THE SECOND CHEQUE

Paul Pry, wearing an overcoat which was turned up around the neck, a felt hat which was pulled down low over his forehead, and with heavily smoked glasses shielding his eyes, shoved the cheque through the cashier’s window.

The cashier stared at Paul Pry’s smoked glasses, looked at the check, said, “Just a moment,” and stepped from his grilled cage. He consulted a memorandum, looked at the check once more, sighed, and, with obvious reluctance, picked up a sheaf of currency.

“How,” he asked, “would you like to have this?”

“In hundreds,” said Paul Pry, “if that’s convenient.”

The cashier counted out hundred dollar bills in lots of ten, stacked them all together and snapped a large elastic band about them.

“You’ll take them that way?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You wish to count them?”

“No,” said Paul Pry, and turned away.

His long overcoat flapped about his ankles as he walked. He could feel the gaze of the cashier striking between his shoulder blades with almost physical impact.

Paul Pry went at once to the post office, where he dropped the two letters through the slot marked for city mail. Then he went out to lunch, and, after lunch, he strolled back to the post office.

He managed to stand where, without seeming to be too conspicuous, he could watch the window marked “General Delivery – A to G.”

Shortly after two-thirty, a young woman, stylishly gowned, presented herself at the window.

Paul Pry, standing some thirty feet away, at the end of a corridor, saw the clerk at the general-delivery window hand out a long envelope of purple tint, with a red border. The young woman took it, looked at it curiously. A moment later, the man behind the grille slid another envelope through the window. The girl took it, stared curiously at both envelopes. A moment later she moved away from the window, paused to open the envelopes, staring with puzzled countenance at the empty interior of the purple envelope.

Evidently she expected the cheque which was in the second envelope, for, as she removed the slip of paper, a look of relief came over her features. Paul Pry, standing where he could observe her every move, saw that she was labouring under great tension. Her lips seemed inclined to quiver, and her hands shook as she crumpled the purple envelope, held it over the huge iron waste basket as though to drop it. Then, apparently she thought better of it, for she uncrumpled the envelope, folded it and thrust it in her purse.

She walked from the post-office building, down the granite steps to the sidewalk, where a second young woman was waiting in an automobile.

Paul Pry, following behind, yet careful lest he should seem too eager, was unable to get a clear view of the woman who drove the automobile. But he saw the young woman who had taken the letters from the post office jump into the car. The car immediately drove off at high speed.

Paul Pry ran down the post-office steps to the lot where he had left his own automobile parked. He started the motor, then divested himself of the overcoat, the dark glasses, and shifted the slouch hat for one with a stiffer brim, letting the engine of his car warm up as he was making the changes. Then he stepped into the machine, drove at once to the bank where he had cashed the twenty-five thousand dollar cheque earlier in the day.

He made no effort to find a legitimate parking place for his car, but left it in front of a fire plug, certain that he would receive a tag, certain, also, that the car would be located in an advantageous position when he wished to use it once more.

He walked through the revolving door, stood in the ornate marble foyer looking at the long corridors with their grilled windows, the desks of executives, the customers crowding about the stand on which counter cheques and deposit slips were kept.

Paul Pry went at once to the end of the longest line he could see, stood there fumbling a deposit slip in his fingers.

He had been there less than five seconds when he saw the young woman who had taken the letter from the post office walk with quick, nervous steps to the window of the paying teller. She presented a cheque and was promptly referred to the cashier. Paul Pry watched her as she thrust the cheque through the window to the cashier, saw the hand of the cashier as it took the cheque and turned it over and over while he studied it intently.

A moment later, there was the faint sound of an electric buzzer. A uniformed officer who had been loitering about, watching the patrons idly, suddenly stiffened to attention, looked about him, caught a signal from the cashier. He moved unostentatiously forward.

During all of this time the young woman had stood at the window, apparently entirely oblivious of what was taking place about her.

Paul Pry walked to the telephone booths, dropped a nickel and called the number of Perry C Hammond.

A moment later, a feminine voice announced that Mr Hammond’s secretary was speaking, and Paul Pry stated that he desired to speak with Mr Hammond concerning the matter of a twenty-five thousand dollar cheque which had been issued to Fremont Burke.

Almost at once he heard the sound of whispers, and then Hammond’s voice came over the wire, a voice which was dry with nervousness, despite the millionaire’s attempt to make it sound casual.

“How are you this afternoon, Mr Hammond?” said Paul Pry cordially.

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” asked the millionaire.

“Oh,” said Paul Pry casually, “I just wanted to advise you that I had stolen twenty-five thousand dollars from you and that I trusted the loss wouldn’t inconvenience you in any way.”

“That you had what?” screamed the millionaire.

“Stolen twenty-five thousand dollars from you,” Paul Pry remarked. “I don’t think that there’s any occasion to get excited over it. From all I hear, you can well afford to spare it. But I didn’t want you to be embarrassed on account of the theft.”

“What are you talking about?” Hammond demanded.

“Merely,” said Paul Pry, “that my name happens to be Fremont Burke. I was flat broke and had tried to get five dollars from my brother in Denver. I called at the post office to see if there was any mail for me, and a letter was delivered to me. I opened it and saw there was a cheque enclosed for twenty-five thousand dollars, payable to bearer.

