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staff, at any time today, being near your cash so they could have taken some?" "No."
    "When you first came to me, Juanita," Eastin said, "and told me you thought there was some money gone, how long before that had you known about it?" "A few minutes."
    Edwina interjected, "How long was that after your lunch break, Mrs. Nu nez?"
    The girl hesitated, seeming less sure of herself. "Maybe twenty minutes."
    "Let's talk about before you went to lunch," Edwina said. "Do you think the mon ey was missing then?" Juanita Nunez shook her head negatively. "How can you be sure?" "I know."
    The unhelpful, monosyllabic answers were becoming irritating to Edwina. And the sulky hostility which she sensed earlier seemed more pronounced.
    Tottenhoe repeated the crucial question. "After lunch, why were you certain not only that money was missing, but exactly how much?" The young woman's small face set defiantly. "I knew" There was a disbelieving silence.
    "Do you think that some time during the day you could have paid six thousand dollars out to a customer in error?" "No."
    Miles Eastin asked, "When you left your teller's position before you went to lunch, Juanita, you took your cash drawer to the cash vault, dosed the combination lock and left it there. Right?" "Yes." "Are you sure you locked it?" The girl nodded positively. "Was the operations officer's lock closed?" "No, left open."
    That, too, was normal . Once the operations officer's combination had been set to "open" each morning, it was usual to leave it that way through the re mainder of the day.
    "But when you came back from lunch your cash drawer was still in the vault, still locked?" `'Yes."
    "Does anyone else know your combination? Have you ever given it to anyone?" "No."
    For a moment the questioning stopped. The others around the desk, Edwina suspected, were reviewing mentally the branch's cash vault procedures.
    The cash drawer which Miles Eastin had referred to was actually a portable strongbox on an elevated stand with wheels, light enough to be pushed around easily. Some banks called it a cash truck. Every teller had one assigned and the same cash drawer or truck, conspicuously numbered, was used normally by the same individual. A few spares were available for special use. Miles Eastin had been using one today.
    All tellers' cash trucks were checked in and out of the cash vault by a senior vault teller who kept a record of their removal and return. It was impossible to take a cash unit in or out without the vault teller's scrutiny or to remove someone else's, deliberately or in error. During nights-and weekends the massive cash vault was sealed tighter than a Pharaoh's tomb.
    Each cash truck had two tamperproof combination locks. One of these was set by the teller personally, the other by the operations officer or assistant. Thus, when a cash unit was opened each morning it was in the presence of two people the te ller and an operations officer.
    Tellers were told to memorize their combinations ant not to confide them to anyone else, though a combination could be changed any time a teller wished. The only written record of a teller's combination was in a sealed and double-signed envelope which was kept with others again in double custody in a safe deposit box. The seal on the envelope was only broken in event of a teller's death, illness, or leaving the ba n k's employ.
    By all these means, only the active user of any cash drawer knew the combination which would open it and tellers, as well as the bank, were protected against theft.
    A further feature of the sophi sticated cash drawer was a built-in alarm system. When rolled into place at any teller's position at a counter, an electrical connection linked each cash unit with an interbank communications network. A warning trigger was hidden within the drawer beneath an innocuous appearing pile of bills, known as "bait money."
    Tellers had instructions never to use the bait money for normal transactions, but in event of a holdup