CLERK AND MONEY MISSING.
John Novak's Employer Believes He
Was Waylaid and Robbed
of $936.
John Novak, a Bohemian clerk in the employ of C. A. Eckerson, grocer, of 4 Kansas avenue, Kansas City, Kas., after having cashed $936 in checks belonging to his employer at the Stock Yards Bank of Commerce yesterday afternoon disappeared, and nothing has since been seen of him. He is thought to have been held up and robbed. The police of both cities are investigating.
The checks, which were on Swift & Co. and the Kansas City Packing Box Company, were tendered at the Eckerson store yesterday in payment for groceries. Later Novak took them all to the bank to have them cashed, as always had been his custom during the two years he had worked for the grocer. He was given the money and started on the return journey shortly after 4 o'clock, but at a late hour last night he had failed to put in an appearance.
Mr. Eckerson scoffs at the suggestion of the police that the man might have decamped with the money, he saying that Novak on one other occasion had cashed checks amounting to $5,000 and only yesterday morning he was sent to the bank with checks aggregating $2,000. On numerous other occasions Mr. Eckerson declares, Novak cashed large amounts at the bank and was well known to the officials.
Persons acquainted with the man's habits are thought to have waylaid him some place between the bank and the store, and, after relieving him of the money, made him prisoner until such time as they could make their escape, or to have so seriously injured him that he has been unable to notify any person of his predicament.
