The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

66 who didn’t speak English enough to un- derstand my message, I suppose.”’ Half of the explanation was lost as Wheelock continued his abuse. He stepped around to get a better angle from which to hurl his imprecations. Evans had shoved back some yellow pads on which. he was wont to do figuring that might not go on the books or statements. “ What's that?” For a fraction of a ~- second Wheelock had stopped his tirade in the middle of a word, before he shifted to the awful question. In that half second Bruce had emitted a gasp of as sheer terror as if he had uncovered a rattlesnake. Now he clutched at the sides of the desk and stared at the thing in blank amaze. It was the stamp-drawer key. Sheer terror! Bruce Evans might not have feared to mix things in a fistic battle with the man who had already uttered epithets no man should bear _ unchal- lenged; though Wheelock was much the bigger physical specimen of the two, and Evans’s muscles had long lacked anything like real exercise. His terror was that of the man who cannot, dares not fight. It was the result of his long schooling in necessity—the necessity of others on whose behalf he ‘must suffer things to which he himself might prefer starvation; of a schooling that had ground and stamped into his very soul as: the supreme rule of his life that he could not, must not lose his job, that to do so was worse than death. As Wheelock lifted the thin strip of metal the whole room seemed to whirl. There was a hush that was like one of those terrible stillnesses before a cyclone, with all nature seeming to crouch for a herculean spring that carries death and _ destruction before it. Then it seemed fo Bruce that he must say something. He could hardly recog- nize his own thin, weak voice as he spoke the truth: ‘““T never put it there.” And the impending tornado burst. -course you couldn’t find it. THE ARGOSY. there. There were only a few hundred ‘thousand dollars depending on its being in its place, so it got up and flapped its wings and crawled through the keyhole of your drawer and hid itself. And of You were too damned lazy to move a few papers and look for it. You—” ‘““IT moved all those papers,’ Evans protested, his hand raised as if warding off a blow. ‘‘ Somebody else put it there.” For the thing had suddenly flashed in his tormented brain. He was the victim of a plant. Mercer disliked him; had disliked him for over a year. He could not tell why. He knew it was true. And Mercer had taken that key and then— “Somebody put it there, eh? Of course somebody would come in here and take the trouble to put that key away all nice and snug in. your drawer! Of course you couldn’t have done it. I suppose you saw some one do it.” ‘““T know all right who did it,” snapped Bruce, his eyes full upon the head book- keeper. “Mercer, did you put that key in Evans’s desk and cover it up with papers so as to hide it and keep him from sending out the mail?” | Wheelock asked the question in a tone of pure irony. Mercer grinned. ‘““ He says he searched the drawer Sat- urday afternoon. You can ask the janitor if I’ve been here since.” The head book- keeper spoke his alibi with the laugh of assured security from an impossible accu- sation. “It’s a wonder you don’t say I did it,” sneered the cashier. ‘It’s only cost me a few thousand dollars.” ‘““ What’s the matter, Wheelock?” Unnoticed, Mr. Bennet, the president of the bank, had come in from his office at the front. Since he did not come to the bank at all on most days and hardly ever before noon, his presence was a sur- prise all around. “This idiot,” snapped Wheelock. “No, I suppose not. I suppose it flew” “ We left him to send out the statements COPNICLOOOKS (E©)