"Good morning, Mr. Horton. I'm Isaac Lessing. About the rental we discussed last week..."
The short, stocky man sized up the young man with black hair and blue eyes standing before him. "...Oh, it's you."
Isaac smiled politely and was about to ask about the details of signing the contract when the landlord said, "I've already rented that room to someone else. You'll have to look elsewhere."
"Huh?" Isaac froze. "That room... didn't we agree on it last week?"
"Who said we had an agreement?" The landlord waved impatiently. "We didn't sign a contract. What's a verbal agreement worth? Besides, the other person offered an extra half shilling a week, so of course I rented it to the higher bidder."
Isaac's mouth twitched. When he had come to see the room last week, the man had been all smiles, assuring him everything was settled and saying there was no rush to sign the contract until he moved in. Now it seemed the man had simply kept his options open while he looked for a wealthier tenant.
If he'd known, he would have been better off spending a little more on a reliable agent, though reliable agents didn't seem easy to find either...
Seeing Isaac still standing there, the landlord apparently decided that, having already offended him, he might as well go all the way. He pushed Isaac toward the door by the shoulders. "All right, all right, stop standing around here. I have important things to do!"
Isaac stumbled back two steps under the shove and nearly missed a step. Before he could turn around, the door slammed shut in front of him, almost hitting him in the face.
Isaac glanced at the suitcase and bedding roll by his feet and sighed. He hadn't had much in his dorm to begin with, and expecting to move straight in, he had already cleared everything out and brought it along. Now he had to lug it all around while looking for a rental. If he couldn't find anything suitable, he would have to find an inn first...
Though he still had some savings, as a graduate with neither a job nor an income, Isaac felt a great deal of pressure.
He picked up his suitcase and bedding roll and moved a few steps toward the roadside. The late June sun in Palmer made the stone pavement gleam. In front of the row houses, a few housewives in aprons chatted in the shade, glancing over from time to time. After all, a handsome young man standing by the road with a bedding roll was an odd sight worth noticing. He looked as though he had been thrown out for failing to pay rent.
Though Isaac hadn't actually moved in yet.
There were a few apartments for rent in the east of the city, but their locations were rather out of the way... As Isaac considered what to do next, a shrill, excited voice rang out in the distance:
"Extra! Extra! Major news! Great robbery at Palmer Bank!"
The housewives turned toward the sound, and several heads poked out of windows. The scattered pedestrians in the street stopped in their tracks. A newsboy in a flat cap came running from the end of the street with a stack of newspapers in his arms, waving a sheet as he ran.
An ordinary theft wouldn't have drawn so much attention. Palmer was neither a particularly large nor a particularly small city, and reports of thefts and robberies appeared in the papers every few days-warehouse thefts at the docks, jewelry stores broken into, and the like. People were long tired of hearing about them.
But... Palmer Bank? A great robbery?
Isaac's thoughts stalled for a moment. By the time he came back to himself, seven or eight people had already surrounded the newsboy. Even the landlord had emerged from his door.
He no longer had time to worry about his luggage. He tossed it against the wall and hurried into the crowd, saying "Excuse me" as he went. Relying on his youthful strength, he squeezed his way through a gap between two middle-aged men, pulled out a penny, and slapped it into the newsboy's hand. "One for me."
Surrounded by people, the newsboy handed out newspapers one after another. Isaac took his copy of the Palmer Daily, struggled back through the packed crowd, and returned to his luggage to unfold it.
The front-page headline read: "Palmer Bank looted by ruthless robbers, City Police Force investigating."
Isaac skimmed the article. It said that in the early hours of the morning, a gang of an unknown number of robbers had infiltrated the bank vault by unknown means, forced open several private safe deposit boxes, and swept away everything of value inside. The police had only been called after an employee found the vault door ajar. No further details had been disclosed.
An official statement from the bank appeared at the end of the article. It said the bank was cooperating with the City Police Force in a full investigation, then emphasized that all cash and gold bar reserves were intact and urged depositors not to panic. It also announced that security measures would soon be comprehensively upgraded. Finally, it said that customers who had rented private safe deposit boxes could register at the bank counter starting that day, so the City Police Force could investigate and recover their property as part of a coordinated effort.
A coordinated investigation and recovery by the City Police Force...
Isaac's gaze lingered on that line. He folded the newspaper, and, seeing a cab approaching slowly along the street, quickly raised a hand to hail it and picked up his suitcase and bedding roll.
The carriage stopped in front of him. The driver straightened his bowler hat and, seeing Isaac's anxious expression and the newspaper tucked under his arm, immediately understood. "Palmer Bank?"
"Palmer Bank," Isaac said. He loaded his luggage into the carriage and climbed in after it.
The carriage set off. Isaac watched the streetscape recede outside the window, his mind still churning with jumbled thoughts.
He did have savings at Palmer Bank, but there were other things more important than the savings, which were probably still safe.
Isaac's adoptive father, Edward Lessing, had been a historian of some renown in academic circles in the Western Territory and had taught at Isaac's alma mater, Palmer University. He had died of a heart attack in his study six months ago.
The old professor had accumulated little wealth in his lifetime. Even his home had been an on-campus apartment provided by Palmer University. The only things he owned that could be called valuable were his books: several hundred rare volumes, manuscripts, and rubbings. But even those would appeal only to interested buyers.
The university had given Isaac a month to sort through his belongings. Isaac had not yet graduated at the time, and neither the space nor the storage conditions in his dorm were suitable for the books. He didn't feel comfortable leaving them in an ordinary warehouse, either. After turning it over, he had finally gritted his teeth and rented a bank safe deposit box, intending to retrieve them once he graduated and found a stable place to live.
Now he had graduated, but had yet to find a place to live. Who could have imagined that this would happen at the bank too? Isaac could only pray that the robbers hadn't been interested in the books.
There were so many books, and they were heavy and difficult to sell. Surely the robbers wouldn't have set their sights on them?
But the article had also said that the robbers hadn't touched the gold bars or cash, and had only forced open private safe deposit boxes... If they had only been after money, the gold bars would have been the biggest target.
The robbers had gone to such trouble to infiltrate the bank, yet ignored the gold right in front of them and gone out of their way to force open private safe deposit boxes one by one. No matter how he looked at it, they didn't seem like ordinary robbers.
Unless they hadn't been after money in the first place... Isaac let out a long breath, a wave of irritation rising in him.
He knew nothing about the case, and he couldn't infer much from a single newspaper article. He could only go to the bank first and see what had happened.