“That is suggested, at least, in the letter she sent to Mallory.”
“You mean?”
“The sentiment I detected between the lines,” said Nick. “That girl, Chick, for she’s little more than a girl, was so deeply affected by the death of her father that she resolved to reform. There’s nothing else to it. She went to Maybrick and told him about the burglary, and she offered to turn over the plunder to him that he might restore it to the bank officials.”
“Oh, hold on!” Chick exclaimed incredulously. “You are overlooking no end of contradictory points. How, to begin with, did Nancy Nordeck come in possession of the plunder?”
“That is easily explained,” Nick replied. “We know that Jim Nordeck has been repeatedly buncoed and cheated by his pals, and he may in this case have insisted upon taking charge of the plunder until it could have been equally divided. The gang would have consented to that, of course, for they could not have cracked the vault without his assistance. He was the big squeeze in that part of the work.”
“That’s very true,” Chick allowed.
“If I am right, then, Nordeck took it to the house in which he died, or hid it somewhere else, perhaps, expecting to recover from his wound and soon whack up with his confederates, who, evidently, were not living with him and Nancy in the Harlem house.”
“Surely not, Nick, or they would have been seen by the neighbors.”
“Instead, however, Nordeck died, and the girl experienced a change of heart. I now feel dead sure of that, Chick, and it’s not the first time that death has brought about such a reformation.”
“But why did she not, in that case, take the plunder directly to the bank officials, or turn it over to the police?”