El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-08-30
TIE NRY FUssING. president of the
n Lenox National bank, and
BY F. Fendrich.

TT ENRY FLUSHING, president or the
II Lenox National bank, and
= John Doecker, the famous pri-
vate detective. were sitting in the
formers private office
Then it is your wish, Mr.. Fussing,
that the whole matter is to be kept
and that it is to be kept entirely out
of the hands of the policee"
Exactly" president Fussing replied.
"You must understand that 1 do not
wish it to become known that 1t is
possible for important papers TO
disappear from my private office. 1t
would necessarily hurt the reputation
of the bank"
81 promise you will act with the
utmost discretion"
.'I feel sure of that, Mr.. Decker,
or 1 should never have spoken so
openly to you. But do you think
you will be able to recover the pa
pers?'
.Of course can promise nothing
beforehand. but you may feel quite
sure I will do everything within my
power to get them back"
President Fussing was anything but
pleased. More than week had passed
since he had called in the detective.
and still he had nothing from him
whatever.
IF 1 do not get some word from him
today" he thought. 81 will begin to
doubt II he is really as smart as he
is thought
Just then there was a knock at the
door and a clerk entered.
There is a man outside who says
he must see you. but he refuses TO
give his name
Send him in
An old man, evidently skipper,
Judging from his beard and weather
beaten face, entered the presidents
office AS soon as he was inside he
threw himself into a chair, placed his
feet upon another and began to fill
the air with smoke from a peculiarly
capacious pipe.
you wished to see me-" Fussing
said, obviously annoyed Tat the otner
free and easy manners.
Yes, that's why I come want
to talk to you about some documents
you've lost"
about some documents7" Fussing
repeated.
Yes, here they are
The skipper unbuttoned his great
coat and handed some papers to the
astonished bank president, whose face
became more and more annoyed as ne
examined them.
"They are certainly the papers I had
lost, but / must say am greatly sur
prised to get them back in this man
ner, when Mr.. Doecker promised not
to let anybody into the secret of their
disappearance. In spite Of this, ne
sees fit to return them by stranger
without even enclosing them in an
envelope"
'1 think you had better tell that to
Mr.. Doecker himself. sir"
In wink he took off the beard, his
furrowed face smoothed out and
Doecker himself stood revealed to the
surprised president
81 beg your pardon, Mr.. Doecker, but
1 did not recognize you in that dis
guise," the president laughed
"I thought you would not" Dock
er replied. but if you should ever
again require my assistance and 1
promise you to act with discretion.
hope you will not doubt my word"
'I promise you that and beg your
pardon for having shown any dis
trust"
Don't mention 1t. My disguise I
simply put on because I thought 1t
was better the clerks should not know
that you had received detective
twice within such a short time"
Then really ought to feel thank
full to you, and beg you to believe me
when I say that 1 greatly appreciate
your tact. But now I should like to
know how you discovered the papers
and how they could possibly disappear
from my office. Who stole them?"
They were not stolen at all. And
who would care to steal papers that
were really of no value except to the
bank? I Immediately saw that theft
was out of the question, so I concen-
trated my efforts to find out who had
been in your office on that day and
carried away the papers by mistake.
At half past IL that day you re-
ceived the papers and laid them on
your desk. During the next hour three
of your employees were I'm here, but as
they were all ordinary clerks 1 soon
left them out of consideration, as none
of them had probably been close
enough to the desk to get the papers
by mistake.
"At half past II you locked your
door to take your usual nap-that is
to say you wanted no one to come in
from the outside office because you
expected a visit from lady who al