UNEXPECTED CALLER
UNEXPECTED CALLER
UNEXPECTED CALLER
Sandy shot Ken one startled glance. He picked the box up and hefted it in his hands, as if he might be a better judge of its weight than the scales could be. Then he put it slowly down again.
“How could it not be the same box?” he demanded. “When could a substitution have been made?”
“At Sam’s,” Ken said quietly.
“You mean you think Sam would—?”
“No, of course not,” Ken interrupted. “But whoever wanted the box—wanted the real one, I mean—found out that we had taken it there for repairs, and when we would come back for it.”
“This imaginary character you’re talking about must have a crystal ball,” Sandy said scathingly.
Ken shook his head. “Just a broken watch crystal.” Sandy stared at him unbelievingly, but Ken went on. “What could have been simpler than breaking a watch crystal, if somebody wanted an excuse to follow us into Sam’s store and find out how long the box would be there?”
Sandy ignored the question. Instead he asked one of his own. “And do you also have a ‘simple’ explanation for how the switch was made?”
“Of course,” Ken replied calmly. “We’ve been thinking that it was fortunate the man with the watch crystal was standing in front of that partition window when the fire broke out. It wasn’t fortunate. It was planned. It gave him the perfect opportunity to switch boxes and walk out of the store.”
Sandy opened his mouth and shut it again.
“What?” Ken prompted.
Sandy grinned slightly. “I thought of something that supports your crazy theory. I was going to say it would explain why the man ‘forgot’ his change. He just wasn’t interested in waiting around for it when he’d managed to do what he came for.”
Ken solemnly shook his hand. “Congratulations. That clinches it.”
“Now wait a minute,” Sandy said hastily. “It doesn’t do any such thing. We still haven’t any idea why somebody should have wanted the box in the first place.”
“I know. I know,” Ken told him. “You’ve explained that once. If it’s a stolen art treasure, Dad wouldn’t have been able to bring it into the country. And if it isn’t really valuable....” his voice trailed off.
“Exactly,” Sandy said. “I must have been wrong about the weight that first night.” His voice sounded almost pleading.
Ken ignored him. “Sam might be able to tell us if this is the box he worked on,” he said suddenly. “Let’s check with him tomorrow.” He straightened up, as if relieved at having reached a decision. “And now let’s finish up here, before Bert comes down to see if we’re scheming up some new trick for his downfall.”
They were in Sam Morris’s store by nine the next morning, the iron box under Sandy’s arm. Mom had gone off right after breakfast to see her sister, so they had been able to borrow her present without arousing her suspicion.
“Broken again?” Sam Morris asked, as Sandy unwrapped the package.
“No. It works fine, Sam. We just need your help in settling an argument. Would you look at this thing carefully and tell us if it’s the one you repaired?”
“One of you boys thinks that perhaps it isn’t?” Sam looked puzzled.
“No.” Ken smiled at him. “But we have reason to believe the box is lighter now than it was when my father brought it here. And we didn’t see how the repair job could have changed the weight.”
“It didn’t. I just straightened the lever. Do you think I exchanged your box for another one?”
“Of course not,” Ken assured him.
“But you think maybe someone did, eh?” Sam fitted his jeweler’s glass into his eye. “It sounds like nonsense, but let’s have a look.”
After several minutes he removed the glass and shook his head. “I can only say that Ithinkthis is the same box I worked on. The lock mechanism is the same. But I was in too much of a hurry to inspect the box carefully. Still, I couldn’t testify under oath that this is it.”
The phone rang and Sam excused himself to answer it.
“Satisfied now?” Sandy asked Ken.
Before Ken could answer, Sam was calling him.
“This is for you, Ken,” he said.
Ken was smiling when he came back from taking the call. “It was Pop,” he explained. “Dad phoned and gave him the information from the Motor Vehicle Bureau.” He handed Sam Morris a scrap of paper with a name and a New York City address written on it. “This is the man you were asking us about—the one who left without the change from his twenty-dollar bill.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “How did you learn who he was?”
