"Certainly, I should. It may do for my collection of Improbabilities."
"Well, I met the cashier of the Savings Bank up there—he's been with the bank nearly thirty years and he told me the story. It seems one noon, about twenty years ago, while he was alone in the bank, a little boy of seven or eight years of age came in, and said he wanted to deposit some money. The cashier asked him how much he had, thinking, of course, that he'd hand out a dollar or two. The boy put a packet wrapped in newspaper on the counter, and by Jove! if there wasn't something over five thousand dollars, in hundred-dollar greenbacks! What do you think of that? The cashier asked the boy where he got so much money, suspecting that it must have been stolen. The boy wouldn't tell him. The cashier started round the counter to hold the boy till he could investigate, and, if necessary, hand him over to the police. The little fellow saw him coming, got frightened, and ran out the door, leaving the money on the counter. He has never been heard from since."
"Well, what became of the money, then?"
"Why, it had to be entered as deposited, of course. The boy had written a name—the cashier doesn't know whether it was the boy's own name or not—on the margin of the newspaper, and the account stands in that name, awaiting a claimant."
"What was the name?"
"The cashier wouldn't tell me, naturally. It has been kept a secret. With the compound interest, the money now amounts to something like double the original deposit."
"It's a pity I don't know the name; I might prove an alibi."
"Oh, I forgot—and it really is the point of the whole story. The package was wrapped in a copy of Harper's Weekly, and the boy, whose hands were probably dirty, had happened to press a perfect thumb-print on the smooth paper. Of course, that would identify him, and if any one could prove he was in Stockton at that time, give the name and show that his thumb was marked like that impression, the bank would have to permit him to draw that account."
"That lets me out," said Cayley, "unless that particular thumb-print happens to show a banded, duplex, spiral whorl."
"What in the world do you mean?" Payson asked.