Under Three Flags: A Story of Mystery

by Bert Leston Taylor; Alvin T. Thoits

“His inclinations toward gayety were not cultivated in his native town. Previous to a twelvemonth ago four or five years of his life were spent in New York, Chicago and other cities. His occupation during a share of that time was that of representative and selling agent for the granite company in which his father is the principal stock owner. He was apparently wild and reckless, for a year ago he returned to Raymond and through the efforts of his father was given the position of bookkeeper in the bank, a position which does not usually pay much. It would appear that the elder Felton had enacted the role of the prodigal’s father.

“While Ralph Felton was ‘down country’ he fell in love with a pretty face, and upon its possessor he squandered all his means and more. When Ralph returned to Raymond the woman wrote to him demanding money and a fulfillment of pledges. The former he had not; of the latter he had no thought, as he had become desperately enamored of Helen Hathaway. Unable to obtain satisfaction by a correspondence, the woman visited Raymond the afternoon of Memorial Day, registered as ‘Isabel Winthrop,’ and sent word to Ralph that a lady desired to see him. He went to her. The interview between the pair was not harmonious. Sounds of a quarrel came from the room, and once or twice the word ‘money’ was used. Half an hour or so from the time he entered the hotel Ralph left with a flushed countenance, first pledging the clerk to say nothing of his feminine caller.

“He has essayed promises with her, but something substantial is demanded to back them up. He must have money, but where is it to be secured? No use to apply to his father, that he well knows. The more he racks his brain the more desperate becomes the situation. Then a wild thought comes to him. The bank! There must be a large amount of money in the safe. The county bonds mature the next day. He knows, we will assume—perhaps the knowledge is accidental—the combination of the safe.

“Ralph returns to the hotel, and, with a calmness born of a desperate resolve, informs ‘Isabel Winthrop’ that he has arranged for the needed funds, and reiterates his promises for the future. As dusk comes on he leaves the hotel unobserved by the clerk, goes to the bank, opens the front door and locks it behind him, and proceeds to the cashier’s office in the rear, wherein open the doors to the vault.

“As with a trembling hand he twists the combination of the vault he hears the sound of a key in the outer door. He springs to his feet and casts a startled glance about him. There is no egress from the room save by the way he came. Ah! The closet! He secretes himself in the dark closet at the farther end of the room, and at that instant Roger Hathaway enters.

“‘The cashier,’ murmurs the prisoner in the closet, as through the partially open door he watches Hathaway light his desk lamp. ‘He has dropped in to get some papers and will soon be gone,’ thinks Ralph. But to the latter’s despair the cashier opens the vault, takes out the big ledger, and settles down apparently to an evening’s work.

“Here is a nice predicament, but there is nothing to be done except wait until the cashier finishes his evening’s work and goes home. Half an hour or more goes by. The closet is dusty and Ralph is seized with an irresistible desire to sneeze. The explosion, a half-smothered one, occurs, and the cashier looks about him in surprise and wonder. But he continues his work. Suddenly Felton sees him seize a pad of writing paper, scratch off a brief note and leave the room to find a messenger. Has the cashier suspected the presence of some person in the bank besides himself and has he taken this means to summon assistance? As this thought flashes upon him young Felton becomes desperate, but as he watches the face of the cashier, who returns calmly to his writing, he convinces himself that he is mistaken.

“Again that cursed inclination to sneeze, which in vain he attempts to smother. This time there is no mistake. The cashier rises to his feet and glances about the room in alarm. His eyes finally rest on the partly opened door of the dark closet. Hathaway is a man of nerve. He opens the right-hand drawer of his desk, takes out and cocks his revolver and walks deliberately toward the closet.

“All this is seen by Ralph, and his plan to rob the bank is succeeded by a desire to escape from the building unrecognized. To accomplish this the cashier must be overpowered. So when the latter flings open the closet door the man within reaches out, grasps the revolver arm and draws the cashier into the darkness of the closet. Then ensues a fierce struggle, for Roger Hathaway, though old, is still a powerful man. This would account for the old ledgers that were toppled over into the office, and for the marks on the body of the murdered man.

“During the struggle the revolver is discharged and the bullet enters the cashier’s heart. The doctors in the case tell me that the course of the bullet was such that the leaden missile might have come from a pistol discharged during such a struggle as I have described. But to continue: