BIG TIMERS STAGE A REHEARSAL
"What's that you were saying about wanting a camera with a telescopic
lens?" Scottie asked Jimmie next morning.
"Said I'd give anything I own for a telescopic lens to fit my candid
camera," Jimmie replied.
"Oh! That's it," Scottie exclaimed. "Then your possessions are safe
enough. They don't make a telescopic lens for a toy camera. Not yet."
"It's no toy," Jimmie protested. "Remember that enlargement you made for
me?"
"Sure."
"Well, it's important evidence. Tom Howe told me so. In the end it may
help send a man to the jug."
"Well, if Tom says that it must be so," replied Scottie. "Tom's Irish
and I'm Scotch. But the Micks and Macks won the great war, so they say,
and we still march side by side.
"But that," he added, "won't get you a telescopic lens for your camera,
for there's never a one that'll fit it.
"Nevertheless," he glanced in the corner, "there's a box camera over
there I once rigged up with a telescopic lens. The lens is still on it.
All you have to do is to look at the ground glass in the back to get
your focus. That is, if it's less than a hundred feet. If it's more you
don't have to look. I don't mind lending it to you for a few days."
"Say! That will be great!" Jimmie enthused. "I--I'll show you some real
stuff."
"I hope so, my boy. I sure do hope so," said Scottie.
Scottie was growing old. All too soon another would be taking his place.
He loved boys though he had none of his own. Deep down in his heart he
had hid a warm spot for Jimmie. "He'll do," he murmured to himself as
Jimmie marched proudly away with his new-found treasure, "He'll get
there. Never doubt it."
The two days that followed were busy ones for Jimmie. One of the copy
boys was sick, another on a vacation. Jimmie was obliged to resume his
regular place in line and answer once more to the call of "Boy."
This he did not entirely regret. He was able to look with new eyes upon
the great institution to which he belonged. Since his little excursions
to the outside, the make-up room, the thundering press room and the
quiet offices of special editors all had a new meaning for him.
"We're all working with one end in view," said Mr. Strong, the editor,
taking a moment from his many busy hours to chat with him. "We're
keeping the public informed regarding important matters. We're helping
to fight crime and trying to encourage people to live decent and
respectable lives."
"Yes, sir," replied Jimmie, too much awed by the greatness of the man to
say more.
Important things did happen despite the boy's busy days. He and John had
their dinner with Harm Stark, the silver-fox king. Such a dinner it was!
A private dining room with paneled walls such as Jimmie had never seen
before. Real, solid silver service there was too. And such food! Chicken
legs encased in fancy paper at the ends, mashed potatoes, yellow with
butter, and side dishes the boy could not so much as name.
Harm Stark, in his own broad, open-hearted way, gave John a real story.
He told of his early struggle and final success, told how acres of fox
farms had widened and how they were fenced and guarded. He told of
feeding, training and selecting the foxes.
"And after that," he sighed, "comes the harvest. They're all here and
sold, a half million dollars worth. Here right in the city. Some day
I'll give you a ring on the phone and take you over to see them. Of
course, they're not mine any more, but Solomon Zimmerman won't mind
showing them. He's as proud of them as I am."
Jimmie hoped the ring on the phone might come very soon. Had he but
known it, that particular phone call, costing only one buffalo nickel,
was to be of the utmost importance to him. It is often so in life, a
simple lifting of the receiver, a murmur, "Give me Randolph 1223," may
mean success or failure, victory or defeat, even life or death to
someone. You may be sure that when that call did come Jimmie was ready
to listen.
One other thing occurred which, strange to say, was in the end to be
closely connected with the silver fox king's phone call. It happened
during the noon lunch hour when Tom Howe came over to make his report.
"Your scratch clue was a real one," Tom said with a friendly smile.
"My scratch clue?" Jimmie stared at him in surprise. Then, of a sudden,
he remembered. When he had accompanied Tom to the scene of that
safe-robbery, he had taken pictures other than those required by his
paper. On the section of the steel door, cut away with the use of an
oxyacetylene torch, he had discovered some scratches. Having recently
read a book on strange clues, he had thought it worth while to
photograph these scratches. When the picture had been enlarged they
stood out very plainly. It was this that had led him to print the
picture of Tom Howe looking at that broken bit of steel and, supposedly,
discovering fresh clues. As he recalled all this he smiled as he said:
"I'm glad they were the real thing. What did you do about it?"
"First thing I did was to scrape the surface of the safe where those
scratches showed," said Tom.
"What for?" Jimmie asked eagerly.
"It's a well known fact," Tom replied, "that, even if one of two metals
is much harder than the other, when one scratches the other some of it
comes off.
