Scattergood Baines by Clarence Budington Kelland
page 280 of 384 (72%)
page 280 of 384 (72%)
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Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne--Scattergood made up the full committee.
"How be you?" Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its protest at the burden. "What d'you think?" Towne said. "Got any notions? Noticed anythin' suspicious?" "Not 'less it's that there dude suit of clothes," said Atwell, with some acidity. "You put him in here," said Kettleman to Scattergood. "Calculate I did.... Hain't found no reason to regret it--not yit. Looks to me like the fust move's to kind of go over the books and the cash, hain't it?... You fellers tackle the books and I'll give the vault an overhaulin'." Scattergood already had made up his mind that if Ovid had allowed any of the bank's funds to cling to him when he went away the shortage would be discoverable in the cash reserve, undoubtedly in a lump sum, and not by an examination of the books. It was his judgment that Ovid was not of a caliber to plan the looting of a bank and skillfully to hide his progress by a falsification of the books. That required an imagination that Ovid lacked. No, Scattergood said to himself, if Ovid had looted he had looted clumsily--and on sudden provocation.... Therefore he chose the vault for his peculiar task. It is a comparatively easy task to count the cash reserve in the vault of so small a bank. Even a matter of thirty-odd thousand dollars can be |
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