The boys explained, and Sam shook his head in admiration. “Such a smart idea. Now I can send Mr. Barrack his money.”
“Maybe you ought to write him first and make sure it’s the right person,” Sandy said. “Maybe the man you want was just sitting in a car that belongs to somebody else.”
Sam looked worried. “Do you think that’s likely?”
“I’ll tell you what, Sam.” Ken spoke up. “We’re going to be in New York tomorrow and we’ll check on it for you. Dad’s apartment is right near this address. It won’t be any trouble. Then you can be sure you’re sending the money to the right man.”
Sam had to be persuaded. He insisted the boys had already gone to enough trouble, by learning the name and address.
“If he has a phone we’ll just call him up,” Ken pointed out. “And even if he doesn’t it will only take a few minutes to run over there.”
“Well, if you’re sure—” Sam said finally.
“Fine,” Ken interrupted. “We’ll let you know what we find out. And thanks for checking the box for us.”
Sandy waited until they were outside the store and then he spoke. “I don’t suppose you have any ulterior motive in offering to get in touch with—what’s his name?—with this Barrack fellow?”
Ken grinned. “You have a low suspicious mind.”
“It’s not nearly as suspicious as yours,” Sandy retorted. “You have no reason to believe that box is valuable. And Sam didn’t exactly support your idea of the thing having been switched—”
“He didn’t say he wassureit was the same box,” Ken interrupted. “And I still think it’s possible that Dad brought home a valuable antique, and that somebody stole it and left in its place a worthless modern copy—the one we’ve got now. But don’t worry. I’ve thought of a way to check up on that theory. We’ll take the box in to Felix Lausch at the Metropolitan Museum and ask his advice.”
“That’s an idea.” Sandy’s eye lit up at the thought of the art expert who was Richard Holt’s friend and who would, both boys knew, give them any aid he could. “If Lausch says this is an old box, but not worth very much, then we’ll write the whole thing off as a bad dream. Right?”
“Fair enough,” Ken agreed.
Before they left for New York, some time before noon, they wrote a note to Mom and left it on the kitchen table.
“We’re borrowing your new jewel box so we can show it to Mr. Lausch,” it read. “Hope you won’t mind. We’ll take good care of it.”
Sandy stared at the note dubiously as they departed. “She’ll mind, all right,” he said. “Mom likes to own antiques, and she even brags about ’em once in a while. But she’ll think we’re crazy to take one all the way to New York to show to an expert.” He shrugged. “Well, come on. But I’m going to tell her it was all your idea, when she starts lighting into us.”
By two o’clock that afternoon they were climbing the stairs to the Holt apartment on Seventieth Street. There was a scrawl in Ken’s father’s handwriting propped against the phone. “Call me at Global when you get in,” it read.
Ken dialed the number and talked briefly to his father, completing arrangements for meeting him later on.
“We’re eating at Dominick’s,” he reported to Sandy. “And Dad says he’s already called Dominick and warned him, so we ought to be prepared for something special.”
Sandy beamed. “Swell. That sounds like spaghetti. How long have we got to work up an appetite?”
“Until six thirty.”
“I could do it in half that time,” Sandy said.
Ken ignored him. He was leafing through the New York telephone book. “Barnes ... Barotti ... and here’s a Barrack, Charles. But no Amos Barrack. Guess our friend with the broken watch crystal doesn’t have a telephone.”
“Maybe it’s unlisted—like your dad’s,” Sandy suggested. “I tell you what. Call information and ask her if there’s any phone at all at his address. If it’s an apartment house there might be one in the lobby.”
“That’s a good idea. Then we could at least leave a message for him.” Ken twirled the dial, made his request, and a moment later was scribbling down the number he had been given.
“Only one phone at that address, listed under the name of Marie Mallory,” he reported, as he began to dial again. “I’ll try it.”
