Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 208, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1917 — I The Protector of Finance [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

I The Protector of Finance

I' Tales of Resilius Marvel, Guardian of Bank Treasure

By WELDON J. COBB

| THE DEAD YEAR’S HARVEST -

THERE was a quick call at the telephone, and Resilius Marvel seized the receiver as ■ though he had been expecting a message. I knew by the expression of his eyes that the first word imparted over the wire met his anticipations. Then I heard him ask in rapid succession: - “Letters —numbers —series?” He penciled rapidly on his shirt cuff as the replies came. “Verify.” were his final words: *’ 'E--296,701, Series of 1906.’ Very well,” and hung up the receiver and arose to his feet "Come with me,” he added simply, and I knew that the great head of the United Protective association was started* on another “case.” “ *E. 1906,’ ” I observed with a sudden shock of memory as we reached the street—-“if that applies to a one hundred dollar treasury note—” “It does,”’ vouchsafed Marvel terse-

ly. "Then you probably have the man. “If Instructions have been followed, yes,” replied my friend. “Who is it?” "The Central National.” "That makes ten." "You keep good tab," complimented Marvel— "exactly ten. What an optimist this original shover of the queer must be!” Briefly, within a week ten counterfeit SIOO notes had been passed upon the city banks. On a certain Monday morning a spruce, sprightly young man of about twenty-five had come into our institution and had presented himself at the paying teller’s window with five SIOO treasury notes. He asked to have them changed into bills of smaller denominations and was readily accommodated. • The teller had noted they were comparatively new, that their serial numbers were consecutive. An expert glance satisfied him, however, that they were all right They were placed with other hundreds to makejip a package of twenty, or SI,OOO, and nothing more was thought of it.

Four mornings later Resilius Marvel came into the bank with No. 296, 695 of the same series. Across its face was stamped the word “Counterfeit” in broad red letters taking in the full front surface of the note. "Have you any of those?” he inquired, placing the bill before me. “I will find out,” I replied, and then rather wonderlngly scanned the note. It would have passed muster with me, and I counted myself something of a specialist in my line. It took half an hour to go the rounds of the cages. It is almost second nature for a teller to remember any bill he has handled, especially those of large denomination. The man who had changed the treasury notes for a straiiger soon had the five in question in evidence. Two more of the SIOO notes turned up twenty-four hours later at another institution. Then two other banks each contributed like bills. In each case a smiling, easy-mannered young fellow had passed the notes. Marvel had named progress to me as it culminated. Now a tenth note had turned up. I accompanied him to the Central National. , The floor officer was waiting for Marvel, and knew him. There was a flutter of importance and excitement in his manner at being concerned in a professional transaction with the great head of the United Bankers Protective association. He took us to the paying teller, saying nothing, but looking the part of an humble Instrument of justice who had eo-op-erated in "capturing a crook.” The teller, looking wise and keen and in a suppressed way exultant, beckoned to us, and we went beyond the railing and around into an anteroom, where he joined us.

“There 1b one of the hundred you flagged for us, Mr. Marvel," he said, -and handed a >IOO bill to my friend. Resilius Marvel nodded, gave the bill a close scrutiny, and returned it to the teller with the words: “Cancel It and preserve it for evidence. Where is the man?” The teller slipped the note Into his coat pocket and took out a key. “This way,” he directed, and we followed him down a narrow corridor. As he started to open a steel-studded door Marvel halted him. “One moment," he said —"tell me the circumstances of the “Why, your warning had prepared us all, of course,” explained the bank man. “When the fellow with his note presented it, I pretended to be called by my assistant in the next cage. I quietly pressed the call button, signaling what I wanted to the chief clerk's desk. He and the floor officer came up quietly. The man at the window looked amazed and indignant M the officer seized his arm. He demanded to know what his arrest meant. When I told him that the bill was counterfeit, it seemed to me as if all of a sudden some frightful suggestion drove his face colorless. He nearly fell to the floor Now? Yes, Mr. Marvel," and the speaker unlocked the door. He started back as he opened it, and stared blankly at a man ■tending in the center of the

