AN EXPLODED THEORY
Sandy repeated Ken’s last words in a sort of daze. “He’d been here
before looking for the box?” He shook his head to clear it. “You mean
the night your father got back? When the door was found open in the
morning? You think Barrack was here then?”
Ken nodded. “Barrack or somebody involved with him. How else would he
have known this address?”
Sandy shrugged. “He might have learned it in a hundred different ways.
But suppose for a minute you’re right. In that case why would he come
back here now? Why wouldn’t he avoid us?”
“He probably wanted to find out how much we know—or suspect,” Ken said.
“Well,” Sandy told him grimly, “you may suspect plenty. But even you
don’t _know_ anything.” He started briskly across the room. “He looked
perfectly all right to me.” He picked up the phone book and leafed
through it. “Here it is—the Tobacco Mart. So that part of his story
wasn’t invented, at least. It’s on Chatham Square. That’s down at the
edge of Chinatown, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Ken agreed. “And he may even work there. Or, if he
doesn’t, he’s made some arrangement for the company to vouch for him if
anybody should make inquiries.”
“That what you’re planning to do?”
Ken considered the question seriously. “I don’t know at the moment.”
Sandy grinned. “But don’t tell me you’re not planning to do anything.
That would be too good to be true.”
Ken looked at him for a moment and then he grinned back. “You don’t
sound as convincing as you think you do. If I didn’t think up a plan of
action, you would—and you know it.”
Sandy bristled for a moment and then gave it up. “O.K.,” he said. “I
admit I’m curious about the whole business. And if Lausch has some
interesting news for us in the morning—”
“But that won’t be until ten o’clock,” Ken pointed out. He walked
toward the kitchen, with Sandy at his heels, and opened the
refrigerator door. “And in the meantime,” Ken went on, putting milk and
bread and ham and cheese on the table, and beginning to cut bread for
sandwiches, “I’d like to keep an eye on Barrack’s rooming house in the
morning when it’s time for him to leave for work. Maybe he’ll go down
to the Tobacco Mart. Maybe he won’t.”
“Maybe he’ll start right out on his sales route.”
“Anything’s possible,” Ken agreed. “I just want to be there to see.”
It was more than cold at six thirty the next morning when Ken hurried
Sandy out of the apartment and along quiet gray streets toward
Barrack’s address. It was bitter. Ken had pointed out that Sandy ought
to wear a hat, to hide his all-too-obvious red hair, and for once Sandy
had raised no objections. But he had complained loudly when Ken
insisted that they both put on sunglasses, to further conceal their
identity.
“If you don’t think dark glasses will look crazy, in the dead of
winter—” Sandy began.
“They’re a protection against snow blindness,” Ken told him. “Go on.
Put them on.”
They walked quickly, their chins buried in their coat collars, until
they reached the corner of Barrack’s block.
“You stay here and I’ll go up to the next corner,” Ken suggested. “That
way we’ll be able to pick him up whichever way he turns when he comes
out of the house.”
“All right. But if he doesn’t come out soon I’ll be picking up double
pneumonia instead,” Sandy warned.
“We’ll both follow him, but not too close together,” Ken went on. “And
if one of us should lose him—if we should get separated—we’ll meet at
the museum at ten o’clock.”
The icy minutes dragged slowly by. But actually it was barely seven
o’clock when Ken caught sight of Barrack. The man was dressed this time
in a battered hat and well-worn overcoat, and he was walking briskly
toward the corner where Ken stood.
Ken could see that Sandy had already left his own post and was coming
along behind Barrack. Ken stepped hastily inside a convenient hallway.
He waited there until Barrack passed by, and then sauntered slowly in
the man’s wake, giving Sandy a chance to pass him.
As Sandy went by, Ken said quietly, “I’ll be behind you. Looks like
he’s heading for the Seventy-second Street subway station.”
“Check.”
Ken’s prophecy was accurate. They boys took up positions on the station
platform on either side of Barrack to make sure he didn’t leave by
another entrance, and only moved in toward their quarry when a train
slowed to a stop before them. They watched him board a car by its
center door and then, screened by other riders, they entered the same
car by the doors at either end.
The train was an express, and it rocketed its way downtown without a
stop until it reached Times Square. Barrack didn’t even look up as the
train stood in the station there. He was engrossed in a newspaper.
But at Thirty-fourth Street, the next stop, he made his way hurriedly
out of the car. When he reached the street the boys were both fairly
close behind him, and Ken cautiously dropped back another twenty feet.
Barrack walked west on Thirty-fourth Street at a rapid pace until he
turned abruptly and entered a cafeteria. Sandy waited on the sidewalk
until Ken came up.
“Do we go in?”
“Better not. You stand inside this doorway here, and I’ll take the one
beyond the cafeteria.”
Sandy glanced longingly toward the warm steamy interior, but he didn’t
argue.
Barrack was out again in less than fifteen minutes, to continue his
rapid pace westward. Sandy moved out into the stream of pedestrians in
his wake, and Ken fell into position behind him.
Barrack turned south when he reached Eighth Avenue and walked along
that busy truck-crowded street until he had passed the rear of
Pennsylvania Station. At Thirty-second Street he swung westward again,
to walk briskly past the block-long bulk of New York’s main post office.
There were fewer people abroad in that neighborhood. The boys could
fall farther behind and still keep their quarry in sight. At Ninth
Avenue, Barrack waited for a traffic light and then hurried past the
halted vehicles. A moment later he vanished from sight through the
doorway of a huge building.
Sandy waited for Ken to catch up, and they stood for a moment on the
sidewalk.
