If the Rover boys were worked up over the hold-up in Wall Street, their excitement was as nothing compared to that of their parents.
“I must confess I’m completely stumped.”
It was Sam Rover who spoke. The three brothers were closeted in an inner office of the company and Fred’s father stood by a window gazing blankly at nothing in particular.
“What gets me is the skillful manner in which this hold-up was planned,” came from Tom Rover. “That telegram calling me to Philadelphia was a fake, just as the telegram that took Sam to Boston to see the head of the Eighteenth National Bank was a cooked-up affair.”
“Yes, and see how they got me out of the way,” answered Dick Rover dismally. “When that fellow—whoever he was—telephoned to me that there had been an accident in the subway uptown and that Dora had been hurt, what was there for me to do but to rush out, jump into the subway and get uptown just as quickly as possible? Why, it took me nearly an hour to locate Dora because she wasn’t at home, and then I found out that she had received a fake message from Mrs. Watson asking her to come over at once in regard to some church matters.”
“The whole thing was certainly well thought out,” went on the father of the twins. “It’s a wonder they didn’t send everybody in the office off on a wild-goose chase,” and Tom smiled grimly.
“I’ve been trying to think who might have done this,” continued Dick slowly, tapping his desk with a pencil as he spoke. “Of course, the police detectives think it was done by one of the well-organized bands of hold-up men in and around New York. But just the same, we know that we have a certain number of personal enemies who wouldn’t like anything better than to pull off such a job as this.”
“Who among our enemies would have the nerve to do it?” questioned Sam Rover. “Davenport and his gang are in jail, so they are eliminated. Now then, we know that old Josiah Crabtree is at liberty; but I don’t think he’d have the nerve to attempt anything of this sort.”
“He might not have the nerve to play the part of a bandit at the offices, but he might help the real criminals by, for instance, doing some of that telephoning or telegraphing.
“Of course, there are a lot of other fellows who’d be only too glad to make trouble for us,” went on Tom, after a pause. “First of all, there is Nelson Martell who used to be in business down here and who lost out in the oil fields, and along with him is that chap Slogwell Brown, and then their two sons, Slugger and Nappy, who have had so much trouble with our boys.”
“And, yes—don’t forget some of the other fellows, like Mr. Werner and his good-for-nothing son Gabe.”
“Oh, there are plenty of those fellows who would be glad to take the very shirts from our backs!” cried Sam. “Some of the fellows who tried to injure us at Putnam Hall and at Brill College—fellows like Jerry Koswell and his cronies.”
There was a moment of silence between the three men, each evidently trying to do some hard thinking. Then Dick Rover motioned for his brothers to come closer.
“What do you think of that clerk of ours—Ken Greene?” he whispered, thus making certain that his voice would not carry to any of the outer offices of the company of which he was president.
“I don’t like him, and never did,” answered Tom bluntly.
“Well, if he’s perfectly honest, then he’s a doughhead, and we certainly don’t want him in these offices any longer,” came from Sam. “Any fellow who will neglect his duties as Greene did deserves to be kicked out.”
“Well, I intend to kick him out, but I won’t do it just yet,” answered Jack’s father. “We may want his testimony, and the detectives may want to question him further.”
The senior Rovers had passed a hectic evening and an even more hectic night. None of them had been to bed, neither did any of them have the least desire to go to sleep. The nerves of each were at a high tension, and with good reason.
“If it was only our own stuff I wouldn’t say so much,” said Dick, with something like a groan. “But to have our best friends suffer too—well, it’s something I can hardly stand.”
“I don’t believe Songbird Powell or Fred Garrison will blame us,” returned Tom. “But what Mr. Stevenson will do is another matter. I’m afraid it may rough up matters between Jack and Ruth, Dick,” and he gazed at his older brother questioningly.
“Well, if Mr. Stevenson gets sore I suppose we’ll have to bear it,” answered Jack’s father. “It’s too bad, but I don’t see what can be done. We’re in a big hole, and that’s all there is to it.”
“No, it isn’t!” cried Sam, just as sturdy and defiant in his manner as he had ever been. “We’re in a hole, that’s true. But it’s our business to climb out of it, and we’re going to do it!”
“Let’s hope we do so,” returned Tom. “But it seems to me that hole is a good deal like a deep well and that we’re just about as well off as a trio of frogs at the bottom thereof,” and a flash of Tom’s old-time humor asserted itself.
“Well, this talk doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere,” said Dick, rising to his feet. “We’d better check up on those securities of which we were not certain and find out what steps can be taken so that no one will negotiate them.”
The bare details of the hold-up were simple enough. The affair had occurred a few minutes before the regular time for closing the offices. As said before, Tom and Sam had been called out of town by fake telegrams and Dick had been called away by a telephone message which stated that his wife Dora had been hurt in a subway accident uptown. At the time of the hold-up one clerk and a messenger boy had been away from the offices on business, and as this was the dull season of the year a number of the others were away on their vacations. This left but a head bookkeeper and three clerks in charge when the bandits had entered quietly, closing and locking the door behind them.
