Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1911 — THE DEFALCATION AT TH BOROUGH NATIONAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE DEFALCATION AT TH BOROUGH NATIONAL

Taken from the Archives of Bullivants, Limited, tbs r greatest inquiry and detective agency of modern times V

By Frederick. reddale

(Copyright, 1910, by W. 6. Chapman)

■hmmARK MANLEY—he of Mthe white hair and the young-looking face was in reminiscent mood that sparkling gRpHPH October morning as we sat in a window of the Park Row building, f overlooking the busy C.JhKS and bustling down- ■ town vista of Broadway from St Paul’s gBHWTWi chapel to Bowling • Green. a- For half a genera- *■■■■■■• tion he had been Bui-

Uvant’s chosen man to cover the territory below Inspector Byrnes’ famous “dead line,” from Fulton street to Whitehall, Inclosing the richest square mile on earth, including the diamond and jewelry houses of John street and Maiden lane equally with the great banking centers and the Stock Exchange. In all these years many famous cases, criminal and otherwise, had come under his detective ken, yet, because Bullivants Limited preferred to work sub-rosa, few of them had become public property. Also because the great agency made a specialty of those more or less hopeless cases where ordinary police methods failed or were not available. As I glanced him over, and sensed that he must be at least sixty, though he looked not a day over forty-five, I realized perhaps more than ever that Mark Manley was about as far removed from the traditional detective of fiction as a divinity student from a swell-mobsman. Quiet in dress. Smooth shaven, soft-spoken, with the inimitable drawl that only comes from south of Mason and Dixon’s line, he was one of the large colony of Southerners who have helped, along with men from every state in the Union, to make New York the Empire city. Add to this an almost habit of quiet authority which proceeded from the backing of one of the greatest crime-detecting and mysteryunraveling agencies on earth, and you can perhaps account, as I did, for Manley’s air of strength and authority. All these were in mind as I silently watched him carefully select a long, thin, black cigar, snip off the end, blow through it to expel the dust, and slowly light it from a pocket fusee, — for there was a story in the air, prompted by my last question, and I meant to have it. , “Well, suh,” he drawled, “about the queerest case I ever handled down there was what we may call the defalcation at the Borough National, — cashier and a hundred thousand dollars missing over night, as you might say. No, it never got into the papers, and seeing that the chief actor died last —in his own bed, mind you, I guess no one’ll be hurt if I give you the story.” I nodded my comprehension at this introduction, but forebore to disturb Manley’s current of reminscent talk, for this was one of those occasions when silence was golden. So he went on: ‘“riie Borough National was one of our smaller banks, but possessing very strong connections; there was a surplus of something like twelve million dollars, and a board of directors embracing half the solid names on the street. The paying teller was named John Risdale, whom I’d known for years, one of the whitest men that God ever made. “Well, suh, ’twas Just ten years ago. this fall, there’d been nasty panicky times all summer; no real trouble, as you’ll remember, but a good deal of uneasiness. Risdale had stuck to his cage thcough the hot spell, refusing to take a vacation, which was reck oned up against him Afterward, with out any reason, far as I could see. He’d sent his family away,—wife and little daughter—and had been “batching" by himself in their flat on the West Bide. I ought to tell you that the little girl had some sort of incurable hip-disease,—at least no doctor on this side could cure it, though there was an expert in Pariß or Vienna, I forget which, who all but guaranteed cures of that particular deformity. Risdale and his wife aimed to send or take the kiddie abroad, but that meant money,—more than John had been able to lay by out of his fifty dollars a week. "One day, along about this time of year, Risdale went out to lunch at 12 o'clock and never came back. The bank might have got over that,—one teller more or leas didn’t count, —but be happened to take a hundred thousand dollars in cash with him, and that hurt! No, there’d been no juggling with the books nor falsifying depositors’ accounts; the money was Just lifted out of the cash drawer, — one hundred thousand-dollar bills fresh from Uncle Sam's treasury department!

