Cash shortfall and shocking recovery

THIRTY years ago, I received a late-evening phone call at the office of our bank union from the branch in Chennai. The cashier had reported a shortfall of Rs 10,000. On checking and rechecking everything, the denominations of currency notes recorded on the backside of the cheque slip had led them to zero in on a payment made to a particular customer. The new office assistant of the customer concerned, an adolescent boy, had collected that payment. He was summoned by the branch manager for questioning. The branch staff told me that the lad reacted angrily on being targeted for the shortfall. He maintained that he had received the exact amount. While seeking our assistance, the staffers told me that they had informed the local police authorities.

I rushed to the branch. As I entered, the boy, at the sight of a man in uniform approaching him, had just started confessing that, indeed, an excess payment of Rs 10,000 had been made to him. But the puzzle was far from solved. He had handed the cheque amount to his employer and kept the rest with him. The manager asked him to return that immediately so that he could be let off without any complication. The boy stood calm and would not say anything on the whereabouts of the money.

It took 15 minutes of grilling before he eventually revealed that he had paid the money to his sister, who was employed in a private company. A team of the staff took him in a vehicle to his sister’s residence. It was well past 10 by then. When they knocked on the door, the sister’s husband came out and was shocked to find so many people at that hour. He called his wife outside; initially, she denied that her brother had given her money. When her husband raised his voice, asking her to tell the truth, she admitted that the boy had indeed visited her at her office and given the said amount with a request to keep it safe. Where was the money, then?

She broke down and told us that she had placed it in her tiffin box and kept it in a cupboard at her office. The team swiftly moved to the residence of the company’s proprietor, who was kind enough to send the keys of his office premises through his assistant. The tiffin box was found in the said place and the amount quickly recovered.

It was around midnight when the affair came to a satisfactory conclusion; otherwise, the shortfall would have proved costly for the cashier. But the web of lies spun by the brother-sister duo left us shocked.