The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orczy

Author:Baroness Orczy [Baroness Orczy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782275244
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2018-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

XVIII

The Theft at the English Provident Bank

“That question of motive is a very difficult and complicated one at times,” said the man in the corner, leisurely pulling off a huge pair of flaming dog-skin gloves from his meagre fingers. “I have known experienced criminal investigators declare, as an infallible axiom, that to find the person interested in the committal of the crime is to find the criminal.

“Well, that may be so in most cases, but my experience has proved to me that there is one factor in this world of ours which is the mainspring of human actions, and that factor is human passions. For good or evil passions rule this poor humanity of ours. Remember, there are the women! French detectives, who are acknowledged masters in their craft, never proceed till after they have discovered the feminine element in a crime; whether in theft, murder, or fraud, according to their theory, there is always a woman.

“Perhaps the reason why the Phillimore Terrace robbery was never brought home to its perpetrators is because there was no woman in any way connected with it, and I am quite sure, on the other hand, that the reason why the thief at the English Provident Bank is still unpunished is because a clever woman has escaped the eyes of our police force.”

He had spoken at great length and very dictatorially. Miss Polly Burton did not venture to contradict him, knowing by now that whenever he was irritable he was invariably rude, and she then had the worst of it.

“When I am old,” he resumed, “and have nothing more to do, I think I shall take professionally to the police force; they have much to learn.”

Could anything be more ludicrous than the self-satisfaction, the abnormal conceit of this remark, made by that shrivelled piece of mankind, in a nervous, hesitating tone of voice? Polly made no comment, but drew from her pocket a beautiful piece of string, and knowing his custom of knotting such an article while unravelling his mysteries, she handed it across the table to him. She positively thought that he blushed.

“As an adjunct to thought,” she said, moved by a conciliatory spirit.

He looked at the invaluable toy which the young girl had tantalizingly placed close to his hand: then he forced himself to look all round the coffee-room: at Polly, at the waitresses, at the piles of pallid buns upon the counter. But, involuntarily, his mild blue eyes wandered back lovingly to the long piece of string, on which his playful imagination no doubt already saw a series of knots which would be equally tantalizing to tie and to untie.

“Tell me about the theft at the English Provident Bank,” suggested Polly condescendingly.

He looked at her as if she had proposed some mysterious complicity in an unheard-of crime. Finally his lean fingers sought the end of the piece of string, and drew it towards him. His face brightened up in a moment.

“There was an element of tragedy in that particular robbery,” he

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