Read Online The Longest Second by Bill S. Ballinger - Free Book Online

asked Gorman the same thing. It isn’t listed in the Counterfeit Detector.”
    “Ask him to send it over,” Burrows said.
    “I already have,” Jensen replied.
    “A grand bill is a hard thing to get cashed. You just can’t walk into a store or a hotel and get change for it. Mostly you got to get it cashed at a bank.”
    “Sure,” agreed Jensen, “and even then you have to identify yourself. If a guy’s got a thousand bucks in one bill, it means he knows someplace he can get it changed. That also means that somebody knows him.”
    “I’ll get the information out to the banks first thing this morning. Maybe they’ve got a record of it.” Burrows took another swallow of coffee. “Gorman have anything else on the shoes?”
    “Not yet. They’ll give ’em the usual dirt and lint test, Probably won’t find anything though, if the guy was walking' around the streets here.”
    "Gorman push up his time on the report yet?”
    “No. He still says around noon.”
    “Okay,” Burrows agreed heavily. He and Jensen hung up, and he began to work back through the reports from the Correspondence Bureau. In these reports would be listed all recent fugitives, criminals, and missing persons. The reports are bound in heavy black covers, and all detectives are expected to memorize their contents. But the amount of information is too great. Burrows was looking for someone who might resemble his corpse.

13
    I HANDED a slip of paper to the locksmith, together with the key Rosemary had given me. He read my question, “What kind of a key is this?”
    The locksmith took a casual glance at the key. It was two and a quarter inches long, but less than a sixteenth of an inch thick. There were no grooves on its sides, although the lower edge of the key had the usual notches cut from the metal. On one side, stamped into it, were the initials KCLSK. The locksmith said, “This is a key to a safe deposit box.” He pointed to the initials, “It was made by the Kingston Company, Lock Safe Key.” Looking up at me, he asked, “Where’d you get it?”
    I wrote to him that I had found it. Then I asked if there was any way to identify the box, so I could return it to the owner. “Not that I know of,” he replied, “unless you want to advertise in the paper, and even then I doubt that a person can identify one key like this from another unless he tries it in his own lock. You might ask at a bank about it, though. Maybe they’d have some ideas.”
    One bank was probably as good as another, and after I left the locksmith’s shop, I walked uptown on Sixth Avenue. On the comer of Sixth and Fourteenth Street, I entered the first bank I found—The Merchants and Chemists Exchange— and located a vice-president seated behind a desk, at the rear of the main lobby. It took some time to explain to him that I had found the key, and to ask if there was any way to locate the owner to return it. He looked at the key, examining it, and said, “There’re a number of lock and safe companies who furnish keys and boxes to banks for their deposit departments. Also there’re a number of companies which are not banks, who rent safe deposit boxes out to customers. As a rule, it costs about twenty dollars if a deposit loses his keys and the lock has to be removed and a new key made. Ordinarily, however, a box holder is given two keys when he rents a box, and as soon as he loses a key he has another made from the remaining one for only two dollars It would hardly seem worthwhile for you to spend much effort in trying to return the key.”
    I was trapped badly. I thought it over, considering every angle. Rosemary obviously knew where the box was located and to whom it belonged. But where was Rosemary? Several days had passed and Bianca had not heard from her. Even if I should locate Rosemary again, there was no way I could make her tell me unless she wanted to do so. Quite calmly the scene flashed into my mind that I was beating it out of her with my fists. It