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The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Rock in the Baltic, by Robert Barr
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Title: A Rock in the Baltic
Author: Robert Barr
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4982]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on April 7, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A ROCK IN THE BALTIC ***
This eBook was prepared by Jim Weiler, xooqi.com.
A Rock in the Baltic
by Robert Barr, 1906
_________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER I
THE INCIDENT AT THE BANK
IN the public room of the Sixth National Bank at Bar Harbor in Maine,
Lieutenant Alan Drummond, H.M.S. "Consternation," stood aside to give
precedence to a lady. The Lieutenant had visited the bank for the
purpose of changing several crisp white Bank of England notes into the
currency of the country he was then visiting. The lady did not appear
to notice either his courtesy or his presence, and this was the more
remarkable since Drummond was a young man sufficiently conspicuous
even in a crowd, and he and she were, at that moment, the only
customers in the bank. He was tall, well-knit and stalwart, blond as a
Scandinavian, with dark blue eyes which he sometimes said jocularly
were the colors of his university. He had been slowly approaching the
cashier's window with the easy movement of a man never in a hurry,
when the girl appeared at the door, and advanced rapidly to the bank
counter with its brass wire screen surrounding the arched aperture
behind which stood the cashier. Although very plainly attired, her
gown nevertheless possessed a charm of simplicity that almost
suggested complex Paris, and she wore it with that air of distinction
the secret of which is supposed to be the exclusive property of French
and American women.
The young man saw nothing of this, and although he appreciated the
beauty of the girl, what struck him at that instant was the expression
of anxiety on her face, whose apparently temporary pallor was
accentuated by an abundance of dark hair. It seemed to him that she
had resolutely set herself a task which she was most reluctant to
perform. From the moment she entered the door her large, dark eyes
were fixed almost appealingly on the cashier, and they beheld nothing
else. Drummond, mentally slow as he usually was, came to the quick
conclusion that this was a supreme moment in her life, on which
perhaps great issues depended. He saw her left hand grasp the corner
of the ledge in front of the cashier with a grip of nervous tension,
as if the support thus attained was necessary to her. Her right hand
trembled slightly as she passed an oblong slip of paper through the
aperture to the calm and indifferent official.
"Will you give me the money for this check?" she asked in a low voice.
The cashier scrutinized the document for some time in silence. The
signature appeared unfamiliar to him.
"One moment, madam," he said quietly, and retired to a desk in the
back part of the bank, where he opened a huge book, turned over some
leaves rapidly, and ran his finger down a page. His dilatory action
seemed to increase the young woman's panic. Her pallor increased, and
she swayed slightly, as if in danger of falling, but brought her right
hand to the assistance of the left, and so steadied herself against
the ledge of the cashier's counter.
"By Jove!" said the Lieutenant to himself, "there's something wrong
here. I wonder what it is. Such a pretty girl, too!"
The cashier behind his screen saw nothing of this play of the
emotions. He returned nonchalantly to his station, and asked, in
commonplace tones:
"How will you have the money, madam?"
"Gold, if you please," she replied almost in a whisper, a rosy flush
chasing the whiteness from her face, while a deep sigh marked the
passing of a crisis.
At this juncture an extraordinary thing happened. The cashier counted
out some golden coins, and passed them through the aperture toward
their new owner.
"Thank you," said the girl. Then, without touching the money, she
turned like one hypnotized, her unseeing eyes still taking no heed of
the big Lieutenant, and passed rapidly out of the bank, The cashier
paid no regard to this abandonment of treasure. He was writing some
hieroglyphics on the cashed check.
"By Jove!" gasped the Lieutenant aloud, springing forward as he spoke,
sweeping the coins into his hand, and bolting for the door. This was
an action which would have awakened the most negligent cashier had he
been in a trance. Automatically he whisked out a revolver which lay in
an open drawer under his hand.
"Stop, you scoundrel, or I fire!" he shouted, but the Lieutenant had
already disappeared. Quick as thought the cashier darted into the
passage, and without waiting to unfasten the low door which separated
the public and private rooms of the bank, leaped over it, and,
bareheaded, gave chase. A. British naval officer in uniform, rapidly
overtaking a young woman, quite unconscious of his approach, followed
by an excited, bareheaded man with a revolver in his grasp, was a
sight which would quickly have collected a crowd almost anywhere, but
it happened to be the lunch hour, and the inhabitants of that famous
summer resort were in-doors; thus, fortunately, the street was
deserted. The naval officer was there because the hour of the midday
meal on board the cruiser did not coincide with lunch time on shore.
The girl was there because it happened to be the only portion of the
day when she could withdraw unobserved from the house in which she
lived, during banking hours, to try her little agitating financial
experiment. The cashier was there because the bank had no lunch hour,
and because he had just witnessed the most suspicious circumstance
that his constantly alert eye had ever beheld. Calm and imperturbable
as a bank cashier may appear to the outside public, he is a man under
constant strain during business hours. Each person with whom he is
unacquainted that confronts him at his post is a possible robber who
at any moment may attempt, either by violence or chicanery, to filch
the treasure he guards. The happening of any event outside the usual
routine at once arouses a cashier's distrust, and this sudden flight
of a stranger with money which did not belong to him quite justified
the perturbation of the cashier. From that point onward, innocence of
conduct or explanation so explicit as to satisfy any ordinary man,
becomes evidence of more subtle guilt to the mind of a bank official.
The ordinary citizen, seeing the Lieutenant finally overtake and
accost the hurrying girl, raise his cap, then pour into her
outstretched hand the gold he had taken, would have known at once that
here was an every-day exercise of natural politeness. Not so the
cashier. The farther he got from the bank, the more poignantly did he
realize that these two in front, both strangers to him, had, by their
combined action, lured him, pistol and all, away from his post during
the dullest hour of the day. It was not the decamping with those few
pieces of gold which now troubled him: it was fear of what might be
going on behind him. He was positive that these two had acted in
conjunction. The uniform worn by the man did not impose upon him. Any
thief could easily come by a uniform, and, as his mind glanced rapidly
backwards over the various points of the scheme, he saw how effectual
the plan was: first, the incredible remissness of the woman in leaving
her gold on the counter; second, the impetuous disappearance of the
man with the money; and, third, his own heedless plunge into the
street after them. He saw the whole plot in a flash: he had literally
leaped into the trap, and during his five or ten minutes' absence, the
accomplices of the pair might have overawed the unarmed clerks, and
walked off with the treasure. His cash drawer was unlocked, and even
the big safe stood wide open. Surprise had as effectually lured him
away as if he had been a country bumpkin. Bitterly and breathlessly
did he curse his own precipitancy. His duty was to guard the bank, yet
it had not been the bank that was robbed, but, at best a careless
woman who had failed to pick up her money. He held the check for it,
and the loss, if any, was hers, not the bank's, yet here he was,
running bareheaded down the street like a fool, and now those two
stood quite calmly together, he handing her the money, and thus
spreading a mantle of innocence over the vile trick. But whatever was
happening in the bank, he would secure two of the culprits at least.
The two, quite oblivious of the danger that threatened them, were
somewhat startled by a panting man, trembling with rage, bareheaded,
and flourishing a deadly weapon, sweeping down upon them.
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