“Of course the shortage was dlscovered when they tried to balance their cash the end of the day’s business; but nobody thought then of connect-

ing John Risdale therewith. He was above suspicion. But when he failed to show up next morning the ban& people changed their tune, A special meeting of the directors was hell, and in ten minutes the loss, if loss it could be called, was made good, and business went on as usual. Just at that time, I guess, no one wanted any publicity, for a mere rumor of trouble might have resulted in more damage than could be repaired in a month of ■Sundays.. There’s nothing easier to Btart than a financial panic, under certain conditions, and once it gets started it usually runs its course like a big fire —until it burns itself out. Naturally the directors were not taking any chances, so they just kept the matter quiet among themselves and called in Bullivants Limited. That’s how I came to be on the case within thirty-six hours. “Well, suh, it was the cleanest and cleverest get-away I ever saw, whether planned beforehand or not. After looking at the thing from the outside I rather thought it was a case of “Not” —but then you can never tell. As I said, I’d known John Risdale for a long time, and I knew that he wasn’t in the common embezzler class. Of course, he might have yielded to sudden temptation, or been living a double life, but after looking up his home suri fundings I couldn’t see it that way. He and his wife were just as much lovers as when they had been married a dozen years before, and he never spent a night away from Mrs. Risdale and the child. There remained one other possibility—speculation in the street, the reef upon which so many bank officers have run aground. But not a clue of that sort could I light on either. Of mail he had very little, and that mostly from country relatives addressed to his flat The ordinary threads that go to make up the criminal skein were not to be picked up in this particular instance, and I must confess that for the time being I had to acknowledge myself at fault. There remained the possibility that Risdale had become a frequenter of broker’s offices or bucket shops, but this theory proved to be as useless as the rest. And yet the man had vanished and a hundred thousand dollars besides! As usual, the agency said “take your time and spare no expense,” so I went at the thing quietly and deliberately. Mrs. Risdale gave me all the help she could —which was mighty little, for the poor woman was mighty near distracted. Luckily they had a few hundreds in the savings bank, so there was no danger of she she and little Lois coming to immediate want. Of course, you couldn’t get Mrs. Risdale to admit for an instant that there was anything crooked about her John. I didn’t blame her either, for I felt that way myself, knowing the man as I did. But you see the best of men do go wrong occasionally—and then there was that hundred thousand dollars!

“Well, suh, I settled down to a long still hunt. For six months I was on the road running false clues to earth, for the absconder—or some one resembling him—was reported by my correspondents all over the states. Naturally I’d sent his photograph broadcast, yet strictly on the q. t., you understand. I’d also bad the European steamships watched on the other side, but nothing came of it Mrs. Risdale put on black and mourned Ifler husband as dead, but that somehow, I didn't believe. Naturally I’d formed a theory of my own, which wasn’t so far wrong as the sequel proved; the only trouble was I couldn’t account for that hundred thousand. And I guess I wouldn’t yet if I hadn’t found John Risdale.

“One day I got a wire from our correspondent in Kingston, Jamaica, saying: “ ‘Your mm here working for wholesale fruit company, assumed name. No mistake. Better come yourself and bring necessary papers.’

“You’ll reckon I took the next boat and landed in Kingston within a week. Saw my correspondent, who posted me up. Risdale—or someone who looked like him —was doing bookkeeping for a fruit-exporting firm, and living quite openly, but under the name of Oliver Hazzard. This was a Joke, if he was really the man I was after, because that was the very name of the president of the Borough National! i.

“I expressed my doubts to Clancy—our local man —for I’d Wen on too many wild-goose chases after John Risdale to be over sanguine. ’Has he been spending mone> ?’ I Inquired. ‘Not so as you’d notice It,' was Clancy’s reply. His pay’s only forty shillings a week, and that don’t go very far In Kingston, let me tell you.’ "Well, where can I get a look at him?” I demanded. “That’s the first thing to settle —whether he’s my man or not.”

“He eats at a little cabaret on Prince George street We’ll drop in there for tiffin.”

"Well, roll, that’s what we did, and the Instant I clapped eyes on him I knew It was Risdale all right, although he was thinner and sallower and more stoop-shouldered; yet there was no mistaking the man’s profile, his aquiline features, his qificjk nervous walk, and his extreme height—at least six feet three or four.

