picking on me. I did no thievin’. I’m an honest man.”
“Nobody doubts that for a moment, Mr. Anderson—but you fill a rather significant role in that you were the only person on hand at the approximate time the gold was stolen.”
“You know the time, then?”
“I’m afraid not, but we know it happened during the night when you were on duty.”
“How can you be sure of that?” The old man’s jaw began to project argumentatively.
“Because it’s obvious,” Hargraves replied, quite controlled.
“I say it isn’t. That gold, so I’m told, was put in the strongroom toward four in the afternoon. It was found to have gone when Mr. Burton opened up this morning. I don’t come on duty till seven. There’s three hours when something could have happened—three hours in which I was not there. Why pick on me?”
Hargraves cleared his throat. “I agree that there were three hours in which something could have occurred, but I am quite satisfied that nothing did. The time when that gold was stolen was obviously when vigilance was at its slackest—during the night, when the normal bank staff were absent. Didn’t you, Mr. Anderson, hear anything during that time?”
“Not a thing.”
“How far were you from the strongroom?”
“Quite a little distance. The strongroom is in the basement, as you know, and my small office where I have my chow and a sit-down is on the ground floor. Naturally, I always keep my office door open when I’m in there, and from it I have a clear view of the basement steps.”
“And nobody went down them?”
“No—or came up, either. I can swear to that. As I keep on telling you: there wasn’t a sound all night.”
“What,” Hargraves asked, “is your office like?”
“Ain’t much. There’s a chair and a table, on which are a telephone and a set of alarm buttons in case anything happens—which last night it didn’t. Oh, and a small radio. I spend a lot of time listening to it—turned down low, of course. I asked Mr. Mackinley if I could,” he added, as Hargraves raised an eyebrow in mild reproof.
“Would it be loud enough to drown any slight sounds somewhere in the building?”
Anderson thought for a moment, then he sighed. “Come to that, I suppose it would. But I’d hear anything loud,” he went on earnestly. “And I maintain that nobody could’ve removed that much gold without making a sound of some kind.”
“Quite true, but the fact that your attention was distracted by the radio is interesting because—”
“Wait a minute!” Anderson exclaimed suddenly, a faraway look in his eyes. “I’ve just thought of something. I didn’t have the radio on last night after ten o’clock because of interference. It was so bad it drowned the program.”
Hargraves frowned slightly. “Drowned the program? Around ten o’clock? What program was it?”
“Singing festival from the Albert Hall. National program on the BBC.”
“Hmmm. I listened to that for a time as well, but I didn’t notice any interference. Could have been a local trouble, of course.”
“Whatever it was it finished things for me. I had to switch the radio off.”
Hargraves nodded rather tiredly. “All right, Mr. Anderson. Thanks for coming along. Just routine, you understand.”
Anderson grunted something, picked up his battered hat, and then departed.
Hargraves sat in silence, lost in moody speculations.
“Not much gravy in that, sir,” Brice remarked, glancing up from the typewritten notes he had made of the brief interview.
“No. That’s the trouble.” Hargraves tapped the desk indecisively, his lips compressed. Then he went on:
“It’s the absolute lack of anything to go on that has me stopped. PC Harkins has double-checked the bank’s closed-circuit TV camera recordings, and agrees with what Burton told us earlier: nobody entered the bank during the night! And there’s just nothing in Anderson’s statement to give us a lead either.”
“Do you suspect him, sir?”
Hargraves waved a hand impatiently.
“As for suspecting Anderson— I’d as soon suspect my own grandfather! He’s neither the wit, nor the strength, to contrive a major theft like this.”
Brice nodded and stood reflecting. Hargraves glanced at him.
“What about the alibis of Burton and Mackinley? Did you have them checked?”
“I did. Watertight in both cases. So now we’re reduced to suspecting somebody in the general bank staff.”
Hargraves shook his head. “I think they’re clean enough. Let’s look at the thing logically. That gold couldn’t be removed without somebody opening the strongroom door. Right?”
“Right!”
“Only two men knew the combination of the time lock—Mackinley himself, and Burton. The rest of the staff didn’t even know the combination.”
“Which indicates an outsider,” Brice said decisively.
“So I begin to think. There’s no mystery as to how an outsider knew about the gold since the papers have been splashing the business for some time. An outsider, given the information as to when the gold would be put in the vault, only needed to work out how to get the gold out of the vault. That bit stumps us, but if we can get a lead on who attempted the feat we can at least start.”
“Anybody particular in mind?”
“No. It’s difficult to pin down since gold would attract almost anybody. Might have a check-up made on all the big crooks we know and see what their movements were last night. Also have all people within range of the bank questioned. To get the gold out, there must have been activity of some kind, and it’s possible that somebody saw something. A belated homecomer, an uneasy sleeper looking through the window, even a drunk maybe. Anyway, get all the information you can root out.”
“Right, sir. I’ll do that. And you? Taking any special line?”
“I might have another word or two with Mackinley. A new angle occurs to me— This might conceivably be a crime with a double purpose. Revenge, as well as the material gain.”
“I’m not with you, sir,” Brice confessed.
“Mackinley may have a bitter and ingenious enemy somewhere. It wouldn’t be surprising for a man in his position. I might do worse than find out if there is such a person. If that person has the qualifications for pulling a trick like this I’ll go further. Anyhow, it’s worth a try. You follow your line and I’ll follow mine. We’ll check here later. Right?”
“Right!”