The ringing was answered shortly by a woman who spoke so loudly that Ken had to jerk the receiver away from his ear to avoid being deafened.
“Is there a Mr. Barrack there?” he asked. “A Mr. Amos Barrack. I’d like to speak to him if it’s possible.”
“He’s not here now,” the woman bellowed. “He works. He’ll be home tonight, I guess. He’s got a room here. I’m the landlady. Any message?”
“My name is Holt,” Ken answered. “I’m calling Mr. Barrack about something he left in Brentwood the other day.... That’s right. Brentwood. Would you tell him that, please, and ask him to call me this evening?”
“Sure. I’ll tell him. What time?”
“Eh—let’s see.” Ken calculated quickly. “I won’t be here until after eleven o’clock.”
“All right. I’ll tell him,” she repeated.
Ken gave her his father’s number and then hung up, holding his hand to his long-suffering ear. “She said—”
“I heard her,” Sandy assured him. “And now let’s go see Lausch and get that off our minds, so I can start concentrating on spaghetti.”
Felix Lausch declared that he was delighted to see them. He inquired for his friend, Richard Holt, insisted upon showing them one or two of his department’s newest acquisitions, and then took them into his private office and settled them comfortably.
“Now,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “what can I do for you? You’re not involved in another one of those investigations you two seem to get into, are you?”
Ken grinned. “Sandy says we’re not. But I’m wondering if you could tell us anything about this box?” He unwrapped it and put it on Lausch’s desk.
The round-faced little man bent forward to look at it. “Just what did you want to know?” he asked. “This is not in my line, you understand—even though it does look Italian to me. But Italian paintings are a big enough field for one man. I am an amateur in all other aspects of Italian art.”
“We’d like to know if it’s really an antique,” Ken explained, “and if it’s valuable. We’d also like to know if there’s any reason to think it might have been stolen recently—from some European collection, that is. Probably in Italy.”
Lausch’s stubby finger traced the scrollwork on the lid of the box. “I could make a guess at the answers to your first two questions, but that’s all it would be. I think you would rather have the opinion of an expert.” He picked up his phone and asked for a number. “Sintelli is a dealer in Italian antiques,” he explained. “He should be able to help. As for your last question, I can only say I’ve seen no notice of the theft of any such box as this.”
He waited an instant and then he was saying, “Sintelli?... Lausch here. Tony, I’ve got a question for you—three questions, in fact. I’ve got what appears to be an old Italian box— ... What?... No, a small box. Iron, with a lead lining. I want to know if it’s old, if it’s valuable, and if it might have been stolen recently from some European collection—public or private.... Yes, I think so.”
He looked up at the boys. “Can you leave it here? Sintelli will pick it up and return it in the morning.”
Sandy hesitated only a moment. “Sure. But he won’t hurt it, will he?”
Lausch smiled. “It would be too bad if we experts had to ruin everything we examined. No, it will be quite safe.” He spoke into the phone again briefly and then hung up. “Tony will drop it off here tomorrow about ten, on his way to his shop. So I’ll have a report for you any time after that.”
They were halfway to the door a few minutes later, on the way out, when Ken turned back. “There’s just one other thing. Suppose I wanted to have an exact copy of that box made. Could it be done?”
Lausch shrugged. “There are craftsmen good enough to copy anything, I suppose, if one knows where to find them. It would probably be an expensive job, however. But I’ll check that with Sintelli too. He’ll know.”
Over the red-checkered tablecloth at Dominick’s that night Ken told his father about the inquiries they had set in motion about the iron box. Mr. Holt looked slightly amused, but just as he was about to comment, at the end of Ken’s recital, he glanced at his watch.
“Come on!” he said, leaping up. “The first match begins in a few minutes. We’re going to have to leave before they’re over, anyway, if I’m going to catch my Washington plane. So let’s not miss the beginning.”
