The Box with Broken Seals | Page 3

that Fourteenth Street gang of coiners, and I've a pal down at
Baltimore who is ready to take his oath that he planned the theft of the
Vanderloon jewels--and brought it off, too! But I tell you this, sir.
When the trouble comes, whoever gets nabbed it's never Jocelyn Thew.
He's the slickest thing that ever came down the pike."
"He is well off, then?"
"They say that he brought half a million from Mexico," Hobson
declared. "How he brought money out of that country, neither I nor
anybody else on the Force can imagine. But he did it. I know the
stockbroker down-town who handles his investments.--Here's our man
at last!"

The door was opened by the floor waiter, who held it while a thin, dark
man, dressed in civilian clothes of most correct cut, passed in. Hobson
gripped him at once by the hand.
"Chief Downs," he said, "this is my friend Mr. Crawshay, who is
connected with the English Embassy over here. You can shake hands
with him later. We're on a job of business, and the first thing before us
is to get an answer from you to a certain question. Did you send this
dispatch or did you not?"
Hobson handed over to the newcomer the crumpled telegraph form
which he had just produced from his pocket. The latter glanced through
it and shook his head.
"It's a plant," he announced. "I'm sorry if the use of my name has
misled you in any way, but it was quite unauthorised. I know nothing
whatever about the matter."
Hobson remained for a moment silent, silent with sick and angry
astonishment. Crawshay had glanced towards the clock and was
standing now with his finger upon the bell.
"Is it a big thing?" the Chicago man enquired.
"It's the biggest thing ever known in this country," Hobson groaned.
"It's what is known as the Number Three Berlin plant."
"You didn't get the stuff at Halifax, then?" Downs asked.
"We didn't," Hobson replied bitterly. "We've sent a representative over
to sit on the box with the broken seals till they can open it at the
Foreign Office in London, but I never believed they'd find anything
there. I'm damned certain they won't now!"
A waiter had answered the bell.
"Don't have our luggage brought up," Crawshay directed. "We are
leaving for New York to-night. That's so, isn't it, Hobson?" he added,

turning to his companion.
"You bet!" was the grim reply. "I'd give a thousand dollars to be there
now."
"The Limited's sold out," the man told them. "There are two or three
persons who've been disappointed, staying on here till to-morrow."
"I'll get you on the train," Downs promised. "I can do as much as that
for you, anyway. I'll stop and go on to the station with you from here.
I'm very sorry about this, Hobson," he continued, fingering the dispatch.
"We shall have to get right along to the station, but if there's anything I
can do after you've left, command me."
"You might wire New York," Hobson suggested, as he struggled into
his overcoat. "Tell 'em to look out for the City of Boston, and to hold
her up for me if they can. I've got it in my bones that Jocelyn Thew is
running this show and that he is on that steamer."
"Those fellows at Washington must have collected some useful stuff,"
Chief Downs observed, as the three men left the room and stepped into
the elevator. "They've been working on their job since before the war,
and there isn't a harbour on the east or west coast that they haven't got
sized up. They've spent a million dollars in graft since January, and
there's a rumour that the new Navy Department scheme for dealing
with submarines, which was only adopted last month, is there among
the rest."
"Anything else?" Crawshay asked indolently.
The Chief of Police glanced first at his questioner and then at Hobson.
"What else should there be?" he enquired.
"No idea," the Englishman replied. "Secret Service papers of the usual
description, I suppose. By-the-by, I hear that this man Jocelyn Thew
has stated openly that he is going to take all the papers he wants with
him into Germany, and that there isn't a living soul can stop him."

Hobson's square jaw was set a little tighter, and his narrow eyes
flashed.
"That's some boast to make," he muttered. "Kind of a challenge, isn't it?
What do you say, Mr. Crawshay?"
Crawshay, who had been gazing out of the window of the taxicab,
looked back again. His tone was almost indifferent.
"If Chief Downs can get us on the Limited," he said, "and if we catch
the City of Boston, I think perhaps we might have a chance of making
Mr. Jocelyn