18 AMERICAN BLUES THEATER THE GREATEST GIFT BY PHILIP VAN DOREN STERN WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS doorway. And the windows looked as though they hadn’t been washed in years. A light was still burning across the street in Jim Silva’s office. George dashed over and tore the door open. Jim looked up from his ledgerbook in surprise. “What can I do for you, young man?” he said in the polite voice he reserved for potential customers. “The bank,” George said breathlessly. “What’s the matter with it?” “The old bank building?” Jim Silva turned around and looked out of the window. “Nothing that I can see. Wouldn’t like to rent or buy it, would you?” “You mean—it’s out of business?” “For a good ten years. Went bust. Stranger ’round these parts, ain’t you?” George sagged against the wall. “I was here some time ago,” he said weakly. “The bank was all right then. I even knew some of the people who worked there.” “Didn’t you know a feller named Marty Jenkins, did you?” “Marty Jenkins! Why, he—” George was about to say that Marty had never worked at the bank—couldn’t have, in fact, for when they had both left school they had applied for a job there and George had gotten it. But now, of course, things were different. He would have to be careful. “No, I didn’t know him,” he said slowly. “Not really, that is. I’d heard of him.” “Then maybe you heard how he skipped out with fifty thousand dollars. That’s why the bank went broke. Pretty near ruined everybody around here.” Silva was looking at him sharply. “I was hoping for a minute maybe you’d know where he is. I lost plenty in that crash myself. We’d like to get our hands on Marty Jenkins.” “Didn’t he have a brother? Seems to me he had a brother named Arthur.” “Art? Oh, sure. But he’s all right. He don’t know where his brother went. It’s had a terrible effect on him, too. Took to drink, he did. It’s too bad—and hard on his wife. He married a nice girl.” George felt the sinking feeling in his stomach again. “Who did he marry?” he demanded hoarsely. Both he and Art had courted Mary. “Girl named Mary Thatcher,” Silva said cheerfully. “She lives up on the hill just this side of the church— Hey! Where are you going?” But George had bolted out of the office. He ran past the empty bank building and turned up the hill. For a moment he thought of going straight to Mary. The house next to the church had been given them by her father as a wedding present. Naturally Art Jenkins would have gotten it if he had married Mary. George wondered whether they had any children. Then he knew he couldn’t face Mary—not yet anyway. He decided to visit his parents and find out more about her. There were candles burning in the windows of the little weather-beaten house on the side street, and a Christmas wreath was hanging on the glass panel of the front door. George raised the gate latch with a loud click. A dark shape on the porch jumped up and began to growl. Then it hurled itself down the steps, barking ferociously. “Brownie!” George shouted. “Brownie, you old fool, stop that! Don’t you know me?” But the dog advanced menacingly and drove him back behind the gate. The porch light snapped on, and George’s father stepped outside to call the dog off. The barking subsided to a low, angry growl. His father held the dog by the collar