“See that young woman at the paying-teller’s cage—halfway down the line—slight, trim, with a red feather in her hat? Take a look.”
It was nearing the closing hour and long lines had formed at all the windows. Burgess marked the red feather without difficulty. As the women patrons of the bank were accommodated at a window on the farther side of the lobby he surmised that the young woman was an office clerk on an errand for her employer. She was neatly dressed; there was nothing in her appearance to set her apart from a hundred office girls who visited the bank daily and stood—just as this young woman was standing—in the line of bookkeepers and messengers.
“Well,” said the banker, “what about her?”
While looking at the girl the detective drew out a telegram which he scanned and thrust back into his pocket.
“Her mother runs a boarding house, and her father, Julius Murdock, is a crook—an old yegg—a little crippled by rheumatism now and out of the running. But some of the naughty boys passing this way stop there to rest. The place is—let me see—787 Vevay Street.”
Burgess thoughtfully brushed a speck from his coat-sleeve, then looked up indifferently.
“So? Hardly a fashionable neighborhood! Is that what is called a fence?”
“Well, I believe the police did rip up the boarding house a while back, but there was nothing doing. Murdock’s able to make a front without visible means of support—may have planted enough stuff to retire on. He’s a sort of financial agent and scout for other crooks. They’ve been in town only a few months. The old man must feel pretty safe or he wouldn’t keep his money in a bank. Nellie, out there, is Murdock’s daughter, and she’s stenographer for the Brooks Lumber Company, over near where they live. When I came in she was at the receiving teller’s window with the lumber company’s deposit. She’s probably waiting to draw a little money now for her daddy. He’s one of the few fellows in his line of business who never goes quite broke. Just for fun, suppose you see what he has on the books. If I’m wrong I’ll decline that cigar you’re going to offer me from the box in your third left-hand drawer.” The banker scribbled the name on a piece of paper and sent a boy with it to the head bookkeeper. “And I’d be amused to know how much Nellie is drawing for Julius, too, while you’re about it,” added the detective, who thereupon sat down in one of the visitors’ chairs inside the railing and became absorbed in a newspaper.
Burgess strolled across the lobby, stopping to speak to acquaintances waiting before the several windows—a common practice of his at the busy hour. Just behind the girl in the red hat stood a man he knew well; and he shook hands and continued talking to him, keeping pace with his friend’s progress toward the window. The girl turned round once and looked at him. He had a very good view of her face, and she was beyond question a very pretty girl, with strikingly fine gray eyes and the fresh color of youth. The banker’s friend had been recounting an amusing story and Burgess was aware that the girl turned her head slightly to listen; he even caught a gleam of humor in her eyes. She wore a plain jacket, a year or two out of fashion, and the red feather in her cloth hat was not so crisp as it appeared at a distance. She held a check in her hand ready for presentation; her gloves showed signs of wear. There was nothing to suggest that she was other than a respectable young woman, and the banker resented the detective’s implication that she was the daughter of a crook and lived in a house that harbored criminals. When she reached the window Burgess, still talking to the man behind her, heard her ask for ten-dollar bills.
She took the money and thrust it quickly into a leathern reticule that swung from her arm. The banker read the name of the Brooks Lumber Company on the passbook she held in her hand.