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had been working all day, having started with slightly more than ten thousand dollars cash from-vault in the morning, and she had been taking in and paying out money since 9 A.M. when the bank opened. That meant she had been working for almost five hours, except for a forty-five-minute lunch break, and during that time the bank was crowded, with all tellers busy. Furthermore, cash deposits today had been heavier than usual; therefore the amount of money in her drawer not including checks could have increased to twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars. So how, Tottenhoe reasoned, could Mrs. Nunez be certain not only that money was missing but know the amount so specifically?
    Edwina nodded. The same question had already occurred to her.
    Without being obvious, Edwina studied the young woman. She was small, slight, dark, not really pretty but provocative in an elfin way. She looked Puerto Rican, which she was, and had a pronounced accent. She had said little so far, responding only briefly when spoken to.
    It was hard to be sure just what Juanita Nunez's attitude was. It was certainly not co-operative, at least outwardly, Edwina thought, and the girl had volunteered no information other than her original statement. Since they started, the teller's facial expression had seemed either sulky or hostile. Occasionally her attention wandered, as if she were bored and regarded the proceedings as a waste of time. But she was nervous? too, and betrayed it by her clasped hands and continuous turning of a thin gold wedding band.
    Edwina D'Orsey knew, because she had glanced at an employment record on her desk, that Juanita Nunez was twenty-five, married but separated, with a three-year-old child. She had worked for First Mercantile American for alm ost two years, all of that time in her present job. What wasn't in the employment record, but Edwina remem bered hearing, was that the Nun ez girl supported her child alone and had been, perhaps still was, in financial difficulties because of debts left by the husband who deserted her.
    Despite his doubts that Mrs. Nunez could possibly know how much money was missing, Tottenhoe continued, he had relieved her from duty at the counter, after which she was immediately "locked up with her cash."
    Being "locked up" was actually a protection for the employee concerned and was also standard procedure in a problem of this kind. It simply meant that the teller was placed alone in a small, closed office, along with her cash box and a ca lculator, and told to balance all transactions for the day. Tottenhoe waited outside.
    Soon afterward she carted the operations officer in. Her cash did not balance, she informed him. It was six thousand dollars short.
    Tottenhoe summoned Miles Eastin and together they ran a second check while Juanita Nunez watched. They found her report to be correct. Without doubt there was cash missing; and precisely the amount she had stated all along. It was then that Tottenhoe had telephoned Edwina.
    "That brings us back," Ed wina said, "to where we started . Have any fresh ideas occurred to anyone?"
    Miles Eastin volunteered, "I'd like to ask Juanita some more questions if she doesn't mind." Edwina nodded.
    "Think carefully about this, Juanita," Eastin said. "At any time today did you make a TX with any other teller?"
    As a ll of them knew, a TX was a tell er's exchange. A teller on duty would often run short of bills or coins of one denomination and if it happened at a busy time, rather than make a trip to the cash vault, tellers helped each other by "buying" or "selling" cash. A TX form was used to keep a record. But occasionally, through haste or carelessness, mistakes were made, so that at the end of the business day one teller would be short on cash, the other long. It would be hard to believe, though, that such a difference could be as large as six thousand dollars. "No," the teller said. "No exchanges. Not today." Miles Eastin persisted, "Were you aware of anyone els e on the