Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1970.
It is well known that while a criminal is engaged in the commission of a crime, and during the period immediately following, he is a veritable bundle of nerves. He is drawn up so tight that any trifling occurrence of an unexpected nature can send him into a blind panic, with his nerves twanging like guitar strings. And his reaction to such an event—to anything which, in his highly nervous state, seems to him to be a cause for alarm—often takes unpredictable forms. Sometimes his panic makes him more cunning, more dangerous; sometimes it has just the opposite effect.
Lieutenant Randall of the robbery detail was well aware of this basic psychological truth. He had even, in his early days as a patrolman, been its victim. A thief, emerging from a jewelry shop with considerable loot and a sweet certainty that there wasn’t a cop within three blocks, was rudely startled by a sudden yell from Randall who, off duty and merely passing by, happened to spot him.
As a result. Randall took a .32 caliber bullet through the calf of his right leg from a usually prudent and peaceful lawbreaker who had never before so much as raised his voice to an officer of the law. As the thief explained later in court, if he’d known a cop was in the vicinity he would have surrendered meekly on being challenged, but Randall had so startled him that he had instantly begun to shoot, a reflex action occasioned entirely by blind panic.
After that experience Randall believed he knew pretty well what to expect when a crook was given sudden cause for alarm. He had the scar on his leg to prove he had earned the knowledge the hard way. Yet he had acquired only half the lesson. The other half he learned from a young bank teller named Harry Oberlin.
Harry Oberlin worked at the Citizens National Bank. And it was through his teller’s window that a bank robber, one day in early summer, relieved the bank of $3200.
Randall got the call at headquarters about a half hour after noon. The bank’s cashier, in the usual half-coherent state of bank officials who call the police to report a bank robbery, wasn’t very helpful. “No, I don’t know what he looked like or how much he stole. It happened only minutes ago. At Harry Oberlin’s window—he’s the one who touched the alarm. I haven’t had a chance to—”
“Hold everything,” Randall said sharply. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” He figured he could get the information more quickly on the spot than he could over the phone. He went himself.
The bank was only a block from headquarters, so Randall was as good as his word. Five minutes later, the cashier, a Mr. Dangerfield, met him at the front entrance of the bank, recognizing him as a police officer, no doubt, by the unbanking-like speed with which Randall came through the revolving door.
Leading Randall into the railed enclosure where the bank’s officers sat quietly behind impressive desks, Dangerfield said, “We haven’t made any fuss, of course. Our patrons don’t even know there’s been a robbery.” He jerked a thumb at the dozen or so customers lined up before the two tellers’ windows opposite.
“Where was your guard during the stickup?” Randall asked.
“In the Men’s Room.” There was anger in Dangerfield’s tone. “I think perhaps the thief waited for that moment.”
They reached Dangerfield’s desk. A young man of mild appearance was waiting for them in a chair beside it. The cashier sat down behind the desk and invited Randall to have a chair. “This is Harry Oberlin,” he introduced the young man. “He’s the one who had the—ah—bandit at his window.”
“Then you’re the one I want to talk to,” Randall said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
The teller cleared his throat. “This fellow came up to my open window. He was alone, nobody behind him. He handed a canvas sack through to me along with this note.” Oberlin passed Randall a slip of brown wrapping paper.
It was the usual thing: THIS IS A STICKUP. EMPTY YOUR CASH DRAWER IN THIS BAG. It was printed in block letters, with a ballpoint pen.
“What did he look like?”
Oberlin shrugged. “Medium height, medium weight, white man, brown hair, maybe twenty-four or five. Gray slacks, gray windbreaker. He kept one hand inside his jacket as if he had a gun. Anyway, our cameras probably got him.”
The cashier broke in, “Oberlin managed to trigger our security cameras.”
“Good,” Randall said t o Oberlin. “Then what?”
“I did what he said. We have standing instructions to do that, since we’re insured and the bank doesn’t want any of us murdered.” Mr. Dangerfield waved his hands.
“Never mind that, Harry.” Randall said, “How much money was in your cash drawer?”
“About thirty-two hundred, I think. Bills and silver. I haven’t had time to check the precise amount.”
“Didn’t anybody else notice what was going on?”
Oberlin shook his head. “I guess not. The bandit looked around the bank several times while I was filling his bag, but nobody seemed to pay any attention to him. He was plenty nervous, though.”
“And after you filled his sack?”
“He took it and walked out the side door to the street and turned south. Then I hit the alarm bar to alert Mr. Dangerfield.”