“Naturally, I thought the thing was some sort of a joke, but thought perhaps I might be able to get the price of a meal out of it, so I took it to the bank. To my surprise, they cashed it at once and without question. 1 realized then, of course, that I had, fortunately, stumbled on a remittance which was intended for someone else. Not wishing to disappoint the someone else, I forged your name to a cheque, put it in an envelope and mailed it to Fremont Burke, in care of General Delivery.”

The millionaire’s voice was almost a scream of terror.

“You did what?” he shrieked.

“Come, come,” said Paul Pry. “There’s no need of so much excitement. I forged your cheque for twenty-five thousand dollars and put it in the mail. It occurred to me that the person who received that cheque might have been expecting a legitimate business remittance from you, and would probably put the cheque through his bank for collection, or might possibly present the cheque at the cashier’s window.

“Under the circumstances, the cheque would probably be branded as a forgery. I did my best to make the forgery a good one, but, you understand, even a large bank will look carefully at a second cheque for twenty-five thousand dollars, payable to bearer, which is presented in the course of one business day.

“It occurs to me, therefore, that if the bank should advise you someone has forged a cheque and is presenting it for collection, it might be advisable for you to refuse to prosecute that person on the ground of forgery. You see, he might be acting in perfect good faith, and …”

There was an inarticulate exclamation at the other end of the line, followed by the slamming of a receiver on the hook. Paul Pry figured that Perry Hammond had cut off the connection in order to rush through a call to the bank.

He strolled from the telephone booth, walked across to a desk, filled out a deposit slip and strolled to the window which was nearest to the cashier’s window.

The uniformed officer had moved up and taken the young woman by the arm. She was white-faced and trembling.

“I tell you,” Paul Pry heard her say, “I know nothing whatever about it, except that I was hired to get this cheque out of the mail and cash it. After I had the money I was supposed to call a certain telephone number, and I would then be given instructions as to how I should proceed. That’s all I know about it.”

The telephone at the cashier’s elbow rang sharply and insistently. The cashier picked up the telephone, said, “Hello,” and then let surprise register on his countenance. After a moment he said: “Yes, Mr Hammond, late this morning. I remembered particularly that you had left instructions about the matter, and …”

The receiver made squawking, metallic noises which were inaudible to Paul Pry’s ears, but the face of the cashier flushed with colour.

“Just a minute,” he said. “I think you’re nervous and excited, Mr Hammond. If you’ll just …”

He was interrupted by more squawking noises from the receiver.

The line at which Paul Pry had been standing moved up, so that Paul Pry found himself at the window.

“I wish to make a deposit,” he said, thrusting the deposit slip through the window, together with ten of the one-hundred-dollar bills he had received from the bank earlier in the day.

The man at the window was smiling and affable. “You should go down to the fourth window,” he said, “the one marked ‘Deposits – M to R’.”

Paul Pry looked apologetic and embarrassed.

“Just right down there where you see the lettering over the window,” said the man, smiling unctuously.

Paul Pry walked slowly past the cashier’s window. He was in time to hear the cashier say to the officer: “It’s quite all right, Madson. We can’t cash this cheque because the signature is irregular; but Mr Hammond promises that he will rectify the matter, so far as Mr Burke is concerned. It seems there’s been a very serious mistake, for which the bank is in no way responsible. It’s due to the carelessness of a customer in mailing cheques payable to bearer …”

There was more, which Paul Pry could not hear because it was delivered in a lower voice, a voice which was almost surreptitiously confidential, and because appearances required that Paul Pry should move over toward the window which had been pointed out to him.

He did, however, see the young lady move away from the window, in the direction of the telephone booths. She dropped a coin and called a number. She talked rapidly and excitedly, then paused to listen for several seconds, at the end of which time she nodded her head and hung up the telephone.

Paul Pry followed her from the bank, down to the kerb, where he saw the same car which he had seen parked in front of the post office. The young woman got into the car, which at once drove off.

This time, Paul Pry’s car was parked where he had no difficulty in getting into an advantageous position directly behind the coupé which he was trailing. He ripped the red police tag from the steering wheel, thrust it in his pocket, and concentrated his attention upon following the car ahead.

It was not a particularly easy task. The young woman in the car ahead was a good driver, and she was evidently going some place in very much of a hurry.

The car stopped, at length, in front of a building which apparently housed a speakeasy. The young woman left the car, walked across the kerb with rapid, nervous steps, rang a bell and stood perfectly still while a panel slid back in the door and a face regarded her.

A moment later, the door opened, and the young woman vanished.

The coupé left the kerb, and, as it sped away, the driver turned for one last look at the door where the young woman had been admitted.

Paul Pry started nervously as he saw the face pressed against the glass in the rear window of the coupé. It was the face of the young woman he had met previously in the apartment which Charles B Darwin had maintained so secretly, the young woman who had been trying on clothes in front of the mirror. However, it was too late then to do anything about it. The coupé continued on its way, and Paul Pry began to put into operation a certain very definite plan he had in mind.