FullReads

“I intended to put the hobo out of business,” Walker went on, “but the effect of my words on him were even more startling than I anticipated. His jaw dropped and he looked at me in astonishment.

“‘No such person!’ he repeated. ‘Why, Governor, before God, I found a man like that, an’ he was a banker – one of the big ones, sure as there’s a hell!'”

Walker put out his hands in a puzzled gesture.

“There it was again, the description of Mulehaus! And it puzzled me. Every motion of this hobo’s mind in every direction about this affair was perfectly clear to me. I saw his intention in every turn of it and just where he got the material for the details of his story. But this absolutely distinguishing description of Mulehaus was beyond me. Everybody, of course, knew that we were looking for the lost plates, for there was the reward offered by the Treasury; but no human soul outside of the trusted agents of the department knew that we were looking for Mulehaus.”

Walker did not move, but he stopped in his recital for a moment.

“The tramp shuffled up a step closer to the bench where I sat. The anxiety in his big slack face was sincere beyond question.

“‘I can’t find the banker man, Governor; he’s skipped the coop. But I believe I can find what he’s hid.’

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘go and find it.’

“The hobo jerked out his limp hands in a sort of hopeless gesture.

“‘Now, Governor,’ he whimpered, ‘what good would it do me to find them plates?’

“‘You’d get five thousand dollars,’ I said.

“‘I’d git kicked into the discard by the first cop that got to me,’ he answered, ‘that’s what I’d git.’

“The creature’s dirty, unshaved jowls began to shake, and his voice became wholly a whimper.

“‘I’ve got a line on this thing, Governor, sure as there’s a hell. That banker man was viewin’ the layout. I’ve thought it all over, an’ this is the way it would be. They’re afraid of the border an’ they’re afraid of the customhouses, so they runs the loot down here in an automobile, hides it up about the Inlet, and plans to go out with it to one of them fruit steamers passing on the way to Tampico. They’d have them plates bundled up in a sailor’s chest most like.

“‘Now, Governor, you’d say why ain’t they already done it? An’ I’d answer, the main guy – this banker man – didn’t know the automobile had got here until he sent me to look, and there ain’t been no ship along since then . . . . I’ve been special careful to find that out.’ And then the creature began to whine. ‘Have a heart, Governor, come along with me. Gimme a show!’

“It was not the creature’s plea that moved me, nor his pretended deductions; I’m a bit old to be soft. It was the ‘banker man’ sticking like a bur in the hobo’s talk. I wanted to keep him in sight until I understood where he got it. No doubt that seems a slight reason for going out to the Inlet with the creature; but you must remember that slight things are often big signboards in our business.”

He continued, his voice precise and even

“We went directly from the end of the Boardwalk to the old shed; it was open, an unfastened door on a pair of leather hinges. The shed is small, about twenty feet by eleven, with a hard dirt floor packed down by the workmen who had used it; a combination of clay and sand like the Jersey roads put in to make a floor. All round it, from the sea to the board fence, was soft sand. There were some pieces of old junk lying about in the shed; but nothing of value or it would have been nailed up.

“The hobo led right off with his deductions. There, was the track of a man, clearly outlined in the soft sand, leading from the board fence to the shed and returning, and no other track anywhere about.