"I wanted to know whether there really was tungsten in that steel. I
sent the scrapings to the laboratory. They burned it by electric arc and
studied its spectrum. That's pretty scientific," he grinned. "There was
tungsten all right. So I sent out Tungsten Tom's pictures to several
manufacturers and I got my man; that is, I proved that he had worked at
the Carter Machine-Tool Company's plant and that he did rob them."
"How'd they catch him," Jimmie asked.
"You'd be surprised," Tom laughed. "He was carrying it away in his
card-board lunch box. They suspected that someone was doing that so they
set a powerful electro magnet beside the narrow alley-way through which
all employees must leave. When Tungsten Tom's lunch box came near it,
that electro magnet smelled steel. It drew in Tungsten's lunch box and
held it fast. So that was that."
"Pretty slick," Jimmie smiled in admiration.
"Thanks to your aid," the young detective went on. "We've got enough
right now to make a good case against Tungsten. But we don't want to
spring it. We want to get his whole gang. We----"
He broke short off to stare into the street. "Can you beat that?" he
exclaimed. "There's one of those trucks now. Come on! we'll have to
follow. This may be the big hour."
Seizing Jimmie by the arm he pushed him into a taxi and they were away.
"See that large, black truck up ahead?" Tom said to the driver.
"Yes, sir."
"Follow it. Don't lose it."
"Yes, sir."
They turned a corner, dodged a street car, got caught by a light, lost
their scent for a time, then picked it up again.
"You remember that garage I was watching from my lofty perch?" said Tom.
"Sure, I do," said Jimmie.
"We're following one of the two trucks stored there by Tungsten and his
gang. Crooks store trucks for a purpose. On the side you'll read the
words:
TOWN'S END TRANSFER
"They'll transfer something, right enough," Tom laughed. "Perhaps today,
though I doubt it. Not at noon. This may be a rehearsal."
"Rehearsal?" Jimmie stared at him.
"Sure. Crooks have to be up-to-date. No movie producer ever rehearsed an
act oftener or more thoroughly than crooks do some big play they are
going to make. Getting in, getting out, the cop on his beat, the number
of people likely to be on the street, every curve that the car or truck
must make, are important; those and a hundred other things. They----"
"There," he exclaimed, "they're pulling up to that place a half block
ahead, preparing to back in.
"Stop here, driver," he commanded. "They can't see us. Here's your fare.
Turn around and get away quietly."
"Right. Thanks." The taxi slid silently away.
"Here!" said Tom drawing something flat from his inside pocket and
snapping it into the form of an oblong box. "Take this. It's your lunch
box. At least we'll pretend it is." From another pocket he produced a
paper bag. After inflating this he dropped it to his side.
"This," he said, "is a street of small factories for the most part. It
is the noon hour. Slouch a little as you walk. We are workers going to
eat our cold lunch with a cup of hot coffee at the place round the
corner. Come on. We'll cross the street and walk down past where the
truck stands."
Jimmie felt his blood tingle as they crossed the street then sauntered
down the sidewalk. He was thinking of sudden sallies, burst of machine
gun fire and all the rest.
Everything, however, was quiet enough. The street seemed almost
deserted. It was an old section of the city. Four-story buildings lined
the street on either side. On one was the sign of a candy manufacturer,
on another that of a job printer and a third of some novelty dealer.
"Don't look like a place where big-time crooks could make a grand haul,"
said Tom, talking out of the side of his mouth. "Still you never can
tell."
"Look," said Jimmie. "They're backing the truck into that alley."
"That's right," Tom's figure stiffened. "This may be something real
after all."
"Two men are getting out," said Jimmie.
"Going inside. Perhaps it's only a rehearsal after all."
The men were gone for some time. The building on the corner, just ahead
of Tom and his companion was vacant. Large, dusty windows on each side
showed it to have been a store.
"Come on around the corner," said Tom. "We can watch through those
windows without being seen."
Through those dusty windows they did watch but it was little enough they
learned. In time the two men came out, carrying nothing. After they had
climbed back into the truck, they drove away at a rapid rate.
"Just a rehearsal," said Tom. "Wish I'd been able to come close enough
to get a real look at them, but I didn't dare."
"If I'd had my telescopic camera," said Jimmie, "I could have taken
their pictures."
"Too bad you didn't," sighed the detective. "Well, better luck another
time."
After that they folded up lunch box and paper bag and looked up a truly
good eating place to enjoy a real lunch.
In Jimmie's room at home was a great, old-fashioned, over-stuffed
rocking chair. It was frayed and moth-eaten but oh, so comfortable! When
the day was over and supper done, Jimmie loved to sit in this chair with
feet propped up on the window sill, there to listen to the robins chirp,
to watch twilight darken into night, and think things through.
