Chapter XXVIII

WASTE PAPER
★

There was a real feeling of hope in Bob’s heart as he stepped out of the Department of Justice building with Lieutenant Gibbons at his side.

“Things are going to move fast from now on,” predicted the lieutenant. “By the way, Bob, aren’t you a little young to be a federal agent?”

“I’m not a full-fledged agent,” explained Bob. “When my uncle was assigned to this case and it looked like some valuable information might be gained by an inside man in our office, I was delegated to help him and given papers as a provisional agent. If I make good on this case I may get into the service permanently, even though I’m a little young.”

“I think you’re going in with a rush and I know you’re going to make good even though Edgar gave you a pretty short time when he said you’d have the case solved within twenty-four hours.”

“That’s what scares me,” confessed Bob, “but I’ve got to find my uncle. Once he’s safe I’ll start worrying about the radio secret.”

“When you find him you’ll recover the radio secret,” predicted the intelligence officer.

Fifteen minutes of fast driving in a taxi took them to the apartment where Arthur Jacobs resided.

The building superintendent, curious and somewhat worried over Bob’s telephoned orders, was waiting at the door to meet them.

Bob identified himself and the superintendent admitted them to the building, taking them into the basement where an incinerator bulked in the background. Beside it were a number of bales of paper.

“We’ve been baling and selling the waste paper,” he explained, “but I can’t tell you in what bale the paper from the fourth floor, where Jacobs lives, can be found. It’s a good thing you phoned. We were going to have this trucked out sometime during the day.”

Bob looked at the bales and a feeling of dismay crept into his heart. All he wanted was one envelope—a small slip of paper—yet there were literally hundreds of pieces of paper in each one of the bales. He turned to Lieutenant Gibbons. The intelligence officer grinned.

“Looks like we’re in for it. Better get off your coat, Bob, and we’ll start on the first bale.”

“You mean you want to open up all those bales?” demanded the building superintendent.

“That’s right,” nodded the intelligence officer. “We not only want to, but we’re going to do it. Get some snippers and cut through the wires on this bale.” He indicated the huge stack of paper nearest him.

The superintendent snapped on additional lights and grudgingly cut the wires on the first bale while Bob took off his coat.

“Save every envelope with a Maryland postmark on it,” he said.

It looked like an endless task, but Bob and the lieutenant, squatting on their heels, started through the pile of paper.

The building superintendent, after watching them for several minutes, joined in the hunt.

At the end of half an hour they had found four letters with Maryland postmarks on them, but none of them addressed to Arthur Jacobs.

“We’ve got to have more help,” decided the intelligence officer when an hour had slipped away and they had gone through only one bale. He went to a telephone and called the Department of Justice, with the result that within half an hour six other agents were on the job, delving through the growing pile of papers.

By noon they had examined every scrap of paper from five bales and their arms and backs were aching sharply.

“I’m dizzy,” confessed the intelligence officer when they finally stopped for lunch. Leaving one of the agents to guard the bales in the basement, the others went to a nearby restaurant. Lunch was eaten quickly and with a minimum of talk, for every one of them knew that perhaps a man’s life hinged on the quickness with which they could find the tell-tale envelope.

They carried a tray of lunch back to the agent who had been left on guard and plunged once more into the mountainous task which still faced them.

The early hours of the afternoon slipped away. Bale after bale of paper was scanned with care and Bob felt his hopes sinking.

Another bale was finished and one more pulled down and clipped open. He knelt down again and picked up a handful of waste paper. An envelope drew his attention, but it was for another resident on the floor on which the filing chief lived.

Lieutenant Gibbons, whose lanky form was almost doubled in a knot from the hours of bending down and looking at slips of paper, suddenly straightened up with a triumphant cry.

“Here’s the letter!” he cried, waving a badly torn envelope.

The federal men, dropping the paper they had been sorting, rushed to his side.

Bob was the first to see the postmark on the envelope. It was marked from Rubio, Maryland, and was addressed to Arthur Jacobs.

The handwriting on the envelope was large and heavy and the pen which had been used was none too good for it had dropped ink in two places on the envelope.

Bob felt his heart leap. This was the clue they had sought for so many weary, back-breaking hours in the litter of paper in the basement.

“How far is it to Rubio?” Bob asked the intelligence officer.

“I’m not sure that I even know what part of Maryland it’s in, but I believe if we go by plane, we should be there in an hour.”

“Then we’ll go by plane,” decided Bob.

Just how he could obtain a plane was a question he couldn’t have answered at the moment, but he was determined to make the trip with the least possible loss of time for he felt that either in Rubio or near it he would find the solution to the mystery.