Part 43 (2/2)
”Thanks, Lou,” called Carr, without turning his head. ”You saved me that time all right! Now, gentlemen, before any more bags drop, suppose we adjourn uptown. We're less likely to be interrupted there,” and he sounded a police whistle, which brought a dozen a.s.sistants on the run.
”Search Mahoney,” he directed. ”I don't think Derwent has anything on him. What's that Mahoney has in his hand?”
”Nothin' but a quarter, sir, an' what looks like an old wad o' chewin'
gum.”
Puzzled, Carr examined the coin. Then the explanation of the whole affair flashed upon him as he investigated the weight-beam and found fragments of gum adhering to the lower part, near the free end.
”So that was the trick, eh?” he inquired. ”Quite a delicate bit of mechanism, this scale--in spite of the fact that it was designed to weigh tons of material. Even a quarter, gummed on to the end of the beam, would throw the whole thing out enough to make it well worth while. I think this coin and the wad of gum will make very interesting evidence--Exhibits A and B--at the trial, after we've rounded up the rest of you.”
”And that,” concluded Quinn, ”is the story which lies behind that twenty-five-cent piece--probably the most valuable bit of money, judged from the standpoint of what it has accomplished, in the world.”
”Derwent and Mahoney?” I asked. ”What happened to them? And did Carr succeed in landing the men higher up?”
”Unfortunately,” and Quinn smiled rather ruefully, ”there is such a thing as the power of money. The government brought suit against the sugar companies implicated in the fraud and commenced criminal proceedings against the men directly responsible for the manipulation of the scales. (It developed that they had another equally lucrative method of using a piece of thin corset steel to alter the weights.) But the case was quashed upon the receipt of a check for more than two million dollars, covering back duties uncollected, so the personal indictments were allowed to lapse. It remains, however, the only investigation I ever heard of in which success was so signal and the amount involved so large.
”Todd, of the Department of Justice, handled a big affair not long afterward, but, while some of the details were even more unusual and exciting, the theft was only a paltry two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
”Which case was that?”
”The looting of the Central Trust Company,” replied the former operative, rising and stretching himself. ”Get along with you. It's time for me to lock up.”
XXII
”THE LOOTING OF THE C. T. C.”
There was a wintry quality in the night itself that made a comfortable chair and an open fire distinctly worth the payment of a luxury tax. Add to this the fact that the chairs in the library den of William J.
Quinn--formerly ”Bill Quinn, United States Secret Service”--were roomy and inviting, while the fire fairly crackled with good cheer, and you'll know why the conversation, after a particularly good dinner on the evening in question, was punctuated by pauses and liberally interlarded with silences.
Finally, feeling that it was really necessary that I say something, I remarked upon the fierceness of the wind and the biting, stinging sleet which accompanied a typical January storm.
”Makes one long for Florida,” I added.
”Yes,” agreed Quinn, ”or even some point farther south. On a night like this you can hardly blame a man for heading for Honduras, even if he did carry away a quarter of a million of the bank's deposits with him.”
”Huh? Who's been looting the local treasury?” I asked, thinking that I was on the point of getting some advance information.
”No one that I know of,” came from the depths of Quinn's big armchair.
”I was just thinking of Florida and warm weather, and that naturally led to Honduras, which, in turn, recalled Rockwell to my mind. Ever hear of Rockwell?”
”Don't think I ever did. What was the connection between him and the quarter-million you mentioned?”
”Quite a bit. Rather intimate, as you might say. But not quite as much as he had planned. However, if it hadn't been for Todd--”
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