The Vanishing Thieves by Franklin W. Dixon Read Free Book Online

to maintain a muscular body like mine!”
    â€œOh sure, real muscular!” Vern teased his cousin, as he and the Hardys started back to the street. Frank quickly took up his station in the refrigerator carton, while Joe and Vern went back to the car.
    Slipping behind the wheel, Joe asked, “Where to?”
    â€œFirst, we ought to see the lawyer in charge of Uncle Gregg’s estate,” Vern suggested. “He’s in the Nichols Building downtown. His name is Charles Avery. ”
    The attorney had a plush office on the seventeenth floor. He was a plump, middle-aged, cheerful-looking man. Greeting the boys courteously, he asked them to sit down in comfortable chairs.
    â€œAs you know, your uncle had severe financial reverses shortly before he died,” the lawyer told Vern. “Even his extensive coin collection had to be sold to satisfy claims against the estate. All, that is, but the 1913 Liberty Head nickel, which he left to you. Unfortunately, that has disappeared.”
    â€œHow?” Vern asked.
    â€œThe president of the bank where your uncle had his safe-deposit box can explain that,” Charles Avery said. “Let me phone Mr. Barton Laing of the Bunker Bank to make an appointment for you.”
    The lawyer called and was able to arrange an immediate meeting between Mr. Laing and the boys.
    The bank was only two blocks from the Nichols Building, so they left their car where they had parked it and walked. Barton Laing, a tall, slightly stooped man with gray hair, shook hands with the boys and invited them into his office. When all three were seated, he leaned back in his desk chair and began folding and unfolding his hands.
    â€œThis is quite embarrassing to the bank, Mr. Nelson,” he said to Vern nervously. “Of course, we have no legal responsibility for the missing coin. The only evidence that it was ever in your uncle’s safe-deposit box is a statement in his will that on a particular date he placed it there. Nobody saw him do it, because what customers put in or take out of their boxes is their private business.”
    â€œWhy would he say he put it there if he didn’t?” Vern asked.
    â€œI can’t imagine.”
    Joe spoke up. “Could he have taken it out again and not changed his will?”
    The banker shook his head. “He never opened the box after the day he deposited it.”
    â€œHow can you be sure of that?” Vern asked.
    â€œOur records show every visit. Whenever a customer uses his safe-deposit box, he must sign a card giving not only the date, but the exact time of day. Our files show no such visits after the date specified in his will.”
    â€œCould a bank employee have gotten into the box?” Joe asked.
    Mr. Laing frowned. “Impossible. No one but the boxholder possesses a key. A boxholder’s key, that is. There is, of course, the bank’s master key.”
    â€œMaster key?” Vern repeated.
    â€œLet me explain the procedure. It takes two keys to open a box, the customer’s and the bank’s. The bank key fits all boxes. But it can’t open a box by itself. The customer’s key must be used along with it. ”
    Vern said, “Then when Uncle Gregg put the coin in the box, somebody saw him do it.”
    â€œNot necessarily. Usual procedure is for the customer to carry his box into one of the curtained alcoves in the vault room, where he can transact his business in privacy. When he’s ready to return the box, he calls the vault clerk, who uses both keys to lock it up again.”
    Joe spoke up. “But if Mr. Nelson had chosen not to use a private alcove, he could have put the coin into his box right in front of the vault clerk, couldn’t he?”
    â€œOh yes, but there would be no record of whether or not he did that.”
    â€œWould there be a record of who the vault clerk was that day?”
    â€œOf course. She signs the card.”
    â€œHas she been asked