by the street door. It was only after he had gone that Irecollected that he must have forgotten to unlock the glass partitionand that I could not therefore bolt the door into the hall the same asusual, and I suppose that is how those confounded thieves got the betterof me.'"