I Would Rather Stay Poor

‘You’ve got to walk to the bank,’ he said. ‘Don’t lie there. Move around or your muscles will get stiff.’

She didn’t move.

‘Leave me alone.’

‘There’s no turning back now. We’re both in this thing up to our necks. I’m going to change. Get off the bed and move around.’

He went into his room and sitting before the dressing-table mirror, he carefully began to gum the black crepe sideboards to his face. Ten minutes later, his disguise complete, he went into Kit’s room again. She was still lying on the bed. He stood over her.

‘Leave here at twelve,’ he said. ‘Be careful. If you see any car coming, get off the road. When you get to the car park, drive the Lincoln to the back of the bank entrance and wait. Don’t get out of the car… just wait. Do you understand?’

She stared at him, her face wooden.

‘Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course, I understand.’

‘All right. I’ll get off. Everything now depends on you… so watch it. And keep off the bottle.’

He left her and paused for a long moment at the head of the stairs, listening. There was no sound in the darkened house, and satisfied both Miss Pearson and the major were in bed, he silently descended the stairs and let himself out the back way.

It was a fine clear night: no moon and dark. He walked with long, swinging strides, his eyes searching the road ahead, his ears cocked for the sound of any approaching car.

He reached the back entrance to the bank a few minutes after midnight, sure no one had seen him during the long walk from the rooming-house. He pushed open the door and paused to listen. He heard nothing, entered the dark bank, closed and bolted the door.

There were ten electric light bulbs to remove. He set about removing them quickly and efficiently. The ceiling lamp caused him some difficulty. The opaque white cover was only just within his reach when he stood on the counter and the fixing screws had rusted in. He had brought tools with him and he wrestled with the screws, humming tunelessly under his breath.

From where he stood, he could look through the bank window at the lighted windows of the Sheriff’s office. From time to time he saw Travers pass the windows as he paced slowly to and fro. Finally, Calvin got the cover off and removed the lamp. He had been working in semi-darkness. A faint light came in from the street lamp some twenty yards away. He counted the lamps, making sure he had removed them all, then he turned on the light switch. He knew a light had come on in the vault.

He went down into the vault, entered, quickly closing the door. For some moments, he stood looking down at Alice’s dead body that lay on its side, blood by her nose and mouth.

Calvin took hold of one of her ankles and dragged her body away from the vault door. He had already taken her key of the vault from her handbag. He had brought with him a tyre lever. With this, he attacked the locks on one of the wooden boxes. In less than ten minutes, he had broken open both boxes. He had already found a deed box that contained only a few papers. Into this box, he packed the neat bundles of money, until the box was full. He then put the deed box against the wall and stacked on top of it the other boxes.

He looked at his watch. It was now a quarter to one. He went upstairs and groped his way into the washroom. He soaked the swab in hot water and then returned to the vault and got rid of the bloodstains on the floor. He returned to the washroom and washed out the swab which he stuffed into his hip pocket. Going back to the vault once again, he shut the door and turned both keys in the locks. Then he picked up Alice’s body and carried it up the stairs and laid it on the floor by the back entrance.

Once more he returned to the vault and looked around to make sure he had left nothing behind, satisfied, he turned off the light and went up the stairs to wait for Kit.

PART TWO

CHAPTER ONE

1

James Easton, the Federal agent at Downside, a short, fat, balding man on the wrong side of fifty had begun his career in the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the gangster period. At that time, fired with a youthful ambition, he had had great hopes of a spectacular career, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

In his first gun fight, Easton had learned the bitter truth that he was a coward. This, he tried to console himself, was something he couldn’t do anything about. It was, he told himself, a matter of glands. You either had the right glands that enabled you to face an armed gangster or you hadn’t. From then on he took every possible opportunity to avoid any kind of danger to himself with the result he was finally transferred from San Francisco to Downside and he became lost to the general activity of the Bureau, for Downside had the lowest Federal crime rate in the country.