place before a high desk with a table top. “Too bad!” spoke Marvel quickly, as he crowded past our guide and his eye swept the room in his rapid, comprehensive way. I did not make out what Marvel had taken in with that practised eye of his at a glance, until I had got nearly up to the desk, which I found was one used in sealing money envelopes. A strong gas jet was going. Near it were the steel dies, wax sticks and cord used in securing packages. The prisoner had evidently been busy during his brief period of forced retirement. A pair of small scissors and a safety razor lay on the table. Also, under the gas jet was quite a heap of fresh, warm cinders. The eyebrows of the captive were jagged and irregular, and his -upper lip was rough and scraped. “He has tried to disguise himself!” shppted the bank teller, instantly. “To disfigure himself, you mean,’.’ interpolated Marvel. “He has done more than that. He has been busy removing all identification marks — papers, clothing tags—hello! what’s this?" behind the man there suddenly sprang out a small lively dog. He was of the fox terrier breed, and barked at us lustily.

"Oh, the animal was with him when he came into the bank,” explained the teller. “Followed him in here. Belongs to him, I suppose.” "I see,” nodded my friend, thoughtfully. "Now, then, my man!” He fixed his eye sharply on the prisoner. The latter did not flinch under the cynosure. He must have been a handsome appearing young man before he had jabbed those scissors into his eyebrows. He was very pale, but there was nothing of the fringing or alarmed culprit about him. "I see it is useless to ask you your name,” observed Marvel. “We will make a search, but I fancy you have forestalled what you were shrewd enough to suspect awaited you." My friend was right. The man had cut off even the laundry marks on his linen, had removed every letter and. card from his pocketbook, and had burned them on the marble top of the sealing table. t

"You won’t tell your name, of course,” said MarveL “Will you talk at all?” “I will make only one statement,” came the cool, composed reply. “I shall be glad to receive it,” replied Marvel. "I did not know until half hour since that I was passing counterfeit money.” "You know it now?” “Yes,” came the response, accompanied with a tremor of the finely chiseled lips. "I had ten SIOO bills, and I have passed them all.” “Where did you get them?” “I will answer that question and rest-my case there,” was the singular reply. "After that it is up to you to do what you choose; and after that I shall absolutely refuse to say one word —I found them.” That was all —all at the start, all at the finish. Argument, menaces, cajolery, sympathy—these went for nothing. Marvel studied the prisoner silently. Then he whispered to the teller. The latter retired, to reappear with the floor officer. Marvel gave this man some low-toned instructions. The officer placed a come-along upon the wrist of the prisoner. "You can leave the dog,” spoke Marvel suddenly.

The prisoner turned and his lips parted. He was evidently about to put in a plea for the continued companionship of the little animal, whom he seemed to regard with fondness. With something of a sigh, ~he pressed utterance, however, pulled his hat down over his eyes and stolidly accompanied the officer from the place. • “Get me a piece of stout cord,” Marvel directed the teller, and in another few minutes we were on bur way to the offices of the United Bankers’ Protective association. The little animal whined and worried, but trotted along, guided by Marvel. The latter turned the dog loose in an empty room and sat down in his own favorite chair in his private office. "There is some thinking to do,” he observed, “but I should like to have you back here about an hour before dusk.” - I was curious enough and interested enough to greet the Invitation as a favor, and said so. "And by the way, my friend," he called after me as I reached the door, “that young man we have secured told the truth—he did not know the >IOO bills were counterfeit until the teller at the Central National told him so." . ' '“ ' —■ ■■ I wondered how Resilius Marvel had found this out, but I knew he was right He usually treasured up his deductions and discoveries until a case wan ended. When he anticipated an announcement, I had found in the past, it was only when he was very sure of his ground.— When I reached his office again it was well on towards evening. Marvel was ready with the Ilttle sex terrier

under his arm. With the animal, he led the way to an auto, and we proceeded back to the Central National. The city center streets were comparatively deserted, as the business crowds had gone homewards some time since. Marvel carried the dog to the barred front of the bank, set the little animal on the pavement and returned to the machine “Just follow that dog,” he ordered to the chauffeur, and fixed his eye closely upon the object of his interest. The fox terrier crowded through the barred gate protecting the entrance to the bank, ran up to the great bronze doors and lifted its head and howled. Then it sniffed around in a circle, came out to the pavement, threw its nose up in the air in several directions and trotted down the street beclthe, . There could be no doubt that the clever animal knew the way home, for it proved never at fault, never hesitated, and buckled down sturdily as if knowing it had a long jaunt ahead. This proved true. It made only square turns at corners, and gradually left the business center for the better residence portion of the city. "Keep close,” directed Marvel to the chauffeur as the animal reached a broad boulevard and increased its pace. “Follow,” he ordered additionally, as the dog suddenly diverged from its course and turned down a broad alley. Then, as our forerunner reached an iron fence inclosing a garden and crowded through between two pickets, Marvel spoke one quick, imperative word: “Stop!” leaped out of the machine and ran up to the fence. < I could see beyond him. The dog had burst into a joyful bark, and al*