The bandits had worn handkerchiefs tied across the lower parts of their faces and had had caps well drawn down over their foreheads. Each had been armed and, afraid of being shot, the head bookkeeper and the three clerks had submitted with scarcely a protest. They had been driven into a closet used for the storage of records and there they had been told to make a noise at the risk of their lives, and then the door had been locked upon them.
Having disposed of the help, the bandits had lost no time in looting the unlocked safe and also going through all the desks, breaking open those which were locked. They had worked quickly but effectively and had carried off everything of value.
As yet the total loss was problematic for the reason that it was not known how many of the securities which had been stolen were negotiable. Roughly speaking, the Rovers estimated that the loss would not be less than one hundred thousand dollars and might go to almost twice that amount.
The head bookkeeper was a middle-aged man named Frank Mason, and he had been with The Rover Company since its beginning. Mason was a good deal of a plodder, but all of the Rovers felt that he was thoroughly honest and could not have been connected in any way with the hold-up.
“It came like a thunder clap, Mr. Rover! Just like a thunder clap!” exclaimed Frank Mason in a wavering voice when questioned. “I was never more surprised in my life than when I looked up and saw that man with a handkerchief tied over his face and with a pistol pointed right at my head.”
“Have you any idea who the man was—or, in fact, who any of the men were?” Dick asked.
“Not the slightest, sir. I’m quite certain they were all strangers to me.”
Mason’s story was largely the story told by the other clerks. One of the young fellows, named Bronson, and another named Greene, had tried to make the Rovers and the police detectives believe that they had wanted to resist. But they had done nothing and the detectives were of the opinion that they had submitted meekly and were now drawing on their imaginations in the hope of getting their names in the limelight.
Half a dozen clues were being followed up, but so far without results. Several strangers who had been seen in and around the building before and after the hold-up were questioned by the authorities, and one of the men was taken to police headquarters and kept over night. But nothing could be proved against this individual except that he was a good-for-nothing rounder, and he was allowed to go with the admonition to get out of the city as quickly as possible.
The most active men in the affair were the reporters, and Dick, Tom and Sam had all they could do to keep out of the clutches of the news gatherers, who wished to get every slightest detail of the hold-up. As we know, the morning papers had made a spread of the story, and the afternoon journals followed.
“Well, we’re certainly getting a lot of notoriety,” said Dick, when he and his brothers were on their way that evening to their homes on Riverside Drive. “But it’s the kind of advertising I don’t like.”
“I’m afraid this hold-up is going to give The Rover Company a black eye,” muttered Tom. “Some folks will think we’re mighty careless in handling our securities and consequently they won’t want to do business with us. However, hold-ups are real fashionable just now, so we’re right in the swim,” he added, with a queer sort of grin.
When the three men arrived at home they found that the boys had just come in. The lads had telephoned from the Grand Central Terminal to the offices and then, finding that their fathers had left, had come directly in a taxicab to Riverside Drive.
“No news, Jack,” said Dick, in reply to a question from his son. “We’re at a standstill, and so are the authorities. Our securities are gone and they and the bandits who took them have vanished into thin air.”
“Do you mean to say no one saw them leave the offices or no one raised an alarm?” asked Randy.
“No one saw them leaving the building—or at least if they were seen, nobody paid any attention to them,” replied Tom Rover. “But that isn’t to be wondered at because our building has dozens of people coming and going all the time and there are any number of automobiles and taxicabs in the street.”
“Well, what of the fellows who were locked in the closet?” demanded Fred.
“They remained in the closet until everything became quiet in the offices. Then they knocked on the door for a minute or two, and as none of the bandits came to make them keep quiet they at last forced the door open. Then Mason ran for the telephone and notified the police while the other clerks ran out in the corridor and went down in an elevator to the street to see if they could catch sight of the rascals. But that must have been at least five to ten minutes after the bandits had taken their leave.”
“And how much of a loss will it be, Dad?” questioned Jack, with increasing interest.
“So far as I have been able to figure up, there will be a positive loss on bonds of a little over one hundred thousand dollars,” answered his parent. “Then a number of other securities are missing, and how many of these can be negotiated is a question. The loss might possibly come up to nearly two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Yes, but listen, Uncle Dick!” broke in Randy. “I know you carry insurance on all your stuff. Wasn’t this covered?”
“That’s the hardest part of the story,” answered Dick Rover, his face twitching slightly as he spoke. “We’ve been carrying insurance on all the stuff, but the insurance ran out less than a week ago and the clerk who had charge of this, a fellow named Ken Greene, failed to have the insurance renewed. As a consequence the entire loss falls on our own shoulders.”