The Mystery of the Steel Disc | Page 9

the Municipal
vault without let or hindrance. When your brother-in-law died, you sold
his patents to the company, returned to New York, and began to live for
the hour when you could help yourself to whatever you wished. You
stopped drinking and settled down. You went into the real estate
business because you could obtain in that manner a permanent hold on
Hanahan, the watchman at the Municipal, whom you already knew, and
you drew him into the habit of seeing you on business regularly at the
bank at night. You have his perfect confidence. When you found that
about the time you were ready to make your haul George Rhodes
would be the young man in charge of the vault, you called him to the
house on a pretext and made him acquainted with your daughter and
encouraged his visits that you might get from him in your chats, bit by
bit, knowledge of just what to put your hand on in the short time you
were in the vault, and how to conceal the theft long enough for you to
convert the securities. This is one of the deepest and cleverest criminal
plots of which I have ever heard. Your life for all these years has been
devoted to it. I am not surprised that you succeeded. Your one mistake
was in giving so flimsy a pretext to Mr. Duncan for calling him up and
retaining him. That attracted my attention to you. What you really
wanted was to be able to have constant information from Mr. Duncan
when he should become Rhodes's counsel in the natural course of
events, as to efforts to explain the disappearance of the bonds in order
to defend Rhodes. In that way you would always know how close he
was on the track of the real thief, Mr. Martin Anderson. Few men pay
attorneys $500 retaining fees to persuade young men who really love
their daughters from dragging them into a scandal which does not
essentially concern the daughters at best. You were surprised into this
mistake when Rhodes called you up and crystallized your plan to force
your choice of counsel on him too hastily.
"On Sunday night a week ago you went to the bank, as your duplicate
time-lock showed you the steel disc was worn so thin a jar on the door
would cause the standard to drop and the lock to release. Hanahan, as
he told me an hour ago, went across the street for some tobacco that

Sunday night, leaving you in the bank. In ninety seconds you had
opened the vault, taken the right packet, opened the case of the
time-lock, replaced the disc with a brass one, closed the case, and
closed the vault, but--you carelessly dropped this worn disc on the
floor.
"You used the bonds as collateral to buy stock, not as a speculation, but
as an investment that would conceal the bonds, and by chance chose
Overland Pacific at a low figure and it rose. You thought best to take
your profits, and only your greed prevented you from returning the
bonds to Rhodes by mail. As we have seen, you had not thought long
enough or deeply enough what you would do with your lifetime harvest
after you got it in your hands, and suddenly you found yourself out of
your depth. You hid the bonds in a jar, just like a foolish old woman.
But I must compliment you on your clear thinking and previous
planning. I have never known of anything so deliberate, and only a
phlegmatic Scandinavian would be capable of it, especially to end up
with such good nerves as you have shown to-night. Mr. Smith does not
wish to prosecute you and expose his speculations. Since Mr. Smith
and Mr. Duncan doubtless have other engagements to-night, kindly
write as I requested a few minutes ago."
Muttering objurgations in his native tongue, Anderson wrote the two
drafts, Rhodes's being for more than one hundred thousand, and both
Rhodes and Smith receipted. Smith took the bonds and thrust them into
his overcoat pocket. Miss Anderson refused to remain an hour longer
under her father's roof, and left the house to go to the home of a distant
relative. I pocketed the odd little steel dish, which lies before me as I
write, with a slip copied from a page of Rand's notebook that lays out
so plainly and simply his quick, sure, and unerring processes in this
remarkable case, that I can not refrain from giving it.
(1) Anderson's retaining Duncan very strange.
(2) Rhodes' cranium shows moral incapacity for theft. Innocent.
(3) Neilson's brother-in-law could know lock construction.

(4) Smith lost speculating. Thief won half million with bonds.
(5) Time-clock lost 90 sec. Sunday night, week before discovery.
(6)