Mister Fix And the River Styx

by Jeff Baker

“Two-Hundred pounds!” the Bank Manager said to Detective Fix. “We will be ruined.”

“Two-Hundred pounds is not much in the grand scheme of things,” Inspector Fix said.

“You don’t understand,” the manager said. “Our reputation is one for security and safety. If word of this gets out…”

“I understand,” Fix said, concealing that he was losing some of his patience. “Tell me again what happened.”

“There is nothing to tell,” the manager said. “It was the end of the day. We were counting the money. We keep a very careful accounting of every shilling. But to-night we were short. By two-hundred pounds! Oh, Lord! What am I going to do?”

Fix was about to say something when an officer burst into the room.

“We caught him,” he said breathless. “He ran and we shot him. You’d better come quickly.”

As the three of them rushed outside from the bank offices the officer told his story.

“Me and Ruddy were doing our patrol, right? And we seen this shifty-looking character drop out of a tree down the way, holding a bag. It’s dark enough he didn’t think anybody would notice. But we noticed. We gave chase. And that’s when he fired.”

“Fired?” Fix asked. “Armed?”

“Criminals usually are,” the officer said. “But he stumbled and fell and the gun went off again. Into him. Here we are, Sir.” They could hear the bank manager panting behind them.

A younger officer was kneeling beside a prone figure in dark clothing lying in the street. Fix quickly noticed a gun and a cloth bag, smaller than a carpet bag which the officer had set behind himself.

“What’s the situation?” Fix asked.

“Better ask yourself, Sir,” Ruddy, the young officer said. “He doesn’t have much time, I’ll wager.”

Fix bent down to see the man who was breathing hard and bleeding profusely. “Fetch a doctor,” he said. The officer who had fetched them ran off towards Baker Street.

Always aware of his surroundings, Fix noticed the bank manager standing there, staring at the man.

“It’s Alfred…Sleazy Alfred they call him.”

“Yes,” Fix said. He knew him by reputation.

The bank manager rummaged through the bag. “This isn’t even half of the money,” he said.

Fix glared at Sleazy Alfred. “Where’s the rest of it?”

Alfred coughed and managed to say. “He has it…handed it to me out the window. I climb trees like a monkey I do. Hopped from one to the other and hid.”

Fix glanced around. The area was planted with trees like an urban forest.

“We split the money…” Alfred continued.

“He took the lion’s share,” Fix said.

“We did it quick after they left the bank…I hid again, he kept his bag under his coat.”

“I searched the three employees, Scott, Wilson and Dougal. Found nothing,” the bank manager said. “And we looked all over the bank. Nothing.”

“Of course,” Fix said. “He slipped it to a confederate outside. Alfred. Now, who is he?”

Alfred coughed. “I don’t know the name,” he said. “Said it was better that way…an’ he said he’d be across the river Styx before they found out…”

Fix glared down at Alfred. “What did he mean by that?”

Alfred gave a gurgle and Fix realized he wouldn’t be giving him any answers.

Fix stood up. The bank manager looked like he was going to faint.

“I’ve never seen…never seen anybody…I mean after being shot…” the manager said.

“Yes,” Fix said. “When the doctor arrives let me back in your office. I want to check the files on the three employees who were there.”

In the office, the lamplight flickering on the wall calendar with the date 1873 as Fix looked over the personnel records and the bank manager rambled on.

“They’ve been with the bank for years…” he said, and for the seemingly hundredth time he listed the suspect employees. “Wilson Dougal, we call him Willie. Steadfast Daniel Miller, we call him that because, well everybody does. And James Scott…I can’t believe that any of them would…”

“I can,” Fix said looking up from the papers. “I’m sending some officers over to arrest our man.”

Back at police headquarters Fix was enjoying a smoke with some of the officers.

“But Inspector,” one of them said. “How could you be certain…”

Fix smiled. “I wasn’t totally certain, but I had a hunch. The culprit had referred to the River Styx. And that tied in my memory with something I’d heard once; Durante or Dante is a word meaning steadfast. And Daniel is a nickname for Durante. He has an obsession with the classics. His personnel file lists him as living in a house called The Elysian Fields.” Fix took a long puff of his pipe. “Just over the River Styx.”

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Yes, this is the detective from Jules Verne’s “Around the World In Eighty Days.” I’d wanted to do a story about him and the prompt picture provided the impetus and the title. Although the story doesn’t have a lot to do with a river! ——-jsb 2/21/25