Chapter XIX

THE MISSING PAPER
★

The affairs of the filing office gradually returned to routine with Bob and Tully once more at their desks. There was a tremendous amount of work to be done, for hundreds upon hundreds of papers had been removed from their usual places in the mêlée of the night before. Bob realized that it would take days for them all to be restored to their places and he rather hoped, as he contemplated the long and tedious task, that his uncle would have work for him to do that would take him outside the office.

As the afternoon waned Bob tried to analyze the character of the other clerks in the office. He had known them casually for more than a year now, but until this time he had never really tried to probe into their inner characters.

It was a task that he was particularly well fitted to do, for he had a rare gift of discernment of character and anything untrue in another usually sounded an alarm bell in Bob’s mind.

One by one he checked them off his list of possible suspects in connection with the disappearance of the radio paper. Could one of them have tipped off anyone outside? It was an unpleasant possibility, but Bob knew that in his new work he would be up against many unpleasant things.

The list narrowed down until Bob’s eyes rested on Tully’s broad shoulders. The other was hunched over his desk, apparently gazing through a nearby window and certainly not much concerned with the work on the desk in front of him.

Was Tully linked up with the mystery? Could he have been the one inside who had learned of the arrival of the precious paper and given the information to someone outside?

Bob didn’t want to believe that, yet he had checked all of the others off his list. His eyes rested on Arthur Jacobs, the filing chief. Could it have been Jacobs? It was possible, but Bob scouted serious consideration of the thought, for Jacobs’ heart was too much in his work and his pride was too great for such a deed.

Bob felt up against a blank wall. It was his job to sit tight in the office on the supposition that someone inside must have given out information. He felt now that there was little chance that this had been the case. There were plenty of other loopholes for the information to leak out and Bob was convinced that it must have leaked before the paper came into the filing office.

At five o’clock the other clerks left their desks, but Tully, Bob and the filing chief lingered in the office.

Jacobs spoke to Tully.

“I don’t care what you’re doing outside this office,” he said, “but as long as you’re here and at your desk you’ll have to work. I don’t believe you did five minutes work this afternoon.”

Tully’s eyes dropped and he studied the toes of his shoes. His voice was heavy when he spoke.

“I know I didn’t get much work done,” he said. “But I was so blamed excited over being a federal agent and then trying to figure out how this information could have leaked out. I’ll be back to earth again tomorrow.”

“I’m glad of that for we need your help in getting this mess straightened out.”

Tully nodded and went on, while Bob hesitated.

“I wanted just a word with you alone,” he told the filing chief. “I didn’t say anything earlier, but I’m also working on this case as a provisional federal agent. That means I’m on probation. If I make good on this case there may be a permanent job waiting for me.”

“I rather thought you might be,” smiled Jacobs, “after Tully blurted out that he was a special agent. I kind of put two and two together and it looked like it would be mighty strange if Tully were selected and not you.”

“It may be necessary for me to be away from the office at various times,” went on Bob, “but if I can’t get word to you, my uncle will see that you are advised.”

“Anything that really looks like a clue turned up?” asked Jacobs.

Bob shook his head.

“Not as far as I know, and I guess if there had been I wouldn’t be at liberty to tell you.”

Jacobs put on his coat.

“Coming down tonight?”

“I’ve some routine I can get out of the way,” replied Bob. “I’ll have lunch nearby and will be able to get through in a couple of hours.”

“I should come back, but I’m all in. Don’t work too late.”

The filing chief stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him and Bob was left alone in the long, high-ceilinged office. The room was in heavy shadows already, for the day had been cloudy and twilight had come early. He turned on the light over his desk, decided that he was hungry, snapped it off, put on his coat and left the office. At the door he turned and made sure that the room was securely locked. Then he walked rapidly down the corridor, turned, and signalled for an elevator.

Bob was walking through the main doors when someone hailed him and he saw his uncle.

“Going to eat?” asked Merritt Hughes.

“Just about half a ton of food,” grinned Bob. “It seems ages since I had anything, yet it was only a few hours ago.”

“Charge that up to excitement,” replied his uncle, as they strode along together.

“Any news of the man who broke out of the police station?” There was a real note of anxiety in Bob’s voice.

“Not a word. He must have been a magician. The police are still combing the city, but I doubt if they’ll find him. He belongs to too clever a gang.”

“But where could he hide so securely in Washington?”

“An embassy, possibly,” shrugged the federal agent.

Bob’s eyes widened. It had never occurred to him that a representative of a foreign government would give shelter to a criminal. Yet he knew that any one of half a dozen foreign powers would give a great deal to possess the new radio secrets.

“Don’t take that suggestion too seriously,” warned Merritt Hughes, who guessed the trend of Bob’s thoughts.

He leaned closer to Bob. “This case is causing all kinds of trouble. The entire War Department is in a furore and I hear special intelligence officers are being assigned to see if they can’t ferret it out.”

“Does that mean they don’t think the Justice Department capable of solving the mystery?” asked Bob.

“Not exactly that, I guess. It simply means that this case is of such tremendous importance that everything the government can do will be done in its solution.”

They turned into a quiet restaurant and selected a table well to the rear where they could talk without danger of being overheard for there were only a few diners in the place.

“Have you seen Condon Adams?” asked Bob.

The federal agent shook his head.

“I hear he’s having a pretty hard time of it. The chief had him in on the carpet and gave him a going over for letting this fellow slip away from him. But it could have happened to anyone. If we’d gotten there first instead of Adams, we might have been the victims.”

They ordered their dinners and Bob leaned across the table.

“I’ve been trying to figure out everyone in the office,” he said, “and I can’t find a single one on whom you can pin any suspicion. The leak about that paper must have come from outside before the paper reached us.”

“That’s possible,” nodded his uncle.

“Remember that another office was rifled before our own was visited,” said Bob. “That should indicate that the marauder had none too clear information on where to look for the paper.”

“Now you’ve hit a point I’ve been considering. The more I think about it the more convinced I become that the leak came before the paper reached your filing room. That means our job will be complicated. Maybe we’ll get a break one of these days.”

Dinner was served and they ate heartily, ignoring for the time the case that had enfolded both of them in its mysterious tangle.

The dinner at an end, Bob leaned back in his chair and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. The fingers of his right hand crinkled a stiff sheet of paper and he drew it out and placed it on the table.

It was not an unusual sheet, at first glance, being about eight inches wide and eleven inches long, but it was of heavy material, probably a pure rag paper.

But it was not the paper that caught and held Bob’s attention. It was the crest of the War Department which was centered at the top of the page.

Merritt Hughes saw Bob staring at the paper and looked at his nephew curiously.

“What’s the matter, Bob? Forget to file something this afternoon?”

When Bob did not answer at once, he reached over and picked up the paper. It was his turn to stare at the sheet and his eyes widened as he looked up at his nephew.

“Great heavens, Bob. Where did this come from?”

Bob shook his head.

“I haven’t any idea. I put my hands in my pockets just now and the paper was in the right hand pocket.”

“But you know what this is?”

Bob nodded. “Yes, I know. It’s the missing paper with the radio secrets.”