The Million-Dollar Suitcase

								

the others, with its tone of nonchalance, rather than reassuring them.
Worth Gilbert leaned forward and looked round in my direction with,
"This is beginning to be interesting. What do the police say of it?"
"We've not thought well to notify them yet." Whipple's eye consulted
that of his cashier and he broke off. Quietly the clerks got out with
the last load of securities; Knapp closed the door carefully behind
them, and as he returned to us, Whipple repeated, "I had no idea it was
so big," his tone almost pleading as he looked from one to the other.
"But I felt from the first that we'd better keep this thing to
ourselves. We don't want a run on the bank, and under present financial
conditions, almost anything might start one. But--almost a million
dollars!"
He seemed unable to go on; none of the other men at the table had
anything to offer. It was the silent youngster, the outsider, who spoke
again.
"I suppose Clayte was bonded--for what that's worth?"
"Fifteen thousand dollars," Knapp, the cashier, gave the information
dully. The sum sounded pitiful beside that which, we were to
understand, had traveled out of the bank as currency and unregistered
securities in Clayte's suitcase.
"Bonding company will hound him, won't they?" young Gilbert put it
bluntly. "Will the Clearing House help you out?" in the tone of one
discussing a lost umbrella.
"Not much chance--now." Whipple's face was sickly. "You know as well as
I do that we are going to get little help from outside. I want you to
all stand by me now--keep this quiet--among ourselves--"
"Among ourselves!" rapped out Kirkpatrick. "Then it leaks--we have a
run--and where are you?"
"No, no. Just long enough to give Boyne here a chance to recover our
money without publicity--try it out, anyhow."
"Well," said Anson sullenly, "that's what he's paid for. How long is it
going to take him?"
I made no attempt to answer that fool question; Cummings spoke for me,
lawyer fashion, straddling the question, bringing up the arguments pro
and con.
"Your detective asks for publicity to assist his search. You refuse it.
Then you've got to be indulgent with him in the matter of time.
Understand me, you may be right; I'm not questioning the wisdom of
secrecy, though as a lawyer I generally think the sooner you get to the
police with a crime the better. You all can see how publicity and a
sizable reward offered would give Mr. Boyne a hundred thousand
assistants--conscious and unconscious--to help nab Clayte."
"And we'd be a busted bank before you found him," groaned Knapp. "We've
got to keep this thing to ourselves. I agree with Whipple."
"It's all we can do," the president repeated.
"Suppose a State bank examiner walks in on you Monday?" demanded the
attorney.
"We take that chance--that serious chance," replied Whipple solemnly.
Silence after that again till Cummings spoke.
"Gentlemen, there are here present twelve of the principal stockholders