“And that was it, eh?” Randall had heard the story so many times before. “Disappeared in the lunch-hour crowds, I suppose?”
“Well,” Oberlin said, “I followed him to the door as soon its l could get around the counter and I saw him duck into a dark-blue Plymouth sedan, 1968 model, that was parked down Ward Street, and drive off like a shot.”
“For God’s sake!” said Randall. “Why didn’t you say so before? A dark-blue 1968 Plymouth sedan?” He reached for the telephone on the cashier’s desk, then paused. His respect for Harry Oberlin was mounting. “You didn’t by any chance see the car’s license number?”
“Not all of it. Just the last two digits—39.”
Randall got an outside line, dialed headquarters, and asked for Hennessy. “Randall,” he said crisply when Hennessy came on the line. “Take a look at your Auto Theft list and see if there’s a dark-blue 1968 Plymouth sedan on it with a license number ending in 39.”
After a brief wait Hennessy said, “Here it is, Lieutenant. Reported stolen last night from the North Side Shopping Center. Full license number is—”
“Don’t tell me,” Randall interrupted, “Put it on the air. All points, urgent. I’m at Citizens National Bank. Ten minutes ago a guy robbed this place and he’s using that Plymouth as a getaway car.” He gave Hennessy a quick recap of the bandit’s appearance, quoting Oberlin. Then he hung up.
He turned to Mr. Dangerfield. “I’m afraid he has a good start. He’ll probably abandon the stolen car as soon as he’s well away from this neighborhood. But we’ll do what we can. I’d like to see what your camera got as soon as the film’s developed, and I’ll have this note checked for fingerprints. Meanwhile, can l get a definite figure on the amount of money actually stolen, Mr. Oberlin? Can you find that out for me now?”
“Sure,” Oberlin said, and stood up.
Randall left Dangerfield sitting disconsolate at his desk and followed Oberlin to his cage. The teller pulled open his cash drawer and showed it to Randall. It was empty as a school house on Saturday morning.
“Lieutenant,” said Oberlin hesitantly, “I didn’t want to say anything to Mr. Dangerfield, but I was kind of prepared for this robbery.”
Randall stared. “Prepared?”
“I mean, there are so many holdups of banks and savings and loan companies these days that I figured it might happen to me sometime, too, you know?”
Randall nodded.
“So what I did, I tried to figure out how I could kind of surprise any bandit who held me up. You know, without running too much risk of getting hurt myself.”
The phone on Oberlin’s counter rang. The teller picked it up and answered it. “It’s for you, Lieutenant.”
Randall took the phone. “Randall,” he said.
“Hennessy, Lieutenant. We’ve picked up that Plymouth sedan of yours.”
Randall couldn’t believe his ears. “Already?”
“Yep.” Hennessy tried to keep from sounding complacent. “Not too far from the bank. Abandoned.”
“That figures. No sign of the man?”
“No sign of him.” Hennessy laughed a little. “But the car wasn’t empty, Lieutenant. There was a bagful of money on the front seat.”
“Well, well.” Randall stole a look at Oberlin. “How much?”
“No details yet. Lieutenant. Car 36 just this minute called in that they’d found the Plymouth and a sackful of money. I thought you’d want to know about it right away.”
“I do. Fast work, Hennessy. And thanks.” Randall hung up slowly. “Did you hear that?” he asked Harry Oberlin.
“No,” said Oberlin. “You haven’t caught the bandit already, have you?”
“Not quite. But we’ve found the money. At least some of it. He left it behind in the car.”
It was Oberlin’s turn to laugh. He laughed out loud and his pleasure was infectious. The teller in the adjoining cage looked over and grinned in sympathy. “You mean the robber not only abandoned his getaway car but the money, too?”
“Seems like it.” Randall fixed the young teller with a stern eye.
“Now, just before the phone rune, Oberlin, you were saying something about being prepared to surprise any bandit who might hold you up. What did you mean?
“I guess it did surprise him!” Oberlin said. “But it must have scared the daylights out of him if he went off and left the money behind.” The best part of it is the teller was practically chortling. “All I did was exactly what he told me to do—to put everything in my cash drawer into his bag. Including the little surprise I always kept in the drawer in case of bandits.”
Randall said, “All right. Oberlin. I’m asking again. What was it?”
“A smoke bomb, Lieutenant,” Oberlin said with the air of a David who has just bested a Goliath. “A smoke grenade, timed to go off three minutes after I pulled the pin. I put it in the bandit’s bag with the money.”