THE CONTENTS OF THE BLACK BAG
Johnny found the fire chief in a sour mood next morning. Two disastrous
fires in a single night, both probable cases of arson. One had been
tipped off to him beforehand and he had sent Johnny and some of his best
men to watch. Yet they had found nothing. It was enough to break the
staunchest heart.
“Buck up, Chief,” smiled Johnny, “the firebug’s dead.”
“He is, is he!” roared the Chief. “Didn’t I see him not two hours ago?
Ain’t he goin’ to get out of jail unless we can pin something definite on
him?”
It was Johnny’s turn to lose heart. The firebug in jail, about to escape
for lack of a charge? What did this mean?
“Where—where did you catch him?” he stammered.
“Where’d you expect? By the fire he set, to be sure; the Randolph Street
fire.”
“Oh!” Johnny breathed more easily. “You got Knobs Whittaker?”
“Who’d you think? Wasn’t he the man I set you to watch?”
“Why yes—one of them.”
“And didn’t we catch him wandering round in the crowd, big as life and
staring round as if he was looking for somebody he’d lost?”
“Did he describe the man he was looking for?” Johnny smiled as he asked
this.
“No, why should he? Why should we care?”
“Probably you shouldn’t. Only I thought it might be me he was looking
for.”
“You? Why?”
“I had a bit of property of his.” At this Johnny held up the black bag
that he had taken from Knobs.
“Where’d you get that?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Johnny, calmly sitting down.
He did tell, and after the Chief had listened with all his ears he
exclaimed at the finish:
“Open it up. You’re right, it may contain some evidence and evidence is
what we need.”
“Do you know, Johnny,” he said as the boy struggled to break the lock,
“that was the hottest fire I ever experienced. There were enough
chemicals in that lower story to charge a volcano. It’s a wonder there
wasn’t an explosion. Those boys will forfeit their insurance.”
“I might have a little evidence on that point, too,” said Johnny. “You
remember my telling of the truck that unloaded there just before the
fire? Well, that may have been a plant. Perhaps the company had not
ordered those chemicals. Knobs Whittaker may have had them put there.”
“Why?”
“How did the diamond company’s property fare?”
“Total loss. Never saw anything to equal it. Safe just over the
chemicals. Dropped right into the mess of those flaming chemicals. The
safe was melted to a solid mass.”
“And the diamonds?”
“Diamonds? In the safe, I guess. Or maybe they melted, too. Diamonds are
carbon you know, same as coal. Wouldn’t expect them to withstand the
heat, would you?”
“Not if they were there,” said Johnny. “I thought it might be——”
At this moment the lock to the black bag gave way. Johnny threw up the
cover.
“Shade my eyes!” exclaimed the Chief. “What have we here?”
“Looks like diamonds to me,” said Johnny with a grin.
“So they are!” exclaimed the Chief, seizing a small case and examining
its contents closely. “And that was the game. Knobs was in with the
diamond merchant! Man! What a haul they would have made!”
The next instant he dashed to the telephone.
“That you, Cassidy?” he said a moment later. “The Fire Chief speaking.
Hold Knobs without bail. We’ve got the goods on him. A dead open and shut
case. He’ll do twenty years for last night’s work.
“Now,” he said to Johnny after resuming his usual composed manner, “what
was this you were telling me about the firebug being dead?”
“That was something else.”
“Another one?”
“The one who set fire to Forest City, and all those other places of
public pleasure, the enemy of happiness. Do you remember the tall stooped
man with a hook-nose and a limp that I spoke to you about?”
“Yes.”
“That was the man.”
“Can you prove it?”
“I think I can.”
“Well, if you can you’re mighty well off. You’re well off as it is. I’ll
make the insurance companies come through with a fat reward on this,” he
patted the black bag. “But there’s a reward offered by the city for the
firebug. If you can prove that his work is over you’ll be doing yourself
a service as well as every law-abiding citizen of this old town.”
“I’ll do it before dark.”
“Go to it, Johnny. More power to your good right arm.” The Chief grasped
his hand in a hearty grip, then escorted him to the door.