“But what, I asked myself, was he doing in Jamacia? And why? Where was the money? Why the assumed name. Naturally I wanted to recover the loot,* as well as to nab the criminal; but equally, for my own satisfaction and the reputation of Bullivants as for tne sake of that little woman In New York, I wished to solve the mystery—for that there was a mystery, something which took the case of John Risdale out of the ordinary embezzler class, I felt sure. “So for a few days I lay low and shadowed Mr. Olivsr Hazzard. As in New York he was a pattern of method and regularity—never left his lodgings at night, was always on time to the tick in the morning, and apparently enjoyed the trust and esteem of his new employers. “I found he had been in Kingston for over a year; that he had applied for his present job without credentials, and had been taken on sufferance and with some slight suspicion. But apparently all this had vanished, and Bullock & Bullock now trusted him implicitly. The more I learned about ‘Hazzard’ and the more I studied him, now near at hand, then from a safer distance, the more my pet private theory was strengthened. For some days I debated how I should put it to the test, finally deciding upon a sudden surprise. “My man lodged with a widow who

ing here? What place Is this? Am I crazy?” “Not yet, old man,” I assured him soothingly with nqy hand on his arm. “Sit down take a sup of this,” pouring him out a stiff drink of brandy from my pocket-flask. He gulped it down half chokingly, wipihg hiß eyes. Then, more quietly and sanely than I had expected he sayß: “Will you kindly tell me where I am and who I am ?” “Sure thing,” I answered half laughing and handing him a cigar. “You’re John Risdale, my old friend, and this is Kingston, Jamaica. How or why you chose to come here—well, we’ll talk that over.” “The sooner the better,” says he. “Why—why—where’s my wife and poor little Lois?” “All well, and waiting for daddy to come home,” I assured him. “We’ll have you out of this in a jiffy. There’s a Tuesday boat, you know, and you’re going back to New York with me.” “New York!” he exclaimed, again pressing his fingers on his eyeballs. “Yes, —I remember now—it was that damned bank, and —and—” “Yes, yes, that’s all right, John,” I soothed him. "You’ve —er —been ill, you know.”

“Ill!” he flashed on me. “Say, Mark, what day is this?” I gave him the date and the year. “My God!” he groaned under his breath. “Why I saw what was coming and was about to temporize when Risdale broke in:

“Look here, Mark Manley: You used to pose as a friend of mine. If you’re that now, In heaven’s name tell me what all this means. You say I’ve been Ill—perhaps. But there’s more > • S

sciously knew bo* more than I did where that hundred thousand dollars had vanished to. The kindest thing, 1 felt, would be to get him home to his wife and little Lois; indeed, wild horses wouldn’t have kept, him away once we landed. So I saw him safely in their arms, enjoining him not to stir out until he s,aw me again, and then came down here to /think and piece things ; out in some sort of logical order. “My all-along theory was coming true; John Risdale had simply gone out of his head with business worry and fretting over little Lois. Want of money no doubt entered into his troubles, and in this frame he had ab-sent-mindedly picked up the package of money and walked out of the bank, dropping his real identity the instant he got outside. “This was all pure theory, you understand, yet it was afterward borne out by actual happenings. But that didn’t bring me any nearer that hundred thousand dollars; Risdale’s mind was a complete blank and no faking. So after spending half the night in the quiet of this very office I evolved a plan and a test which I believed would at once prove the paying-teller of the Borough National to be an honest man and lead to the recovery of the missing money. But first- I had to-inter-view the bank officers and gain their consent to try my scheme. My idea, you see, was to reproduce for Risdale the actual conditions and surroundings of the day when he disappeared with the money and then see whether his subconscious mental '’processes would lead him along the lines. “Well, suh, next morning I saw President Hazzard, told him the facts, and outlined my plan. He gave his con-

kept a little cottage pretty well down the harbor —this was before the earthquake, you know. The garden ran down to the beach, and here the defaulter was fond of lounging and smoking a pipe after breakfast on Sunday mornings. Here, then, quite privately, I decided to make my attack. Approaching the cottage on foot —it nestled in a riot of tropical flowers and foliage—l made my way, without knocking or ringing, by a side path to a little creeper-covered rustic retreat, from which clouds of escaping blue smoke told me that my man was at home. Stepping quickly to the open front which looked out on Kingston harbor, I found him upright in the doorway, looking moodily out over thp water. He turned and his eyes met mine, but there was no sign of recognition. Without giving him a chance to speak. I said distinctly, yet not loudly: “John Risdale, how are you?”

You've seen men stiffen under an electric shock? That’s exactly what he did, gripping the uprights of the doorway, and looking at me like a startled rabbit

"My God!” he exclaimed, pressing his hands over his eyes and letting his pipe drop on the ground. When he uncovered his face I saw that he knew me.

te it than that, man alive. Why, when you first spoke I didn’t know my own name! Have I been out of my head? [Tell me the truth, or I’ll go mad in earnest!”