The wrestling matches were particularly exciting. Conversation, as the boys and Richard Holt watched them, was limited to shouts of encouragement and howls of dismay. And Ken’s father made no reference to the box as they drove him out to the airport.
But as he got out of the car there, with a minute or two to spare, he turned back for a final word.
“I’m not going to tell you to drop this iron box mystery you’ve cooked up,” he told Ken. “That wouldn’t do any good.” He grinned at his son. “But I think Sandy’s reasoning is sound. If the box is valuable—if it’s been stolen, say—I’d never have been allowed to bring it through customs. And if it isn’t, why go through any hanky-panky about it, as the British say?” He took his brief case off the seat and slipped it under his arm. “In any case, take it easy. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. You’ll be in Brentwood then?”
“Probably, Dad,” Ken said.
“But we’re not going back until we’ve used the basketball tickets you’ve left us for tomorrow night,” Sandy added.
“Have a good time.” Holt raised his arm in a farewell salute and disappeared through the doors of the terminal building just as the loud-speaker announced the ten-thirty flight to Washington.
It was a few minutes past eleven when the boys let themselves into Holt’s apartment.
“I hope we haven’t missed Barrack,” Ken muttered.
“Don’t worry. He’d try again if he didn’t get us the first time. He must have remembered by now what it was he left in Brentwood. I don’t suppose there’s anything in the refrigerator, is there?” Sandy added thoughtfully as he hung up his coat.
“Probably not,” Ken agreed. “When Dad’s only at home for a day or two he—”
But Sandy had already opened the refrigerator and the expression on his face made it unnecessary for Ken to look inside.
A note pasted to the inner side of the door read, “I figured you’d be hungry before bedtime.”
“Cold ham,” Sandy was chanting, “cheese, milk, oranges....”
“And there’s bread and a pie in the breadbox,” Ken added, peering under the lid.
Sandy rubbed his hands. “Well, what’ll we have for our first course? How about—?”
The sharp sound of the buzzer cut him off. The boys looked at each other in surprise, and Ken shrugged as he walked into the hall to press the button that released the lock on the downstairs door. Sandy was behind him as he opened the apartment door and thrust his head into the hall to listen. They heard the lower door shut, and then the sound of mounting footsteps.
A moment later a slender, neatly dressed man about thirty-five years old rounded the last bend in the stairs and came into view. He smiled at them as he came up the last few steps.
“Holt?” he inquired politely, looking from Sandy to Ken.
“I’m Ken Holt.”
“I’m Amos Barrack,” the stranger said. “My landlady told me you phoned about something I left in Brentwood.”
Ken was trying to collect his scattered wits. “But you’re not the man we thought you’d be.”
Barrack smiled. “And I don’t know what I left in Brentwood. Nothing, so far as I know. I thought maybe I’d better drop by and get it straightened out tonight.”
The boys stepped back from the doorway.
“Come on in,” Ken said, and closed the door behind their visitor when he had stepped into the foyer. “Sit down, won’t you?” He led the way to the living room. “We seem to have caused you some unnecessary trouble,” he added, as Barrack settled himself somewhat tentatively on the nearest chair. “But we were trying to do you a favor.” He smiled.
“A favor?” Barrack sounded more puzzled than ever.
Ken glanced at Sandy to see if he wanted to explain, but Sandy’s expression told him that this was his problem.
“It’s this way,” Ken began. “The day before Christmas a man stopped in at Sam Morris’s jewelry store in Brentwood—that’s where we live—to have his watch crystal replaced. When he returned to pick it up he paid Morris with a twenty-dollar bill. But just at that moment a small fire broke out in the store. Just a little blaze in a wastebasket. When the excitement died down and Morris looked around for his customer a few minutes later, to give him his change, the man had disappeared. Morris was worried about it, and eager to find the man and give him his money. So—”
“But what made you callme?” Barrack interrupted.
Ken explained, briefly, about the picture Sandy had taken and how they had traced the car’s license number. “But, of course,” he concluded, “if you’ve never been in Brentwood we must have made a mistake somehow. Maybe we didn’t read the license number correctly.”
