my eyes are wrong, or something.” Burton was looking sick. “Go and look, Edwards. Go and look!”
Burton swayed. He might even have fallen if the assortment of tellers and cashiers around him hadn’t supported him. Edwards went leaping down the stairs and a ghastly silence followed.
Then he came back slowly into view.
“Yes,” Edwards said, staring up. “It’s gone! The whole lot of it! It was ceiling-high when it was put in.”
“Where’s Mr. Mackinley?” Burton asked abruptly.
“Not here yet, sir. It’s only a little after nine.”
“Yes. Yes—of course.”
Burton shook himself and tried to get a grip on things. Slowly he went up the remainder of the stairs and then stood in the tiled hall, thinking.
The staff came up behind him, waiting.
“I suppose,” Burton said at last, “that I should send for the police immediately—but I’d better wait and see what Mr. Mackinley says. In the meantime I’ll check if the closed-circuit TV cameras picked anything up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As you say, Mr. Burton.”
Everybody was extraordinarily polite, and nobody knew what to make of the situation. Gradually the staff disbanded and moved to their different working positions in readiness for the day’s business.
As for Burton, he was almost deaf, dumb and blind to everything—as well he might be. The gold had been entrusted to him.
Outside Mackinley, he was the only one who knew the combination of the time lock. Whichever way he looked at it, the situation was alarming.
Pulling himself together, Burton let himself into the room containing the closed circuit television monitor screen. Half afraid of what he might see, he fast-forwarded through the recordings from the previous night and early morning.
As he watched, his bafflement and sense of foreboding increased. Apart from the night watchman himself, they appeared to clearly show that absolutely nobody else had entered the bank.
If anything, this increased Burton’s nervousness. If nobody had entered the bank during the night, then how had the gold been stolen?
But even with fifty million in gold missing, business carries on—on the surface—as usual. It did so at Mackinley’s Bank, and Mackinley himself certainly saw nothing unusual when eventually he arrived toward 10:30.
Within five minutes, however, the blow had fallen.
Mackinley had barely settled himself at his desk, about to select his first cigar of the day, when there came a heavy knock on his door.
Before he could answer, the door burst open, and Burton came into the room.
Mackinley lost the expression of pleasant benevolence, but checked the angry expostulation on his lips as he caught sight of Burton’s strained features.
The chief cashier sank down, uninvited, into a seat near the desk. He leaned forward, gulped nervously, and said:
“The gold’s gone! Every bit of it—”
Mackinley’s heavy features registered a range of emotions as he listened to Burton’s halting account of the events. Anger gave way to sheer disbelief.
“But—but it’s fantastic!” he declared flatly, as a genuinely frightened Burton finished telling him of the facts. “Absolutely fantastic! It couldn’t happen!”
“But it did, sir. And as I’ve said, I didn’t rely on my own judgment. I had others look as well. There’s no doubt about it. The gold has gone.”
Mackinley finally lighted his cigar and then looked at the glowing end broodingly. The disbelief on his face had changed to grim worry.
“Have you told Scotland Yard?” he asked briefly.
“I haven’t told anybody but you, sir. I wanted your suggestions.”
“Get Scotland Yard immediately! In any case, the staff knows about it, and with all respect to their vows of secrecy, one of them will let the cat out of the bag. We’ve got to get action. Once this news hits the papers I’ll be ruined!”
“Surely not, sir—”
Mackinley banged his fist on the desk. “Look here, Burton, would you trust a bank that lets fifty million in gold slide out of its strong vault? I wouldn’t, and that’s flat!”
As Burton dithered, the magnate added: “Never mind, I’ll get the Yard myself.”
Mackinley whipped up the telephone; then glanced again at the distraught Burton.
“Pull yourself together man, and get back on the job. And not a word more about this: it’s up to the police to handle it. At all costs we must try to keep it out of the papers— Hello, that Scotland Yard? This is Joseph Mackinley speaking—”
And so Mackinley set the wheels turning. Within fifteen minutes Chief Inspector Hargraves was on the spot, accompanied by Detective Sergeant Harry Brice and a couple of ordinary constables. They arrived unobtrusively and were admitted to the bank by a rear door.
They were met by Mackinley and Burton, and as Mackinley nodded to him the head cashier again related the facts.
The main points had already been given by the magnate in his telephone call, but Hargraves listened without interruption until Burton had finished his personal account.
“And you say you’ve examined the bank’s closed-circuit television recordings—which showed nothing?” Hargraves asked sharply, looking at the hapless Burton.
“Well, just briefly, Chief Inspector. I’ve only fast-forwarded through them: there hasn’t really been time....”
Hargraves turned to one of his constables. “Better take a closer look, Harkins.” He looked back enquiringly at Burton. “Can you fix that?”
Burton glanced at Mackinley, who nodded his assent. As Burton and the constable left the group, Hargraves turned back to the magnate.
“Now I’d like to see the strongroom for myself, Mr. Mackinley,” he said, and the other nodded grimly.
“Of course. Follow me, gentlemen.”
He led the way down the basement steps, and thence to the basement itself and the still open strongroom.
Sergeant Brice made a swift examination of the door lock, being careful not to touch it. Then he looked back at his superior. “Absolutely no sign of forced entry sir.”
“Naturally,” the chief inspector said, as Mackinley stood beside him, “I remember the gold being placed here since I had a detail of men on guard duty during the process. And now the gold has obviously gone. Right!”
Mackinley did not say anything.
