The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

THE GILDED TRAP. Yesterday he would have enunciated that fact with a note of pride. To-day! “Oh, the devil!” groaned Adams at the prospect of going through the whole job again. “ For Heaven’s sake, don’t mix them up. Here—”’ He reached for a pile. Tronclad?”’ ‘“ Yes—I cashed it for Mr. Wheelock— his own check.’’ The Trust Company’s checks had the place for the numeral amount at the right- hand side. Adams held the bundle intact as he swiftly examined one after another of the figures. ‘Wheelock must be blowing himself,”’ he commented. “I didn’t suppose he owned that much money. Nothing doing in this pile. . Here—what’s this?”’ He picked up the pile of checks on outside banks, fingered for one of a color similar to some issued for the Ironclad’s depositors. ‘““No;” he slaughtered the faint hope he had raised. Unsteadily Bruce had got to his feet and bent down to peer under the desk. The effort to rise sent his heart pounding in his ears. He was faint, sick. “You cashed it right after opening?”’ Adams asked. “It ought to be near the bottom.” “The very bottom,” Bruce spoke hol- lowly. ‘‘ Wheelock gave it to me before I went into the cage. I put it on the file before any one came in.” ‘““T suppose Meyer’s dropped it then— or whoever brought them in,” Adams surmised. Evans followed him around the passage to the teller’s cage. They went in. Sev- eral loose articles they moved about. “Oh, rats!” Adams uttered in disgust. “What’s the sense in hunting any fur- ther? Meyer’s shut the thing up in his drawer by mistake, I suppose. You know whose check it was. Wheelock will give you a duplicate, if you can’t find it, Come on.” Bruce opened his mouth to object. Then he closed it again. He could not “Was it on the 235 betray too much anxiety. He helped with putting things in order and locking up drawers and safe. They went out together. Adams began to whistle the latest ditty. It seemed almost profane to Evans. How could ‘any one in the world be cheerful with that twelve hundred unaccounted for? ‘Going up or down?” Adams asked at the corner. ‘“S’long, then.” He lived in Brooklyn. With a nod he sprinted for the subway. Bruce stood irresolute. Every tortur- ing instinct bade him go back to the bank and hunt for the missing check. The idea of leaving the building with that awful discrepancy in it was compellingly ter- rible. | Reason told him that he and Adams had looked in all the places the check could have lurked in, save those to which they would have access again only in the morning. Fear, a fearful hope, told him that there might be some other. More reasoning fear warned him not to attract the attention of the janitor to his worry; fear horrified with the thought that the scrubwoman might find the check and destroy it. | At length he went back. The door was still open. Herman Peterson, the janitor, stood within, a short pipe between his teeth, directing the sweeping of the place. *“‘ Say, Peterson.” lightly, “tell Jenny to look out for a stray check. We’ve missed one. If she finds it, tell her she can leave it on my desk.” “All right,” grunted the janitor gut- turally. He began to speak to the woman in Swedish. ‘“‘ We'll look out for it,” he spoke again to Evans. Bruce fought down the wish to do more hunting himself. Reason told him he had done just enough. He had added two possible witnesses to his own anxiety over a lost check, in casee— _ But it couldn’t be. Wheelock wouldn’t dare do it. He wouldn’t believe it of the cashier. No, or of Mercer. It would be too risky to do a thing like that. COMMICLOOOKS Bruce tried to speak | (C@