The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime - Michael Sims [100]
“Uh—my name? Oh, Hanson. Remember now, ready about nine tomorrow.”
Jasper walked to the railroad station. It was ten minutes of one. Jasper did not ask the night operator about the next train into Vernon. Apparently he knew that there was a train stopping here at St. Clair at one-thirty-seven. He did not sit in the waiting room but in the darkness outside on a truck behind the baggage room. When the train came in he slipped into the last seat of the last car, and with his soft hat over his eyes either slept or appeared to sleep. When he reached Vernon he went off the direct route from the station to his boardinghouse, and came to the garage in which he regularly kept his car. He stepped inside. The night attendant was drowsing in a large wooden chair tilted back against the wall in the narrow run-way which formed the entrance to the garage.
Jasper jovially shouted to the attendant: “Certainly ran into some hard luck. Ignition went wrong—I guess it was the ignition. Had to leave the car down at Wanagoochie.”
“Yuh, hard luck, all right,” assented the attendant.
“Yump. So I left it at Wanagoochie,” Jasper emphasized as he passed on.
He had been inexact in this statement. It was not at Wanagoochie, which is south, but at St. Clair, which is north, that he had left the car.
He returned to his boardinghouse, slept beautifully, hummed in his morning shower bath. Yet at breakfast he complained to his landlady of his continuous headache, and announced that he was going to run up north, to Wakamin, to get some bass fishing and rest his eyes. She urged him to go.
“Anything I can do to help you get away?” she queried.
“No, thanks. I’m just taking a couple of suitcases, with some old clothes and some fishing tackle. Fact, I have ’em all packed already. I’ll probably take the noon train north if I can get away from the bank. Pretty busy now, with these pay rolls for the factories that have war contracts for the Allies. What’s it say in the paper this morning?”
Jasper arrived at the bank, carrying the two suitcases and a neat, polite, rolled silk umbrella, the silver top of which was engraved with his name. The doorman, who was also the bank guard, helped him to carry the suitcases inside.
“Careful of that bag. Got my fishing tackle in it,” said Jasper to the doorman, apropos of one of the suitcases, which was heavy but apparently not packed full. “Well, I think I’ll run up to Wakamin today and catch a few bass.”
“Wish I could go along, sir. How is the head this morning? Does it still ache?” asked the doorman.
“Rather better, but my eyes still feel pretty rocky. Guess I been using ’em too much. Say, Connors, I’ll try to catch the train north at eleven-seven. Better have a taxicab here for me at eleven. Or no; I’ll let you know a little before eleven. Try to catch the eleven-seven north, for Wakamin.”
“Very well, sir.”
The President, the Assistant Cashier, the Chief Clerk—all asked Jasper how he felt; and to all of them he repeated the statement that he had been using his eyes too much, and that he would catch a few bass at Wakamin.
The other paying teller from his cage next to that of Jasper called heartily through the steel netting: “Pretty soft for some people! You wait! I’m going to have the hay fever this summer, and I’ll go fishing for a month!”
Jasper placed the two suitcases and the umbrella in his cage, and leaving the other teller to pay out current money he himself made up the pay rolls for the next day—Saturday. He casually went into the vault—a narrow, unimpressive, unaired cell, with a hard linoleum floor, one unshaded electric bulb, and a back wall composed entirely of steel doors of safes, all painted a sickly blue, very unimpressive, but guarding several millions of dollars in cash and securities. The upper doors, hung on large steel arms and each provided with two dials, could be opened only by two officers of the bank, each knowing one of the two combinations. Below these were smaller doors, one of which Jasper could open, as teller. It was the door of an insignificant