Uncle Sam, Detective

by William Atherton DuPuy

Compton, cashier in First National bank case, guilty. Lorance probably not implicated. Bank burned to-night by accomplices of Compton. Case complete.

Gard.

The manner in which these conclusions were reached are but typical of the methods of the sleuths of the Department of Justice. Gard had come to New Beaufort with but a suspicion that Lorance, the assistant cashier, was playing the market on the funds of the bank. Lorance was known to be placing orders with a Wall Street broker.

At the boarding house Gard learned that Lorance lived modestly in a cottage with his wife and babies, had not been seen to make any display of money, was of sturdy farmer stock. On the other hand the investigator immediately picked up the facts that the cashier, Compton, maintained an expensive establishment, entertained lavishly, was often absent from town, was nervous, highstrung, in bad health.

All these facts led him to watch the cashier rather than his assistant. They led him, also, to some experimental testing of the condition of the bank's accounts. He knew that a dishonest employee of a bank, in appropriating money, had to charge it to some account to make the books balance. The large, inactive accounts offer a most tempting opportunity of this sort; but these were found to be intact by his ruse of inducing the depositors to call for their balances.

It was to get a better line on the business of the community, and particularly upon the accounts of Compton, that the special agent secured a position of bookkeeper in Joy's grocery store. Here he found, in the first place, that the buying of the Compton home was profligate and evidently wasteful. He found, further, that the bills were always paid without question and by check. Knowing of an old trick that has brought many a cashier to ruin, Gard sought a way to test these personal checks to determine whether or not they actually found their way to the personal account of the cashier.

The cashier of a bank is usually the individual who opens the mail, and many of these have been known to cash personal checks and destroy them when they came in for collection, charging the amount to some account where it might temporarily be hidden. To determine whether or not these personal checks were being juggled by the cashier Gard, as the grocer's bookkeeper, found a pretext to send to the bank for a record of some personal checks of Compton's which he had handled a few days earlier. The call was made while Compton was out to lunch, and the checks could not be found. Through another dealer Gard succeeded in getting a second similar request made with the same results. He concluded that Compton was at least juggling his personal account and charging the amount of his personal checks to some other account, probably loans and discounts.

In various ways the special agent found opportunities, even without seeing the books of the bank, of demonstrating to his satisfaction that the accounts were being juggled. This was particularly true of new deposits. When a cashier is particularly hard pressed he may resort to a manipulation of the accounts of current depositors. The system is the simplest in the world. When a depositor hands in his money, the cashier enters the amount in the pass book of that individual as a receipt. Then, instead of entering the money to the depositor's credit, the cashier puts it into his pocket. Thus there is nothing to show for the transaction but the entry in the pass book, and that may not be presented for a long time. The cashier chooses for spoliation the accounts about which inquiries are least likely to be made. As far as the books of the bank are concerned they are as though the deposit had never been made, and the bank examiner, therefore, has no way of discovering the shortage.

Gard, through the store for which he worked, made several deposits, and, upon one pretext and another, sent to the assistant cashier of the bank for the record of them in the absence of Compton. They did not show on the account of the grocery store and the matter was passed over as a misunderstanding. But a second avenue of misappropriation thus was discovered.

In this way the special agent was able from the outside to get very good leads into the condition of the bank and to determine the manner of its looting when the facts might not have been obtainable by an expert working from the inside.

Gard's case was about completed and the Department was ready to act when the dramatic denouement came. Arson, suicide and flight are the three events most to be expected when the funds of a bank have been misappropriated. The young special agent was watching for any of these at the time of the anniversary party given by the banker. It was in preparation for any of them that he watched so late on that occasion.