most instantly a stout woman, evidently a servant, crossed my range of vision. She caressed and talked to the leaping animal and walked to the fence, as if expecting that the animal’s arrival prefaced that of its expected master. She came directly up to Marvel, the fence between them. He spoke to her and she answered him, took a look down the alley, and, turning, went back towards a pretentious appearing mansion facing the avenue.

“Drive to the next street and wait for us,” Marvel said to. the chauffeur, and beckoned me to join him. “We will get around to the front of the house," he remarked, as we completed the length of the lane, and turned to carry out this plan. “That is the home of the dog. I asked the woman you saw if the dog belonged there.” "And she said yes?” "With the addendum that its owner was the nephew of her master, and she wondered why he did not come home with the animal, as he usually did." __......-- — It was no task to locate the front of the lot where the dog had run to cover. It was an imposing stone structure. We halted in front of it, and my friend read aloud the name engraven on the broad old-style silver plate on one of the ornamental front doors: "Arnold Buckingham.” Then Resilius Marvel looked at me, and my eyes meeting his expressive glance, full of wonder, reflected somewhat a manifest surprise, if not a positive shock in his own. There was not a better name at the banks than that of Arnold Buckingham. Resilius Marvel knew it from hearsay, and I from practical knowledge of a financial responsibility rated wayuptn the millions. There could not help but b« A-direct challenge in my face. My companion simply shrugged his shoulders. "Come,” he said, his course of procedure boldly formulated in his mind within the space of a minute, , and he led the way up the steps, rang the front door bell and stepped inside the vestibule. I wondered w£at strange freak of fate had led us to thia lordly mansion, to the presence of a man retired from active business with a royal fortune, his honored record a Synonym . for

hish business Integrity, his name good for the entire reserve of our bank. I wondered, too, how my friend, skilled and all powerful as he was, would proceed in a case where the sure criminal trail led straight from the portals of a common prison to this abode of luxury and wealth. A servant answered a question put by Marvel, and ushered him into a majestic reception room, took his card, and we both arose as a man aged, austere, dignified, came into the apartment with an easy, old-fashioned sense of courtesy that charmed me. He had Marvel’s card-Ip his hand, and I fancied the name it bore had aroused him into curiosity or interest as to the personality it represented. Marvel weighed his man in the scales of a mature judgment, and went to’ the heart of his subject forthwith. “I have come on an important and serious mission in behalf of the government, Mr. Buckingham,” he announced. “Of the —government?" Very slowly, as though difficult of Utterance, Mr. Buckingham pronounced that last word. I thought he quivered, I was sure his natural ruddy color lessened. "You have a relative, a nephew, I understand,” resumed Marvel; and then followed a rapid description of the young man who had passed the SIOO counterfeits- —plus his denuded mustache —building up a portrait that I saw at once was recognizable by our host. “You are describing my nephew, Alan Dean,” said Mr. Buckingham, steely cold, because he was controlling himself. "What of him, sir?” “Just this, Mr. Buckingham: He is in my hands after passing ten coun-

terfelt SIOO treasury notes on the city banks.” The old man, his hands grasping the arms of the chair, tried to hold himself together. He directed one look at Marvel —reproachful, pleading, a lost look. His were the eyes of a man who saw a stranger enter his presence and bring a stately fabric Into the midst of sudden devastation and ruin. “Where —where is my nephew?” his lips framed, rather than uttered. “How came fie to find the notes —?” It was an admission, and I noted Marvel’s lips settle grimly—a point scored, a start made. - “If you had the notes In this house/’ he ventured audaciously, “what of the plates from which they were printed?” “You know all! Then it is—ruin!” broke in a despairing cry from the old man's lips. “Quick, call someone!” directed Marvel, as Buckingham fell to. one side. A spasm convulsed his frame and he lay rigid and speechless. My friend had lifted him to an easier position, while I hastened to the.hall and advised the servant there of his master’s condition. We waited until after a physician had been called. He shook his head seriously while they placed the millionaire on a couch. Then he went to work on him. His attitude became more reassuring as the patient recovered consciousness and looked about him in a bewildered way. Then as his eye fell on Marvel the old fright or fear, terror or apprehension, or whatever it was, came back into his face.