“But I was there that same day,” Barrack corrected him apologetically. “I should have explained that. And my car was parked opposite a jewelry store—right at the time the fire happened, as a matter of fact. But I didn’t go inside the store at all. And I can’t understand—”
He broke off suddenly and his puzzled look gave way to a smile. “It must have been my passenger,” Barrack explained. “I’d forgotten all about him until this minute.”
Ken and Sandy both smiled too.
“Good,” Ken said. “Then if you know who it was—”
Barrack shook his head. “But I don’t. I guess it’s my turn to explain. I’m a salesman for the Tobacco Mart—a company that sells smokers’ supplies. I was on my way back from a trip through the Pennsylvania territory that day, and one of my customers in some little Pennsylvania town asked me if I could take a passenger to New York. A friend of his, I guess. He didn’t want to have to take the local into Philadelphia, and then another train on from there. It’s a long trip that way. I agreed, of course, and the fellow came along. I thought he stayed in the car while I stopped to make a call in Brentwood—I cover New Jersey too—but for all I know he might have broken his watch then and gone across the street to have it fixed.”
“And you don’t know who he was?” Ken asked.
“Haven’t the slightest idea.” Barrack looked regretful and then he brightened. “My Pennsylvania customer would probably know, though. I could ask him the next time I go by there and then let you know.” He got to his feet.
“Thanks,” Ken said. “We’d appreciate that—or, rather, Sam Morris would. He doesn’t like to owe people money.”
“But probably the fellow will write to the jeweler and ask for his change before long,” Barrack pointed out.
“Probably,” Ken agreed. “Anyway we’re sorry to have bothered you.”
“No bother at all,” Barrack assured him. “I was kind of puzzled. Thought I’d stop in and find out what it was all about.”
Their good-nights were brief but polite. But the door had scarcely closed behind Barrack when Sandy grabbed Ken’s arm.
“We could ask him the name of his customer,” he said, “and call the man up.” He reached for the doorknob. “Why didn’t we think of that while—?”
Ken’s hand found the doorknob first and held it. “Don’t bother,” he said. “There’s no use trying to get any honest information out of that gentleman.”
“Huh?”
Ken locked the door and slipped the safety chain into place. “I didn’t think of this myself until he was giving his little spiel about his passenger, but this phone here is unlisted. Dad’s name isn’t in the phone book.”
Sandy stared at him. “What’s your father’s phone got to do with Mr. Barrack—or anything else?”
“But the phone number is all I left with Barrack’s landlady. I didn’t give her this address.”
“Oh,” Sandy said. “I see. And he couldn’t have got the address by asking the phone company for it, because they don’t give out that information.”
“Right,” Ken told him. “At least they don’t give it to anybody but the police. And Barrack’s no policeman.”
“Then howdidhe know how to find us,” Sandy asked, “without telephoning first?”
“Probably,” Ken said slowly, “because he’d been here before—looking for the box.”
AN EXPLODED THEORY
AN EXPLODED THEORY
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’tknowanything.” 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. Hewaslying 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?”
A PACKAGE CHANGES HANDS
A PACKAGE CHANGES HANDS
A PACKAGE CHANGES HANDS
“Must handle this with great care,” Sandy said a little later as the boys let themselves into the Holt apartment. He deposited Mom’s jewel box on a table and patted it gently. “Valuable antique—very valuable. Worth almost a dime a dozen. Unless, of course,” he added, cocking his head on one side and studying the box intently, “it is instead an ingenious copy of a valuable antique, made by some nefarious criminal.”
“Go right ahead. Enjoy yourself,” Ken told him, slumping into a chair without bothering to remove his overcoat.
Sandy swung around to grin at him. “You can’t blame me, can you? When a mastermind like yourself gets really tangled up in his own theories—when he is knocked out by the weight of his own genius—Now where are you going?” he demanded as Ken got up and started toward the boys’ bedroom in the rear of the apartment. Sandy followed him.
