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rented a small apartment, and lying on his bed, a clean bed, he wondered if he really cared
about anything or about any one. In the morning he took a shower and stood for a long time
in front of the mirror on the bathroom door, staring at his nude body as if it were a rune he
might learn to read, an engima he might solve by concentration. Then he went to work. His
affiliation with the Down Town Savings Bank lasted into the spring and was terminated by
one of the oddest incidents of his career.
Until the day of that incident his incumbency was in no way unusual. He was one of
the bank s young men, receiving fifty dollars weekly to learn the banking business. They
moved him from department to department, giving him mentally menial tasks which afforded
him in each case a glimpse of a new facet of financial technique. It was fairly interesting. He
made no friends and he worked diligently.
One day in April when he had returned from lunch and a stroll in the environs of the
Battery returned to a list of securities and a strip from an adding machine, which he
checked item by item he was conscious of a stirring in his vicinity. A woman employee on
the opposite side of a wire wicket was talking shrilly. A vice-president rose from his desk and
hastened down the corridor, his usually composed face suddenly white and disconcerted. The
tension was cumulative. Work stopped and clusters of people began to chatter. Hugo joined
one of them.
 Yeah, a boy was saying,  it s happened before. A couple o times.
 How do they know he s there?
 They got a telephone goin inside and they re talkin to him.
 I ll be damned.
The boy nodded rapidly.  Yeah some talk! Tellin him what to try next.
 Poor devil!
 What s the matter? Hugo asked. The boy was glad of a new and uninformed
listener.  Aw, some dumb vault clerk got himself locked in, an the locks jammed an they
can t get him out.
 Which vault? The big one?
 Naw. The big one s got pipes for that kinda trouble. The little one they moved from
the old building.
 It s not so darn little at that, some one said. Another person, a man, chuckled.  Not
so darn. But there isn t air in there to last three hours. Caughlin said so.
 Honest to God?
 Honest. An he s been there more than an hour already.
 Jeest! There was a pregnant, pictorial silence. Some one looked at Hugo.
 What s eatin you, Danner? Scared?
His face was tense and his hands were opening and closing convulsively.
  No, he answered.  Guess I ll go down and have a look.
He rang for an elevator in the corridor and was carried to the basement. In the small
room on which the vault opened were five or six people, among them a woman who seemed
to command the situation. The men were all smoking; their attitudes were relaxed, their
voices hushed.
One repeated nervously:  Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ.
 That won t help, Mr. Quail. I ve sent for the expert and he will probably have the
safe open in a short time.
 Blowtorches? the swearing man asked abruptly.
 Absurd. He would cook before he was out. And three feet of steel and then two feet
more.
 Nitroglycerin?
 And make jelly out of him? The woman tapped her finger-nails with her glasses.
Another arrival, who carried a small satchel, talked with her in an undertone and then
took off his coat. He went first to a telephone on the wall and said:  Gi me the inside of the
vault. Hello. . . . Hello? You there? Are you all right? . . . Try that combination again. The
safe-expert held the wire and waited. Not even the faintest sounds of the attempt were
audible in the front room.  Hello? You tried it? . . . Well, see if those numbers are in this
order. He repeated a series of complicated directions. Finally he hung up.  Says it s getting
pretty stuffy in there. Says he s lying down on the floor.
People came and went. The president himself walked in calmly and occupied a chair.
He lit a cigar, puffed on it, and stared with ruminative eyes at the shiny mechanism on the
front of the safe.
 We are doing everything possible, the woman said to him crisply.
 Of course, he nodded.  I called up the insurance company. We re amply covered.
A pause.  Mrs. Robinson, post one of the guards to keep people from running in and out of
here. There are enough around already.
No one had given Hugo any attention. He stood quietly in the background. The expert
worked and all eyes were on him. Occasionally he muttered to himself. The hands of an
electric clock moved along in audible jerks. Nearly an hour passed and the room had become
hazy with tobacco smoke. The man working on the safe was moist with perspiration. His blue
shirt was a darker blue around the armpits. He lit a cigarette, set it down, whirled the dials
again, lit another cigarette while the first one burned a chair arm, and threw a crumpled,
empty package on the floor. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]