detail is merely flogging a dead horse. The problem is not which way did he go, but where is he now? Not that we care a great deal. He only took a hundred pounds with him—so far as we know at present—so the Bank is not particularly interested in him. Nor am I, officially, though I must confess to some curiosity about him. There are some rather odd features in the case. I am quite sorry that we can’t afford to call you in to investigate them.”
“I expect you are more competent than I am,” said Thorndyke. “Banking affairs are rather out of my province.”
“It isn’t the banking aspect that I am thinking of,” replied Stalker. “Our own accountants can deal with that. But there are some other queer features, and about one of them I am a little uncomfortable. It seems to suggest a miscarriage of justice in another case. But I mustn’t take up your time with irrelevant gossip.”
“But indeed you must,” Thorndyke rejoined. “If you have got a queer case, I want to hear it. Remember, I live by queer cases.”
“It is rather a long story,” objected Stalker, evidently bursting to tell it nevertheless.
“So much the better,” said Thorndyke. “We will have a bottle of wine and make an entertainment of it.”
He retired from the room and presently reappeared with a bottle of Chambertin and a couple of glasses; and having, filled the latter, he provided himself with a writing-pad, resumed his armchair and disposed himself to listen at his ease.
“I had better begin,” said Stalker, “with an account of this present affair. The man who has absconded is a certain James Lewson, who was the manager of a little branch of Perkins’s Bank down at Borley. He ran it by himself, living on the premises and being looked after by the caretaker’s wife. It is quite a small affair—just a nucleus with an eye for the future, for Meux’s do most of the business at Borley, such as it is—and easily run by one man; and everything has gone on quite smoothly there until last Wednesday week. On that day Lewson went out at about a quarter-past seven in the evening. The caretaker saw him go out at the back gate and thought that he looked as if he had been drinking, and on that account he sat up until past twelve o’clock to see him in safely. But he never came home, and as he had not returned by the morning, the caretaker telegraphed up to headquarters.
“Now I happened to be there when the telegram arrived—for I am still on the board of directors and do a bit of work there—and I suggested that old Jewsbury should go down to see what had been happening and take a young man with him to do the routine work while he was going through the books. And as Harold was the only one that could be spared, he was told off for the job. Of course, he fell in with it joyfully, for he thought he saw a possible chance of giving his camera a trial. Accordingly, down he went, with the camera in his trunk, all agog to find a series of some kind that wanted photographing. As soon as they arrived, Jewsbury saw at a glance that some of the cash was missing—a hundred pounds in five-pound Bank of England notes.”
“And the keys?” asked Thorndyke.
“The safe key was missing too. But that had been anticipated, so Jewsbury had been provided with a master-key. The other keys were in the safe.
“Well, as soon as the robbery was discovered, Jewsbury had a talk with the caretaker and the police inspector, who had called to see him. From the caretaker, a steady old retired police sergeant, Jewsbury gathered that Lewson had been going to the bad for some time, taking a good deal more whisky than was good for him. But we needn’t go into that. The police inspector reported that Lewson had been seen at about seven-thirty—that is, within a quarter of an hour of his leaving the bank—turning into a footpath that leads out into the country and eventually to the main London road. The inspector had examined the path and found on it a track of very distinct and characteristic footprints, which he was able to identify as Lewson’s, not only by the description given by the caretaker, who usually cleaned Lewson’s shoes, but by one or two fairly clear footprints in the garden near the back gate, by which Lewson went out. Thereupon, he returned to the footpath and followed the tracks out into the country, through a wood and across a heath until he came to a place where Lewson had left the path and gone off through the heather; and there, of course all traces of him were lost. The inspector went on and searched a by-road and went on to the London road, but not a single trace of him could he discover. At that point where he stepped off the footpath into the heather James Lewson vanished into thin air.”
“Where is the railway station?” Thorndyke asked.
“In the town. There is a little branch station by the London road, but it is certain that Lewson did not go there, for there were no passengers at all on that evening. He must have gone off along the road on foot.
“Now, as soon as Harold heard of those footprints, he decided that his chance had come. The footprints would soon be trodden out or washed away by rain, and they ought to be recorded permanently. That was his view.”
“And a perfectly sound one, too,” remarked Thorndyke.
“Quite. But there was no need for a couple of hundred repetitions.”
“Apparently not,” Thorndyke agreed, “though it is impossible to be certain even of that. At any rate, a superabundance of evidence is a good deal better than a deficiency.”
“Well, that is what Harold thought, or pretended to think, and in effect, he nipped off to the Post Office and got the large-scale ordnance maps that contained his field of operations. Then on the following morning he set to work, leaving Jewsbury to carry on. He began by photographing a pair of the footprints in the garden—they are numbers 1 and 2—and marking them on the map. Then he went off to the footpath and took a photograph about every twenty yards, selecting the most distinct footprints and writing down the number of the exposure on the map at the exact spot on which it was made. And so he followed the track into the country, through the wood, across the heath to what we may call the vanishing point. Number 197 is the last footprint that Lewson made before he turned off into the heather.
“So much for Harold and his doings. Now we come to the queer features of the case, and the first of them is the amount taken. A hundred pounds! Can you imagine a sane man, with a salary of six hundred a year, absconding with such a sum? The equivalent of two months’ salary. The thing seems incredible. And why a hundred pounds only? Why didn’t he take, at least, the whole of the available cash? It is incomprehensible. And in a few days his monthly salary would have been due. Why didn’t he wait to collect that?
“But there is a partial explanation. Only the explanation is more incomprehensible than what it explains. By the evening post on the day on which Jewsbury arrived a letter was delivered, addressed to Lewson, and, under the circumstances, Jewsbury felt justified in opening it. Its contents were to this effect:
“Dear Lewson,
“I expected you to come round last night, as you promised, to settle up. As you didn’t come and have not written, I think it necessary to tell you plainly that this can’t be allowed to go on. If the amount (£97 13s 4d.) is not paid within the next forty-eight hours, I shall have to take measures that will be unpleasant to both of us.
“Yours faithfully,
“Lewis Bateman
“Now this letter seemed to explain the small amount taken. It suggested that Lewson was being pressed for payment and that, as he had not got the wherewith to pay, he had taken the amount out of the cash, trusting to be able to replace it before the periodical audit. But if so, why had he not paid Bateman? And why had he absconded? The letter only deepens the mystery.”
“Is
