The Box with Broken Seals | Page 3

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 Thew eat his words."
The Chief smiled. The taxicab had turned in through the entrance gates of the great station.
"I have heard men as well-known in their profession as you, Hobson, and you too, Mr. Crawshay, speak like that about Jocelyn Thew, but when the game was played out they seem to have lost the odd trick. Either the fellow isn't a criminal at all but loves to haunt shady places and pose