“Take,” he urged, “a blank signed check. Fill in for any amount only save —save my family from shame.” :‘.’And the plates?" gently but firmly persisted Marvel, waving back the orogeredcheck. “Come —come —” the tortured tones grew more feeble, “when I—l send for you.” We saw that he was going into another sinking spell. Marvel hastily summoned the physician, and we passed down the hall and out of the house. Silently my friend led the way to the machine awaiting us at th* corner of the next streets reached his office, dismissed 4h« chauffeur and nodded a casual adieu to myself. I could not resist an Impulse of in-

tens® curiosity and Impatience to drop in upon him on my way to the bank the next morning. I found, him with a newspaper folded across his knee and his eyes regarding it with a vexed expression. "Did -you see it?” he inquired. I guessed what, and told him so, and ran hurriedly over an< 4tpm an-, nounclng that a new SIOO treasury note counterfeit —the particulars concerning which, even to the approximate serial numbers, were givenhad appeared on the market. "Some one has babbled,” scolded my friend. “It may make a complication.” I did not see how, just then. I knew better —later. Marvel had nothing to impart to me of progress or importance in the ease, but late that afternoon there came a hurry call for me from him. I closed my desk and was soon in his company. He handed me a card which he took from an envelope. It read simply, in pencil scrawl: "I must see you.—A. B." “I- may need you,” observed my friend, and after a half hour’s spin we arrived at the home of the millionaire. «

The servant who answered the summons at the door seemed to know we were expected. She led us down the hall to a sort of library, saying that Mr. Buckingham was engaged, but that she would announce our presence shortly. Then she left us alone in the room, half darkened by the approaching shadows of eventide. I caught some rapid words from a room beyond the heavy draperies, evidently a smoking apartment off the library. I noted, however, that Marvel heard them quicker than I, for he moved from his seat to a chair closer to the masked doorway. The words, not. in the tones of Mr. Buckingham, were rapid, Insistent, almost menacing: "The plates—the plates!” There was an utterance akin to a groan, and it proceeded from the lips of the millionaire, I readily traced. Then the former voice, only clacking, wheedling and menacing at the same time, spoke again: “Mr. Buckingham, I am here in the Interests of a client who has one proposition to make to you. My promise ends with a distinct and final negative or affirmative. It places me In a regrettable and unfortunate position to be the representative of men who are dangerous criminals, but — I am a lawyer. Shall I briefly state the case?"

There was no reply, at least none audible to us. The speaker continued: i "Some years ago, your son Percival Buckingham, chief engraver for the government, was taken ill and removed to a sanitarium while you were absent In Europe. Too close application to delicate expert work had blighted his mind. He escaped from the sanitarium, and three men I not name, but once known as the most finished shovers of the queer In the world, got hold of him. They saw their opportunity and Improved it They were shrewd, capable men and made no blunders. What they did you will now learn for the first time. “Those men secured the upper floor of a lonely, secluded house. They fitted it up as nearly as possible like one of the work rooms in the treasury department. They took your deluded qgtn there, and made him believe that he was producing new 1906 series SIOO plates for the government For nearly a year that was his home. His mind did not refuse to act mechanically along the line eye and skill had directed for so many years. In brief, he made two plates, so perfect that they were almost duplicates of the original government plates. Twelve Impressions were made, and two of these were tested by being placed in circulation. Today they are somewhere in existence, their validity never doubted. Within that week it must have been, while unguarded and alone, your son hafi a flash of-his old mentality. At all events, when his three captors returned they found him gone, and with him the two treasury plates and the ten printed SIOO bills.

