ARTHUR.T Stories ----A Study in Finance ----VI---Page 34

The thing might have been going on still had it not been for the fact

that the anticipated merger between John's company and another was put
through and a new vault in a new building prepared to receive the
securities. Of course, on such an occasion a complete examination would
be made of all the securities and there would be practically no chance
to deceive the accountants. Moreover, a part of the securities had
actually been moved when the worst slump came and they needed more. It
was obvious that the jig was up. A few more days and John knew that the
gyves would be upon his wrists. Prescott and he took an account of the
stock they had lost and went into committee on ways and means. Neither
had any desire to run away. Wall Street was the breath of life to them.
Prescott said that the best thing to do was to take enough more to
"stand off" the company. He cited a case in Boston, where a clerk who
was badly "in" was advised by his lawyer to take a hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars more. Then the lawyer dickered with the
bank and brought it to terms. The lawyer got twenty-five thousand
dollars, the bank got the rest, and the thief was let go. Prescott said
they ought to get away with enough more to make the bank's loss a
million. He thought _that_ would make them see what was the wise thing
to do. Prescott also said he would try to get a lawyer who could bring
some pressure to bear on the officials of the company. It would be a
rather unpleasant situation to have brought to the attention of the
State Superintendent of Banking. John agreed to get the additional
securities and turn them over to Prescott. Unfortunately, almost
everything had by this time been moved into the new vault, and all John
could get was a stock certificate for fifteen hundred railroad shares,
standing in his own name, and seventy-five thousand dollars in notes.
These he gave to Prescott, thus increasing the amount stolen from the
bank without discovery to between six and seven hundred thousand
dollars. This was on the day before the actuaries were to make their
investigation. Knowing that his arrest was now only a question of time,
John, about eleven o'clock on the following morning, left the trust
company for the last time. He was in telephonic communication with
Prescott, who, in turn, was in touch with their lawyer. Unfortunately,
the president of the company had gone out of town over Sunday, so that
again their plans went awry.

For nearly two years John had not known an hour devoid of haunting fear.
From a cheerful and contented youth he had become despondent, taciturn
and nervous. He was the same affectionate husband and attentive son as
before, and his general characteristics remained precisely the same. He
was scrupulous to a penny in every other department of his life, and
undoubtedly would have felt the same pricks of conscience had he been
guilty of any other act of dishonesty. The affair at the bank was a
thing apart. The embezzler of six hundred thousand dollars was not John
at all, but a separate personality wearing John's clothes and bearing

his name. He perceived clearly the enormity of his offense, but, because
he was the same John in every other respect, he had a feeling that
somehow the fact that _he_ had done the thing was purely fortuitous--in
other words, that the bonds had to be taken, were going to be taken
anyway, and that Fate had simply elected him to take them. Surely he had
not wanted the bonds--had had no intention of stealing half a million
dollars, and, in short, was not the kind of a man who would steal half a
million dollars. Each night he tossed, sleepless, till the light stole
in through the shutters. At every corner on his way uptown he glanced
over his shoulder behind him. The front doorbell never rang that his
muscles did not become rigid and his heart almost stop beating. If he
went to a theatre or upon an excursion he passed the time wondering if
the next day he would still be a free man. In short, he paid in full in
physical misery and mental anxiety and wretchedness for the real moral
obliquity of his crime. The knowledge of this maddened him for what was
coming. Yet he realized that he had stolen half a million dollars, and
that justice demanded that he should be punished for it.

After leaving the bank John called up Prescott and learned that the plan
to adjust matters with the president had miscarried by reason of the
latter's absence. The two then met in a saloon, and here it was arranged
that John should call up the loan clerk and tell him that something
would be found to be wrong at the bank, but that nothing had better be
said about it until the following Monday morning, when the president
would return. The loan clerk, however, refused to talk with him and hung
up the receiver. John had nowhere to go, for he dared not return home,
and spent the afternoon until six o'clock riding in street cars and
sitting in saloons. At that hour he again communicated with Prescott,
who said that he had secured rooms for him and his wife at a certain
hotel, where they might stay until matters could be fixed up. John
arranged to meet his wife at Forty-second Street with Prescott and
conduct her to the hotel. As Fate decreed, the loan clerk came out of
the subway at precisely the same time, saw them together and followed
them. Meantime a hurry call had been sent for the president, who had
returned to the city. John, fully aware that the end had come, went to
bed at the hotel, and, for the first time since the day he had taken the
bonds two years before, slept soundly. At three the next morning there
came a knock at the door. His wife awakened him and John opened it. As
he did so a policeman forced his way in, and the loan clerk, who stood
in the corridor just behind him, exclaimed theatrically, "Officer, there
is your man!"

John is now in prison, serving out the sentence which the court believed
it necessary to inflict upon him as a warning to others. Prescott is
also serving a term at hard labor--a sentence somewhat longer than
John's. The trust company took up their accounts, paid the losses of the
luckless pair, and, owing to a rise in prices which came too late to
benefit the latter, escaped with the comparatively trifling loss of a

little over one hundred thousand dollars. At once every banking house and trust company upon the Street looked to its system of checks upon the honesty of its employees, and took precautions which should have been taken long before. The story was a nine days' wonder. Then Union Pacific dropped twenty points more, the tide of finance closed over the heads of John and Prescott, and they were forgotten.