“It doesn’t concern you,” Ken told him. “And it’s got nothing to do with the box.” He began to change into a pair of tweed slacks and a flannel shirt. “I was obviously way off the beam about that. You were probably mistaken about the weight of it the first time, and if we accept that, then there’s no reason to think there’s anything fishy about the box at all.”
“You haven’t answered my question.” Sandy, entirely serious now, sat down on the edge of the bed. “What’s the idea of changing your clothes? Where are you going?”
For a moment Ken didn’t answer. And then he said reluctantly, “Well, this will give you another laugh. But I’m going down to that building where we left Barrack this morning. I’m still curious about him.”
“I see,” Sandy said.
“Do you?” Ken smiled briefly. “Well, that’s more than I do. But somehow I—” He broke off and pulled a heavy sweater on over his shirt.
Sandy took off the jacket of his suit and began to unbutton his shirt.
It was Ken’s turn to ask a question. “What’re you changing your clothes for?”
Sandy looked surprised. “For the same reason you are. So we’ll look a little different from the way we did this morning—just to be on the safe side.”
“Don’t be a dope,” Ken told him. “You don’t have to come along. This is my hunch. And it’s my—” He stopped.
“‘And it’s my father.’ That’s what you were going to say. Weren’t you?” Sandy demanded. “You don’t like the idea of Barrack knowing his address, and I don’t either. Especially after that mysterious open door here the other night. I agree with you. It’s probably gotnothing to do with the box. But don’t tell me it’s got nothing to do withme—if there’s any chance that somebody’s interested in making trouble for Richard Holt.”
For a moment neither of them spoke. Sandy busied himself getting dressed. But Ken knew that Sandy too was remembering the occasion when Richard Holt’s nose for news had brought him into serious danger, when he had learned more than was safe for him to know about certain criminal activities. Ken had no real reason to suspect that Barrack was a criminal, or that Barrack’s knowledge of his father’s address was actually incriminating evidence. But Ken also knew that he himself wouldn’t be satisfied until he learned a little more about the affable Mr. Barrack.
And Sandy’s reaction didn’t surprise him. Once Ken had let Sandy see that he was really worried, his red-headed friend would naturally insist upon standing by.
Ken made one more effort to keep Sandy out of what he believed to be his own problem.
“You’re going to give me a guilt complex,” he said. “If you get frostbite, standing—”
“Frostbite?” Sandy sounded amazed. “In these shoes?” He looked down at the heavy brogues he was putting on. “What are you trying to do? Give me a guilt complex? I agreed when we left that place this morning that I’d go back with you this noon, didn’t I? Do you want me to go skulking around in corners for the rest of my life because I broke a promise?” He stood up. “Are you ready?”
For a moment their eyes met and they both grinned.
“Yes,” Ken said then. “I’m ready.”
The boys reached the building on Ninth Avenue a few minutes before twelve o’clock, just as the first trickle of workers began to emerge on their way to lunch. From a lobby across the street they watched the trickle swell to a steady stream.
Sandy leaned comfortably against a radiator. “Why didn’t we find this spot this morning?” he asked. “This is my idea of comfortable sleuthing. When—” He came swiftly erect. “There he is! Let’s go.”
Barrack was just coming through the doorway, carrying half a dozen small cartons. He paused at a large mailbox designed for packages, standing against the building wall, and began to drop the cartons in, one after the other. The largest proved too big for the opening, and Barrack propped it on top of the mailbox instead. Then, with one package still tucked securely under his arm, he walked the few steps to the corner, and waited for a light. He apparently intended to walk eastward on Thirty-second Street.
“You take him,” Ken said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
He dashed across the street, between rumbling trucks, and took a swift look at the package Barrack had left outside the box. Then he turned and crossed Ninth Avenue again, in plenty of time to fall in a few steps behind Sandy. Barrack was walking swiftly eastward. Ken whistled a few bars of “Yankee Doodle,” quietly, to let Sandy know he had caught up. Sandy replied with an answering whistle.