“Now for your end of the story, as I understand it: Your son appeared at this home, suddenly, unexpectedly. He must have brought the plates and the notes. You believed him a counterfeiter, for before he could explain to you, his Insane mood returned. You at once removed him to a private asylum. Later you sent him with a relative, Alan Dean, to Paris. He regained his reason. Today he occupies a studio in the French capital, patronized by devotees of high art. Happily married, all that year of mental darkness, forgotten, restored to his right mind, he is a wonderful producer of art etchings, a man of fame, and marvelously prosperous. You have been content to keep him out of the country. You never sought to enlighten him as to that lost year in his life.” “I know all this—why go over it!” came in muffled tones of suffering from the ■millionaire. “So that the matter may be clearly understood between us,” was the prompt response. “Within a week after your son’s escape from the counterfeiters, one of their number came to see you. He caused you to believe that your son had deliberately left the; government service to go Into a scheme to secure millions by using his professional skill as a couftteyfeiter. You told him a lie. You led him to believe that your son bad destroyed the ten treasury notes and the two plates. The man, however, threatened to find the son you had hidden away, to denounce him io the police as a dangerous counterfeiter. To silence this man, you paid $50,000, and that ended the matter for the time being."

* ~ j' .? •75 ■ ■r- .. .5~- x " "I know not bow." continued the lawyer; "but my client, when today he saw the announcement in the newspapers that certain, counterfeit SIOO treasury notes of a certain series were in circulation, at once was forced to an irresistible conclusion. Those notes came from this house they could come from nowhere else. Your nephew, only recently arrive* from Paris, where your son is living, is missing from your home since yesterday. A man answering his description passed the notes. Putting this and that together, my client reasons that you have also the plates. Ho must have them.”

Again a groan from the lips of the tortuted man. We heard a tottering step cross the floor. Marvel was at my side as the draperies were agitated. He reached me in a swift glide and drew me beside him to a curtained alcove in the library as Arnold Buckingham entered and turned on a light. The old man’s lips were trembling and he was whispering hoarsely to himself. His eyes were those of a man on the verge of losing his senses. He produced a key, opened a strongbox safe, and from some inner recess drew out two oblong pieces of metaL In a flash Marvel was at his side. "On your life, not a word!” he abjured the shrinking, well-nigh stricken millionaire. "I will deal with the wretches who seek to blackmail you.” Tpressed to the side of Buckingham and supported him, or he would have fallen. I saw Marvel hold the plates toward, the light. He drew a magnifying glass from his pocket and looked them over. What was the significance of the quick, momentary smile that crossed his lips, I knew not then. Before I could even conjecture a cause, he had parted the draperies, and I heard the lawyer’s metallic voice exclaim: "Resilius Marvel!" "You know me,” was the stern reply. “And I you, Israel Craft, disbarred attorney, fence, go-between and agent of the hunted and lost. Yon do well to strain the limit of justice to the danger point” “I am within the law," crackled from the mean, servile lips. "Admitted. What I wish to know is—have you the affidavits you boasted of to Mr. Arnold Buckingham a minute since?" “I have." "Will you add a statement of your knowledge of this unfortunate business?" < ........ "For the plates—yes." Marvel led the man into the librar ry. Hp pointed to an open desk, and said simply: "Write." It was at the end of ten minutes that I saw Resilius Marvel receive into his hands four documents. Ha scrutinized them closely. Then ha said:

“There are the plates. Now your men and my men are —quits." I was amazed —more than that* petrified. I saw Marvel accompanying the lawyer to the door. Then, returning, he drew Buckingham aside. He conversed with him in low tones. At the end of ten minutes I saw hope and courage come into’ the face of the old man. It was the relief and gratitude of a person drawn from the edge of a fearsome precipice. “The nephew who passed those notes, and who recently came from the son in Paris,” explained Marvel as we left the mansion, “was told by Percy Buckingham that he might have what he found in his old home room. He stumbled across those counterfeit notes. The son is in happy ignorance of that blighted year la his life. The father need bear ne further anxiety. He will reimburse the banks gladly, the affair must be hushed up, and the naan who gets the plates—” He paused in an impressive way. Then Resilius Marvel laughed—a low, strange laugh of intense satisfaction“But they have them! I do not understand,” I floundered. “They have them, yes,” assented Marvel, “and. so much worthies* trumpery they are.” “I do not yet comprehend you.” “They bear a sure record, that in his lucid awakening the night of hi* escape, - Percy Buckingham placed upon them,” said Marvel. “They are as useless as old metal.” “You mean—?’’ “When these knaves come to print their issue, they will find that, finely but plainly engraven across front and back plate, is one warning word.” “You mean?” * ’Counterfeit’" <-