Seeing how matters were with him, I judged a dose of plain facts would be better than any subterfuge. So I told him everything, even including the foul suspicion that clouded his name.

“A /defaulter —me!” he exclaimed with a shudder. “Why, as God's my witness, and by the sacred names of my wife and child, I’m innocent —innocent as you yourself! I never touched a red cent of the bank’s money! ” “I know you didn’t,” I replied, for in that moment I felt that John Risdale was an honest man. “but there was a hundred thousand dollars missing from your own cash drawer the very day you disappeared, and you’re the only man who can clear away the mystery. So keep your head and think.”

"Thlnk!" he shouted. “How can an honest man think qdth such a suspicion as that smirching his fair fame! I tell you, Mark ” "No need to tail me, John,” I answered quietly. “I knew all along there, was some mistake, and that’s partly why I traced you here. We’ve got to find that money, and you must help.” “Well, suh, by degrees 1 got him quited and on the Clyde liner for little old New York. On the trip up we had some long heart-talks, which simply served to convince me that John Risdale was blameless—that he con-

“Mark Manley!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “What —where —why—” and he looked around him like a man suddenly awakened from a bad dream. “That’s—that’s my name!” he cried, “ret ” and then “What am I do-

sent and we took steps to put It through. This is what happened after I had carefully coached Risdale as to the part he was to play: Precisely at a quarter of ten he presented himself at the bank as usual, went to his old cage and began to arrange the pile of currency. At the stroke of ten lie opened the brass grill and began to pay out funds as checks were presented. Of course we watched him from a safe distance, but not so aa he could notice our surveillance. Indeed, bo easily did he fall into his old methodical routine that no one would have guessed he’d been away for more than a year. Only once or twice, when a new signature bothered him, did he call the assistant teller. “As 12 o'clock drew near I got nervous, for the truth or the fallacy of my theory was to be proved. When the chimes of Old Trinity across the „way boomed out the four quarters and then the hour, John Risdale—l was watching him from the gallery above s bead—picked up a long manilla envelope, selected from the cash drawer a pinned and banded packet of bills, slid them under the cover, put the envelope In the breast-pocket of his street-coat hanging in the cage, removed bis working jacket, put on the former garment, nodded to his relief, and strolled nonchalantly out, of the bank up Broadway.

“W’ell, suh, I was right at his heels, you bet, fcr John never hurried. Not far did he lead me,—only to the Equitat le building. Here he entered and went downstairs to the safety-deposit vaults. This was a surprise, for no

one knew that he’d eter had a deposit box, but in a flash I sensed what wa» coming, and saw I’d probably mate good. "• - SfgSfe My badge took me through the great steel gates, and I was almost peeking over his shoulder when he drew out box. He was about to slide in the new envelope when something witbia drew his attention. He put in hi* hand, drawing out an envelope the eftact duplicate of the other. Across it was written in red ink: ‘For'Lois in case of the worst’” “He stood there looking dazedly at both envelopes, then with a sudden groan spun on his feet and fell to the floor like a log. I picked up both eni Velopes and glanced hastily at their contents. Each —the old and the new a hundred thousand dollars —a hundred crisp new thousanddollar bills! My theory bad come true, and John Risdale was proved am honest man. In his former fit of aberration, his sub-conscious mind dwelling on little Lois and his inability to afford her the treatment she needed* he had simply sequestered the money in complete ignorance of what he was doing, then placed it in the safety-de> posit box.

My part consisted simply in restoring as far as possible the original mental and physical conditions, trusting that he would repeat himself and lead us to the original place of hiding —which he did.

Afterward I made out that he had wandered down to a North River pier, where he must have crawled aboard a liner. The purser of the Mohawk remembered assigning a stateroom to a passenger who came aboard a few minutes before sailing time. “And what did the bank do?” t could not forbear asking. “Well, suh,” was the answer, “of course there could be n 9 prosecution under the circumstances. John Riftdale was innocent as the babe unborn and the bank hadn’t lost a dollar. So they gave him a bonus for his twenty years of service and retired him on a pension. That bonus, by the way* made Lois Risdale a well woman, and now she’s married with a little son of her own.”