Barrack was following the same route he had taken that morning, in reverse. As he neared the cafeteria where he had stopped for breakfast, Ken gave a start.
Up ahead, apparently waiting for someone at the cafeteria entrance, stood the man whose broken watch crystal Sam Morris had repaired on Christmas Eve.
In almost that same instant Ken saw Sandy sidestep into a shop doorway. He waited there until Ken came up.
Ken stopped and pretended to stare through the glass at a display of hardware and tools, while he continued to watch Barrack.
“You see what I see?” Sandy said.
Ken nodded.
“It sure is a small world,” Sandy muttered. “And brother, when you get a hunch, it is a hunch!”
“I certainly didn’t expect this,” Ken assured him.
Barrack had reached the cafeteria doorway. He entered briskly through the revolving door.
“Funnier and funnier,” Sandy muttered. “Did you see that? Barrack walked right past him!”
Ken nodded. Barrack had certainly seen the man. He had actually brushed against him as he entered. But neither had given any sign of recognition.
“And don’t tell me,” Sandy said, “that they couldn’t recognize each other—not after they drove together for a couple of hundred miles.”
“Look,” Ken said. “Now Mr. Watch Crystal is going inside too.”
“Come on,” Sandy said.
They began to move toward the cafeteria.
A hasty glance through the wide plate-glass front of the big self-service restaurant assured them that it was very crowded.
“I think it’s safe to go in,” Ken muttered, “as long as we’re careful to keep out of their way.”
“This is the first time I ever went into a restaurant with my mind on something besides food,” Sandy said. “Go ahead. I’ll follow you in a minute. We’ll be less conspicuous that way. Meet you at the tray counter if the coast is clear.”
Inside the great brightly lighted room, rimmed with service counters, hundreds of men and women were milling around, intent on collecting a trayful of food or, if already laden with trays, on finding a vacant table where they could eat.
Ken stalled around at the tray counter, collecting an unnecessary amount of knives, forks, and spoons, until he caught Sandy’s eye on him. Then he moved on to the water fountain. Sandy shortly joined him there with his own tray and an assortment of cutlery.
“Barrack’s at the sandwich counter. Watch Crystal is standing in line in front of the hot table,” Ken murmured.
They prolonged the task of filling their water glasses until Barrack, with an almost empty tray, made his way through the room to a table for six in a far corner. Two chairs at the table had been tipped forward, to mark the places as reserved. Barrack set his tray down in front of one of them, righted the chair, and sat down. He put the package he was carrying—it was about the size of a small suit box—on the floor near his feet. Then he began to eat his single sandwich, washing down the mouthfuls with swallows of coffee.
An irritated voice snarled at Ken’s elbow. “That’s the sixth time you’ve rinsed out that water glass. You going to stay here all day?”
Ken looked around into a pair of eyes as irritated as the voice. “Sorry,” he muttered, and moved away.
“We’d better get a sandwich ourselves,” Sandy suggested. “We’ll be less noticeable doing that than hanging around here.”
They made sure that neither Barrack nor the second man looked their way as they hastily collected a pair of corned beef sandwiches and two glasses of milk. Then they sought out a table from which they could continue their observations.
They had just managed to find a satisfactory place when Sam Morris’s former customer moved away from the food counters. His tray was crowded. It was easy to see why he had taken so long to collect his lunch.
He made his way straight between the crowded tables to the one where Barrack sat, lowered his tray to the space in front of the second tipped-up chair, and then sat down there. He didn’t look at Barrack as he began to eat.
Barrack was almost finished by that time. He took the last bite of his sandwich, swallowed the last of his coffee, and stood up. Without looking back over his shoulder he headed for the door.
Sandy moved halfway out of his chair. “Should we follow him? Or—” He glanced back at the table where the second man was still eating. “Hey—look! Barrack forgot his package.”
