BAFFLED
“What would happen if any one met me, and saw what I had in this
package,” mused Larry, as he walked up Wall street with the bricks in
their newspaper wrappings under his arms. “If some of the police, or
detectives, who are working on this bank mystery, happened to see me
come out of the Consolidated building with this package they’d surely
think I was a new kind of a confidence man, or a gold-brick swindler.
“Or they might take me for an up-to-date hod-carrier,” he added, with
a smile. “Well, being a reporter makes you do all sorts of queer jobs,
but I like it. I only hope I can solve this mystery, and get the thief.
And suppose I recovered the money? A million dollars!”
The idea was so tremendous that Larry lost himself for a moment in
thinking of it, as he neared the busy throngs on Broadway. Then another
thought flashed into his mind.
“Twenty thousand dollars reward,” he said softly. “If I should get
that, or even half of it, I could afford to get out of the newspaper
game. And yet I don’t know as I would. There is too much excitement
in it. I like it. And I might get at least ten thousand dollars, if I
found the thief. I might have to divide with some one who helped me
arrest him, for I could hardly take him into custody alone.
“Oh, but what’s the use of thinking about it until I’ve got more of a
clew than I have at present?” he asked himself. “Well, maybe the bricks
will help me, but it’s a pretty slim chance.”
Larry, however, was used to taking slim chances, as indeed most
reporters are, and so he was not going to get discouraged before he had
even started on the new trail. There were many things to think of, and
he began on some new lines.
“I wonder why that fellow Witherby comes across my path so often?”
mused Larry. “I don’t like him. Not because he acted so toward Miss
Mason, in the subway, but because there is something suspicious about
him. He always acts as though he was afraid of me.
“Maybe that’s because I hauled him off the platform. But he’s bigger
than I am, and he ought to be able to trim me in a fight. Though I
wouldn’t be afraid of him. I can’t understand it.”
Larry shook his head over the problems he was called on to solve, but
still he liked the hard work.
“And, come to think of it, there’s something else,” went on Larry,
who had a habit of thinking things out in detail; a habit formed by
his experience as a reporter. “Witherby and Director Wilson seem to
be quite friendly. Mr. Wilson sends Witherby in to see if President
Bentfield is in his office, or----”
Larry came to a sudden stop, as a new idea came to him.
“Maybe Mr. Wilson wasn’t in the bank just now, after all!” the young
reporter said, half aloud. “Come to think of it, he wouldn’t be very
likely to be there so late. And, if he was, he’d come in to see the
president by the private door, opening from the corridor, and not
through the clerk’s cage. By Jove! I believe Witherby made that yarn
up. He wanted an excuse to come into the president’s office, to see
what I was up to, and he took that one. There’s something wrong about
Witherby, I’m sure.
“But I’ve got to keep quiet about it. I’ll just work up that clew.
Still, come to think of it, he and Mr. Wilson are a bit friendly. I’ve
often seen them talking together.
“Pshaw! I guess I’d better try one thing at a time. I’ll see what the
bricks can do for me,” and, with this idea, Larry hurried to get home
as soon as possible, and map out a plan of campaign.
“Well, Larry,” exclaimed his mother, when he came in and put the bricks
on the table, “are you going into the building business?”
“Oh, he’s going to play blocks with me; aren’t you, Larry?” asked
little Mary eagerly.
“Of course!” laughed Larry, catching her up in his arms and kissing
her. “You can build a little house by yourself, Mary, while I look over
these papers, and then I’ll build a house for you.”
The bricks, which had been found in the substituted valise, were not
the ordinary kind. They were somewhat smaller, and of the variety known
as pressed-glazed. They were used in the better class of houses, to
make a neat appearance around the kitchen range or in bathrooms, and on
the side walls of restaurants. There were quite a number of them, for
they were smaller than the ordinary red brick.
Mary began building a “house” with them, when Larry had put them on
the floor for her, and the young reporter carefully looked at the
newspapers in which the specimens of building material had been wrapped.
If he had hoped for a clew from the prints he was disappointed, for
there were several sheets of a New York paper, with nothing on them to
distinguish them from thousands of other sheets of the same date.
“But the date may help some,” thought Larry, noting that the paper had
been issued a few days before the robbery took place.
“Whoever wrapped up the bricks probably took the first paper that
was handy,” mused the reporter. “If he picked up the bricks at some
building he either found a paper in the street to wrap them in, or he
had a paper in his pocket. The latter is most likely to be the case,
for if a fellow intended to rob a bank, and needed bricks to represent
the weight of money, he wouldn’t go about a new building in the daytime
and pick them up. He’d wait until after dark, so he would not be seen.
“And by the same reasoning, he wouldn’t take a chance on finding a
paper near the building. Of course he _might_ find one, but it would be
likely to be dirty. So he’d carry a paper with him in his pocket, all
ready to wrap the bricks in.”
When Larry had reasoned matters thus far he had to admit that the paper
itself was a pretty slim clew. All it gave him was the date, but that
suggested something new.
“Let’s see,” mused the young reporter. “The date of the paper is the
same as the day when Miss Mason sold the mysterious man the valise. She
sold it to him late in the afternoon. The fellow must have gone from
the store to some building, picked up the bricks after dark, and taken
them home with him. Then, at the proper time, he took the fake bag and
the bricks to the bank and ‘switched’ the poor valise for the rich one,
making himself a million dollars richer by the exchange.
“That means that it was some one in the bank who turned the trick, and
there’s no getting away from that. But who was it? That’s the point,
and where is the money? For it’s a moral certainty that the fellow
hasn’t skipped with it, since no one has quit the bank’s employment
since the robbery. The thief is still connected with the bank, and the
money is hidden somewhere. It’s up to me to find it.”
That was as far as Larry could go. His brain was tired with much
thinking, and, putting aside the paper, he got down on the floor to
play “blocks” with his little sister Mary. As he built castles, towers,
palaces and just plain houses, he looked carefully at the bricks. He
was planning some way of finding who made them, and at what building
they would likely have been taken from.
That night, when the children had gone to bed, Larry went out to the
nearest drug store, and came back with a directory.
“Now what are you doing?” asked his mother.
“Looking up all the firms who make this kind of brick,” he replied.
“I’m going to call on as many as I can to-morrow.”
This plan he put in operation, but it was a baffling search. He found
that the bricks in question were made by only one firm, which he
located after calling on a number. But here the clew failed.
“We have sold thousands of those bricks,” said the manager, to whom the
young reporter applied after showing a sample of the bricks taken from
the valise. “Yes, I might say half a million of them. They have been
delivered to dozens of builders in New York City, and the outskirts,
and used in a variety of ways. One brick is as like another as are two
peas, and it would be out of the question to try to trace where the few
were picked up that took the place of the million dollars.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” agreed Larry. “This is the end of this clew all
right,” and, tired and discouraged, he started back for the office of
the _Leader_, there to write for the next day a story of his baffling
search.