There was plenty to think about these days. As he sat there a few hours
after his truck chasing expedition with Tom, he found himself in a
somber mood.
It was all well enough, he was thinking, to dream of having a part in
bringing criminals to justice, but when you were up against the real
thing----
"Ah, that's different," he sighed.
And then, of a sudden, his spirits and determination rose. "We'll get
him!" he murmured. "We will!"
He was thinking of the Silent Terror. Even now a thrill ran up his spine
as he seemed to hear those words, "As you are!"
His determination at this moment to do his full duty was stronger than
ever, for the papers that day had carried broad headlines about the
Silent Terror's last attack. Jimmie had read how a girl, little older
than himself, had been sent from a laundry to bring the payroll. On her
return she cut through an alley. They had found her four hours later
wandering only half-conscious and hysterical, empty-handed and murmuring
about a man and a bubble.
"What man? What bubble?" they had asked. To these questions she found no
answer. But to all it was plain that the Silent Terror had struck again.
"I took his picture," Jimmie groaned. "And got only an ear. An ear! It
may be well enough for a whiz of a detective like Tom Howe, but who else
could tell that ear if he saw it? Practically no one."
Other matters called for thought. There were the five big-time crooks
who, Tom thought, were preparing something big. Was Tom right? And had
they, in following that truck, discovered the scene of that proposed big
haul? In such a poor section? It did not seem possible. And yet----
"One thing's sure," Jimmie sighed. "We've got the goods on Tungsten Tom.
He was in on that safe-breaking and I helped to prove it, my little
candid camera and I." He got no little satisfaction from that. It is
good to be really doing things. Was he to be in on the whole affair?
Would he see them all dragged into the net, one at a time; Black Dolan,
Piccalo, and all that ugly five? He hoped so. And yet, he shuddered at
the thought.
He looked at his watch, nine o'clock. Time for sport flashes. He snapped
on the radio to catch the commentator in the midst of his talk:
"Tomorrow," came from the radio, "will witness an event of unusual
interest in the world of sport. If you have wondered what the city's
richest people look like, the De Metzes, the Marmons, the Morton
Armours, and all the rest, be sure to come to the ball game. They will
all be there, right down in the box seats. Why? Because the young
society baseball pitcher, J. Ogden Durant, is to start for the
Bear-cats."
"Durant!" Jimmie exclaimed to the empty room. "Gee! Oh, gee!"
Just at that moment he wished he had no job. He was a great baseball
fan. And never had there been a game he longed so to see. To sit up
there and howl himself hoarse for his hero! Ah! That would be life.
L-I-F-E spelled in big letters.
He scarcely heard the further comments of the announcer as he went on:
"Perhaps this is the first time in the history of baseball that a
millionaire's son has risen to the rank of a big-leaguer. It surely is
the first time one has stood in the pitcher's box. Give him a hand,
ladies and gentlemen. Give him a hand. He deserves it."
All this time Jimmie sat with his eyes closed, seeing himself in the
past, as a rather small boy. A golf course joined The Glen on the west.
It was a large and expensive course, patronized, for the most part, by
the rich of the near-by city. A patch of woods lined this course on one
side. Into the tall grass of this little forest, golf balls often
bounced and were lost. On a Saturday the village boys went there in
search of balls.
One day Jimmie had pounced upon a ball, a split second before a larger
boy had prepared to scoop it up. There had been an argument and a race.
To escape his pursuer, Jimmie raced out upon the green. He was just in
time to get in the way of a long drive. The golf ball struck him in the
very tender portion of his anatomy.
With a howl he went into the air, then came down in a heap like a
wounded soldier. He did not cry, not even when three of the foursome of
rich young golf players that made up the party, let out loud roars of
laughter. He arose stiffly and started back toward the forest.
Then it was that J. Ogden Durant, young son of a rich stockyards owner,
and one of that party, had endeared himself to Jimmie's heart. He it
was, of the four, who did not laugh. Though it had not been his shot
that felled the boy, he hurried on ahead of his companions, caught up
with Jimmie and said:
"Sorry, old man. That was a hard shot. They had no right to laugh. The
thing might have been serious."
Then, in a way that no one could see, he had slipped two brand new golf
balls into Jimmie's sweater pocket.
There are certain events in every small boy's life that he never
forgets. This was one in Jimmie's. There was that in the face, the
voice, the general action of J. Ogden Durant that marked him as a "real
guy."
In the years that followed Jimmie had saved every picture of Durant
appearing on the Society Page. He had followed his career with the
keenest interest. And now----
"Aw, gee! What a break!" he groaned. He seemed to hear that call he had
come to know so well, "Boy!" For once he almost hated it.