The superintendent was quite friendly in his conduct towards Mr. Bales, and said he should be glad if he hit the mark in this business better than he had done in that other little affair.
Mr. Bales, after paying Mr. Flooks a private business visit, and seeing several letters referring to £280 (which was really a payment to Flooks for the goodwill, scenery, &c., of a small music-hall establishment at Severntown), went to his lodgings, reported himself for two days further leave of absence, lit a cigar, and quietly thought over the story he had just heard. There was clearly nothing in the Brazencrook officer’s idea about Flooks having lost no money: there was the transaction before him accounting for the receipt of £280 out of the £300. Could the cashier himself be the thief? No. The curate?—the receiver? No. Had the job been done by a professional thief? He thought not. He could not exactly say why. He thought that this was a case of sudden temptation and robbery. This was his theory: the receiver had been busy at his desk; Flooks, the Casino proprietor, flurried, as the policeman had said, by talking to a parson—had been engrossed in the clerical conversation; a third party had come in on business, and had walked out again unobserved with the notes in his pocket. Under such circumstances, the thief would naturally become worried and nervous, when he got into the street, as to his next step. What would he be likely to do? Brazencrook was a large town—a town of some eighty thousand inhabitants—a busy, bustling place. What would the fellow do—slink away? If he were a professional thief, no doubt he would. But a new hand—there was a cab-stand close by, and he would call a cab—of course he would, Bales repeated to himself. He made inquiries at once. There were only two flys on the stand, and the drivers had not taken a fare that morning.
“Drive me to the next stand,” said Bales, stepping into the first cab.
He was unsuccessful at the second stand and at every other. No driver remembered having taken up any person near the Old Bank at about eleven o’clock. He determined to see every cab-driver in Brazencrook before he gave up this first part of his theory of the robbery. The Abbey chimes were slowly hammering out the morning hymn for the second or third time that day, when the detective alighted from the last cab to prosecute his inquiries on foot, resolving to stop every fly he met in the streets.
The chimes had hardly finished, when an old fellow pulled up an empty cab near the Abbey entrance, and got off his box to tie a dirty hay-bag upon his horse’s nose.
Bales put his question to him—had he taken up anyone near the bank that morning?
Near the bank! Yes, he had.
“Who?”
“A gentleman’s servant.”
“Did he come out of the bank?”