Читать книгу Caught by the Camera - Roy J. Snell - Страница 5

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Three hours later, just at dusk, Jimmie might have been found in a telephone booth. The booth was located in a small room at the left of the large auction hall. His fingers trembled slightly as he attempted to drop in the slug. He gave the slug a little impatient push, but it did not drop. “Upside down.” He turned it over, then glanced quickly through the glass side of the booth before trying it again. There was no one near.

“No one,” he murmured as he slid the slug into position. There came a click, the receiver hummed. He dialed rapidly—STA 6263. The automatic switch did its bit, then a voice said:

“Hel-lo.”

“This Joe’s place?” Jimmie asked.

“Yep.”

“Tom Howe there?”

“Let me look,—yep—he’s here.”

“Put him on.”

“Sure—a—ting.”

“Hello!” A new voice sounded in the phone.

“That you, Tom?” Jimmie’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “You off duty, Tom?”

“Sure am.”

“Say, Tom. This is Jimmie Drury. I’m over at that auction place on Monroe Street. Can you come over here in about a quarter of an hour? The number’s 663.”

“I might. What’s up?”

“I think I’m going to be held up and robbed, Tom.”

“Say—ee!” Tom exploded. “We get calls like that every day. When we catch the guys we put ’em in a padded cell. Snap out of it.”

“But, Tom, I’m no jitterbug. You know that. I—mean it.” Jimmie was growing excited.

“O.K., Jimmie. I’ll finish my coffee. There’s a squad car heading that way in about three minutes. I’ll be there.”

“Say, that’s swell of you, Tom. You’re going to get a surprise, catch a queer bird and like as not clear up a mystery. That’s all I can say now. You wait at the outside door. I’ll be coming out in fifteen minutes with a long box that looks like it might contain artificial flowers, which it does, and—” Jimmie’s voice dropped, “and something else. You just shadow me and,——”

“Leave the rest to me,” Tom Howe, the clever and fearless young detective snapped. “Coffee’s getting cold. Step right out, son. I’ll be behind you.”

“Now what did I do that for?” Jimmie asked himself as he slipped from the booth. “Probably about the most foolish thing I’ve ever done. Imagine announcing in advance that you’re about to be held up! But then,” his face sobered, “why did I do any of it? Besides, that fellow has a fierce look. He’d knife you in the dark, that guy would. No use taking chances.” The whole affair had, to say the least, been very strange. The worst part of it was he had invested a brand new ten dollar bill in a large collection of artificial flowers and something else. What that ‘something else’ was, he had only the faintest notion.

“That’s what a fellow gets for playing hunches,” he told himself with an inward groan. “Fellow should stay away from auctions.”

“Auctions,” he groaned. “They’ll be the death of me yet.”

Auctions had always fascinated Jimmie. This auction, as it had been described by Peter Grim, had promised to hold unusual interest. And that it had.

As if to whet his appetite a little, a run-down-at-the-heel fellow loitering in the inner doorway had told of one man who had found a ring, set with a large diamond, in a dilapidated suitcase, and another who had salvaged a five thousand dollar government bond from an ancient trunk.

“A trunk,” Jimmie had said. “That’s what I want.”

“I’ll lay you three to one you lose,” said the stranger. No matter. Jimmie wanted a trunk.

To his disgust he found that in this particular sale there were no trunks. Just to fill in the time, he began bidding on anything, a broken radio, an iron-bound keg, an alabaster lamp. Always he stopped bidding just in time, and let the other bidder have it.

And then it happened. A long cardboard box was put up:

“There you are, folks,” the auctioneer droned. “How much am I bid for this here box?”

“Three dollars,” said a man’s voice.

“Four,” chirped Jimmie.

“Five.” The other bidder gave Jimmie a dirty look. Jimmie didn’t like dirty looks. Besides, he didn’t like the appearance of that other bidder. So he said:

“Six dollars!”

Like the thunder clouds of a hot summer day the looks directed at Jimmie by that other bidder had grown blacker and blacker as the bidding went on.

No one could bluff Jimmie. If the box was worth eight dollars to the stranger it was worth eight and a half to him. And so the bidding went on.

“Nine!” One more black look.

“And a half!” A smile from Jimmie.

“Ten!” The stranger half rose in his place. His fists were clenched.

“And a half,”—Jimmie ceased smiling.

“Eleven.” The stranger, a man of some thirty years, dropped to his chair, reached for something under his jacket, then, appearing to think better of it, gave Jimmie one more black look while the boy repeated:

“And a half.”

There was a look on the man’s face that Jimmie did not care to think about, as he shrugged his shoulders, made a motion as of drawing a knife across his own throat, then ceased bidding.

“I get the package,” Jimmie thought. “Now what shall I do with it?”

Strangely enough, even after he had paid his money at the window and in a secluded corner opened the package, he did not care to give it up. That the package contained paper flowers he had discovered at once. A hand thrust into the half-open end told him that. But there was something else. He had purchased a package within a package. The inner package had an address all its own, quite a different one from that on the box. Here lay the mystery. How had it come inside this practically worthless box of flowers?

Jimmie’s suspicions were aroused at once. When that other bidder, a dark, foreign appearing fellow, with deep, sullen eyes, offered him more than he had paid, he refused, and got one more black look and a muttered curse for his troubles.

The inner package, he discovered, was a long, slender cylinder, very compact, and very well wrapped. It showed blue on its ends. This suggested blueprints. Blueprints mean plans. But plans of what, a house? A railroad? A battleship? An airplane? At least here was an intriguing mystery. He meant to see the thing through. There was, however, in that fellow’s looks and actions, more than a suggestion of danger. That was why he had called Tom Howe, and why he would wait in the shadows with his prize package under his arm until he was sure Tom Howe had arrived.

While waiting, he moved to a brighter corner, drew the long cylinder from its place and read the address to which it had been shipped. After that he copied it in a note-book: S. O. C. 606 Corbin Place, Room 767. “Queer sort of address,” he thought, as he slid the mysterious cylinder back to its place of concealment.