Part 10 (1/2)

What next could he do? If only he could find the box! What would Smith probably have done with it? For it seemed unlikely he would have taken it away with him. Might he not, after removing the money, have hidden it in the cellar? Jack determined to search there; and accordingly, at noon, hastening through his lunch, he descended and began a systematic hunt amid the odds and ends filling the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The first noon-hour's search brought no result. The second day, returning to the task somewhat dispiritedly, Jack began overhauling a pile of old cross-pieces. There was a squeak, and a rat shot out.

In a moment Jack was in hot pursuit with a stick. The rat ran toward the old furnace, and disappeared. At the spot an instant after, Jack found a hole in the brick foundation, and thrust the stick into it. The stick caught, he pulled, and several bricks fell out.

Dropping to his knees, Jack peered into the opening. A cry broke from him, and thrusting in a hand he grasped something, and drew it forth.

It was the lost cash-box!

Uttering a shout of triumph, Jack leaped to his feet and started on a run for the stair. But suddenly he halted. After all, was he absolutely sure it was Smith who had placed it there? Would the producing of the box prove it?

The question, which had not before occurred to Jack, startled him.

As he stood thinking, half consciously he tried the cover of the box. To his surprise it gave. He opened it. And the box almost fell from his hands.

It still contained the money! And apparently untouched!

But in a moment Jack thought he understood. Smith, or whoever it was, had left it as a clever means of saving themselves from the worst in the event of being found out, intending to return for it if the excitement blew safely over.

Then why not wait and catch them at it?

Good. But how?

Jack's inventive genius soon furnished the answer. ”That's it! Great!” he said to himself delightedly. ”I'll get down and do it early in the morning. And now I'll stick this back in the hole and fix the bricks up again.”

Seven o'clock the following morning found Jack carrying out his plan.

First conveying to the cellar from the battery room two gravity-jars, he placed them in a dark corner behind the furnace. Next, finding an old lightning-arrester, he opened up the hiding-place, and arranged the arrester beneath the cash-box in such a way that on the box being moved the arrester arm would be released, fly back, and make a contact. Then, having carefully closed the opening, he procured some fine insulated wire, and proceeded to make up his circuit: From the arrester, out beneath the bricks, around the furnace, to the battery; up the wall, and through the floor by the steam-pipes into the business office; and, running up-stairs and procuring a step-ladder, on up the office wall, through the next floor, into the operating room. And there a few minutes later he had connected the wires to a call-bell on a ledge immediately behind the table at which he worked. And the alarm was complete.

Although Jack knew that the clerk next door returned from his dinner a half hour earlier than the others in the express office, he had little expectation of Smith visiting the cash-box at that time. Nevertheless, as the noon-hour drew near he found himself watching the alarm-bell with growing excitement.

”There might be just a chance of Smith visiting the box,” he told himself, ”just to learn whether I had--”

From behind him came a sharp ”zip, zip,” then a whirr. With a bound Jack was on his feet and rus.h.i.+ng for the door. Down the stairs he went, three steps at a time, and into the manager's private office.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THERE!” SAID JACK, POINTING IN TRIUMPH.]

”Mr. Black,” he cried, ”I've got the man who took the box! Down the cellar! Quick!

”I found the box, with the money still in it, and fixed up an alarm-bell circuit to go off when he came for it,” he explained hurriedly, as the manager stared. In a moment Mr. Black was on his feet and hastening after Jack toward the cellar stairway.

Quietly they tiptoed down. They reached the bottom.

”There!” Jack said, pointing in triumph. And looking, the manager beheld Smith, the express clerk, on his knees beside the furnace, before him on the floor the missing cash-box.

Ten minutes later the manager of the express company, who had been called in, pa.s.sed out of Mr. Black's office with his clerk in charge, and the telegraph manager, turning to Jack, warmly shook his hand.

”I am more sorry than I can say to have placed the blame upon you, my boy,” he said sincerely. ”And I am very thankful for the clever way you cleared the mystery up.

”You are quite a detective--sort of 'electrical detective'--aren't you?”