“Either he’ll come right out again, or he’ll take an elevator,” Ken
said.
When the second hand on Ken’s new chronometer had ticked off two full
minutes, they drifted into the lobby with the stream of workers
obviously hurrying toward an eight-o’clock deadline. The four elevators
along one wall each swallowed up a dozen or more with every ascent. Ken
and Sandy glanced around, saw no sign of Barrack, and slid through the
crowd to study the building directory on the rear wall.
It was obvious from the names listed on it that the entire building was
devoted to printers, paper dealers, and ink companies.
“That’s funny,” Sandy said. “What would he be doing at a printing trade
center? I guess you were right after all. He _was_ lying about where he
worked.”
“I didn’t say that,” Ken reminded him. “And an employee of the Tobacco
Mart might have perfectly legitimate business in a place like this.
Maybe he came to pick up a batch of labels or printed containers.” He
glanced at his watch. “Let’s wait outside awhile and see if he comes
back down and goes some place else—to Chatham Square, say.”
They found a sheltered doorway a few yards down the block and did their
best to keep warm by stamping their feet. But the icy chill crept
through their overcoats and into their very bones.
At nine o’clock Sandy said grimly, “I’ve had enough of this. I’ll agree
to anything. Barrack lied about the Tobacco Mart. He’s really a
printer. Or he’s an international crook who steals rubies to melt down
into red ink which he ships around in iron boxes. Have it any way you
like. But if I don’t get some hot coffee pretty soon—”
“All right,” Ken interrupted, to Sandy’s amazement. “This doesn’t seem
to be getting us anywhere. I’ll agree to leaving here now—after all, we
have to get up to the museum, anyway—if you’ll agree to coming back
here about noon. Then, if Barrack does work here, we ought to be able
to pick him up again. Maybe—”
“I told you I’d agree to anything,” Sandy said, starting toward a
lunchroom sign he had spotted a block away. “Anyway, by noon we’ll have
the information from Lausch and maybe you’ll be willing to call this
whole thing off. This is supposed to be our Christmas vacation,
remember? I—”
“You’ll feel better when you’ve had some breakfast,” Ken assured him.
They did feel considerably better, although Sandy was still mumbling
dire forebodings about frostbite in both feet, when Lausch opened his
office door to them an hour later.
“Good!” The little art expert beamed. “Sintelli has just sent back your
box, and the answers to all your questions. But come in. Come in and
sit down near the heater. You must be cold if you have walked here from
my friend Holt’s apartment.”
“Hah!” Sandy said under his breath. “If that’s all we’d done—!” But at
a glare from Ken he broke off and moved toward the chairs Lausch was
pulling into place for them.
“First,” Lausch said a moment later, smoothing out a sheet of notes on
his desk, “you wanted to know if the box is really old.” He smiled at
them over his glasses. “It is—definitely. Sintelli didn’t make any
spectroscopic tests of the metal, but he said that wasn’t necessary. He
is quite certain that the box was made not less than three hundred
years ago.”
Ken gulped. He was aware of a convulsive movement on Sandy’s part—the
beginning of a vast guffaw that Sandy nobly controlled.
“I see.” Ken gulped once more, and turned his head to avoid Sandy’s
glance. “What else?”
“You wanted to know if the box is valuable,” Lausch went on. “And in
this case,” he said, cheerfully unaware of Ken’s reaction to his first
statement, “I’m afraid you will find the news not so pleasant. Sintelli
says this box is in excellent condition, but that even so it is not
worth more than fifteen or twenty dollars in American money.”
“Is that all?” Ken’s voice cracked on the words.
“Unfortunately yes.” Lausch nodded. “So many of them were made at the
time, you see, to be used—apparently—as small money boxes. They can be
found in numerous antique shops.”
“Very interesting. Ve-ry interesting,” Sandy said in a curious choked
voice.
“Sintelli was quite surprised at your third question,” Lausch went on.
“He doesn’t know why you thought such a box as this might have been
stolen from a museum or anywhere else. They’re not valuable or rare
enough to merit inclusion in a collection—or to merit the risk of
stealing, for that matter.”
“Ken will have to refer to his crystal ball for an explanation of
that,” Sandy murmured.
Lausch glanced at him questioningly. “I didn’t quite understand you.”
“Nothing—nothing,” Sandy said hastily. “Let’s see. There was one
further question, wasn’t there?”
“Yes,” Lausch referred to his notes once more. “Could such a box be
duplicated, you wanted to know. Sintelli doesn’t know why any craftsman
would attempt it. As I said, the boxes themselves are readily available
and inexpensive. And, besides, their only charm lies in the fact that,
being handmade, no two were exactly alike. An exact duplication would
seem pointless. And a modern craftsman would probably charge more to
make such a thing than you would pay for an original box.”
“But it could be duplicated—if there was any reason for doing such a
thing?”
Ken knew that Sandy’s persistence was deliberate. He was turning the
knife in the wound, paying Ken back for that long vigil in the cold
that morning.
“Quite easily, of course,” Lausch answered seriously. “Even the
imperfections—the tiny roughnesses in the design, owing to the poor
tools of the period—could be perfectly reproduced by means of a plaster
cast. It would take a little ingenuity, perhaps, and patience. But it
would be by no means impossible or even very difficult.” He leaned back
in his chair. “Does that satisfy you?” he asked.
Sandy, obviously enjoying himself, answered him. “Oh, perfectly,” he
said. “It all fits in perfectly with a little old theory Ken had
whipped up.” He dropped a heavy hand on Ken’s shoulder in mock
congratulation. “Doesn’t it, Ken, old boy?”
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