“I know.” Ken’s voice was tense. “Watch.”
Just as Ken spoke, the man at the table dropped his napkin on the floor. Instead of reaching for a fresh one from the dispenser in the middle of the table, he bent down to pick it up. If the boys hadn’t been watching him intently they would have missed what he did then.As he picked up the napkin he also picked up the flat package Barrack had left on the floor, put it on his knees under his recovered napkin, and then went on eating. But now he seemed suddenly in a hurry, gulping his food in large mouthfuls.
“Never mind Barrack,” Ken said. “Let’s see where he goes.” He picked up the second half of his sandwich. “I’ll finish this outside. You stay here until he leaves.”
“Right,” Sandy agreed. He still had the surprised expression he had worn ever since the man first appeared at the cafeteria entrance.
Ken waited in the doorway adjoining the cafeteria until, a few minutes later, the man came out and moved purposefully toward the corner. Sandy was close behind him.
Their quarry descended into the subway station at the corner, and the boys followed. He boarded an uptown train and they got into the next car, standing where they could see him through the glass-topped door between.
When the train pulled into the Times Square station the man got off and headed for the street. But before he passed through the exit turnstile he suddenly reversed his direction, walking straight back toward them. Sandy froze where he was and, finding himself before a chewing-gum slot machine, tried to look as if he had been busy inserting pennies into it for some time. Ken, who had been slightly farther behind, had time to step behind a protective pillar.
But the station was fairly well occupied. They didn’t dare let the man get too far away before they followed him. Sandy took up the chase.
Ken intercepted him as he came past. “Let me take the lead. He may have seen you. Drop behind.”
In their new order, with Ken dogging the man’s footsteps as closely as he thought was safe, they went through the maze of corridors and passageways that brought them to the crosstown shuttle-train terminal. They boarded a train already waiting on the nearest track and were whisked across Manhattan to the east side. There the man made his way down a flight of stairs to the station platform of a downtown subway.
From where they stood, at the head of the stairs, the boys could see him.
“You’d better stay up here,” Ken said. “I’ll go down on the platform. But try to get down in time to get on the train he takes.”
A local train came into the station shortly after Ken descended the stairs. His quarry ignored it, pacing up and down with the package held tightly beneath his arm. Suddenly the man made for the stairs he had just come down.
Ken bounded after him, glad that Sandy was on guard on the upper level. He saw the redhead first when he reached the top and then, just beyond him, the man they were both following.
Sandy rounded a corner only a few yards behind the men. Ken trailed him. But as he rounded the corner himself he saw Sandy standing still, turning his head frantically from side to side. The man was nowhere in sight.
“Where’d he go?” Ken asked quickly, coming up beside Sandy.
“I don’t know.” Sandy spoke between clenched teeth. “When I came around the corner—right behind him—he was already gone. He could be anywhere.” His gesture took in an exit to the street level, and three stairways leading down to various train platforms.
Ken thought quickly. If the man had disappeared that fast, he must have gone down the nearest stairway.
“Let’s try this,” he said, and dove for a flight of steps that led to another section of the downtown subway platform they had just left.
There was an express train waiting in the station when they reached the bottom of the stairs, but its doors were already beginning to slide shut. A familiar shape caught Ken’s eye. The man who had broken his watch crystal—the man who had picked up Barrack’s package—was squeezing himself through one rapidly narrowing entrance.
The boys dashed for another door in the same car. Ken’s fingers grabbed for the rubber edge of the panel in an effort to prevent it from closing. But he was too late. It slid shut with a small final thud. The train lurched into motion.
One by one the cars went past, at a swiftly increasing speed. And then the train disappeared entirely, except for the winking red light on the last car, growing smaller and smaller in the dark tunnel of the subway.
Ken let himself sag wearily against a pillar. “We could start a school,” he said. “The Allen-Holt School of How Not to Shadow a Suspect.”