The Mystery of the Steel Disc

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The Mystery of the Steel Disc
by Broughton Brandenburg

The telephone bell in the outer office rang, and opening the switch at the side of my desk I took up my stand-'phone and answered:
"Hello. Well?"
"Hello, is this Duncan & Betts?" inquired a man's voice with a slight foreign accent.
"Yes."
"I want to speak wit' Mister Lawrence Duncan."
"This is Mr. Duncan. What can I do for you?"
"T'is is Mr. Martin Anderson of 196 Gramercy Park. Yust now while I was eating my breakwast in my rooms over my real estate office, I was called to my telephone by Mr. George Rhodes, who is in t'e Municipal Bank. He is a young man who wants to marry my daughter Marie, and he called me up to tell me t'at when he opened t'e wault a little while ago he found t'at since he closed it t'e night before a package wit' more t'an a million dollars in bonds was gone. He is responsible for t'e wault and no one else, and he called me up to tell me, and say he did not take it, to tell Marie t'at, but he wit'drew his request for her hand. Now, t'en, Mr. Duncan, I don't care one tam about him, but my daughter must not be made to come in in t'is case wit' t'e noos-papers or t'e gossip, so I want you to go over to t'e bank and see him and help him out in every way, yust so he keep his mout' shut about Marie, and if t'ey lock him up I want t'at she don't get to see him or no such foolishness. I send you my check for five hundred t'is morning, and I want to know all about what you do, at my house to-night. Will you do it?"
"Yes, I will go over at once," I answered.
"T'at is all, Good-by --"
"Thank you. Good-by. I will call this evening."
"Good-by, Mr. Duncan."
My first impression as I hung up the receiver was a thrill at being thus thrust into the centre of what appeared to be one of the biggest cases which had transpired in years. My second was a pleasurable recognition of the crisp, direct, clear, and ample statement of the matter which the old real estate man had made. It had all been done in two minutes or less. It is not often that we lawyers encounter people outside of our own and the newspaper profession who can state anything so concisely and not lose any value in it.
At this moment, Betts, my partner, and the stenographer came in, so I hurried over to the Municipal Bank.
Business was just beginning for the day. I could see at a glance over the men behind the brass screens that they as a whole did not as yet know that the bank was a loser by a million. The cashier's door was open, and he was just smoothing out his morning mail in the calmest of manners. No one looked up as I entered; that showed normal state of mind among the clerks.
I asked for Mr. George Rhodes, and a tall, broad shouldered, clean-cut young chap came forward from a desk in the extreme rear of the place and took my card through the bars. Even with the slight view I could get of his face, I perceived he was pale and haggard. He opened a side door and admitted me to the anteroom of the directors' chamber. I told him I had come in his interest, retained by Mr. Anderson, and stated my client's reason for sending me, namely, to prevent his daughter's name from being mentioned in the matter at any or all times, and asked the young man what I could do for him.
He had been sitting running his thumb nail precisely along the edge of my card, and now he looked up and said, in a dull, expressionless way:
"Really, Mr. Duncan, I have thought the matter over carefully, and there is nothing to do."
He seemed so numbed and hopeless that I was amused.
"You surprise me, Mr. Rhodes," I said. "Surely a thing like this can not in itself shut off any action. In the first place, give me the facts. We will see what can be done."
"The facts are few enough," he answered, simply. "The bonds were in a package four inches thick. They were '90 government fours, clipped and worth one million two hundred thousand when entered the first of the month, three weeks ago. They were marked with a typewritten slip on the end and lay in the securities compartment of the vault. Last night, with the assistant cashier and the receiving teller, as is our rule here, I checked the cash and books going in. We together do not check securities in that compartment except once every month,