“Yep,” replied Meredith. “Expect that’s why we haven’t nailed its source yet. Fact is, I believe there isn’t any rum being smuggled in. Been stored here and just being distributed now. Bet we’ve all been walking over the trail star-gazing. So darned sure it was all coming in from outside we never thought of it being right alongside of us.”
“That’s a possibility,” admitted Henderson and then, dropping their voices, the half dozen men earnestly discussed plans, offered suggestions, examined mysterious documents stored in a hidden and massive safe in the wall and pored over maps and diagrams which no one, outside of this inner circle, would ever see.
At the end of two hours, the conference broke up. The papers and documents were replaced in their secret vault, the maps and diagrams were locked in a steel box and thrust in another safe and the men chatted on various matters, discussing the latest news, arguing the respective merits of motor cars, expressing opinions as to the next pennant winner, telling jokes and thoroughly enjoying themselves as if they had not a care in the world
and were not literally carrying their lives in their hands day and night.
“What’s that boy of yours doing in radio now?” asked Meredith, addressing Mr. Pauling when the conversation finally turned towards wireless. “Henderson was telling me about their ‘radio detective’ stuff. Great kid—Tom.”
“Oh, he and Frank Putney are working on a submarine radio scheme. I met a young chap at Nassau with a new-fangled diving suit and he and the boys are trying to work out a radio outfit to use under water. Say, they’re succeeding, too.”
“Jove! that’s a great scheme!” exclaimed another. “Under-sea wireless! Well, I’ll be hanged, what won’t our kids be up to next!”
“Wish we’d had anything as good to tinker with when we were kids,” declared Selwin. “I remember how every one laughed at Marconi when he first started wireless. My boy’s crazy over it now. Well, I must be getting on.”
Rising, Selwin slipped from the room, sauntered casually about the corridor, noted the seemingly inattentive janitor brushing imaginary dust from a window frame, knew that the lynx-eyed guard was
on his job, and without a sign of recognition made his way to the elevator and the street. At intervals of half an hour or so the others left, some by the same corridor, others through an outer room, where an office boy seemed dozing in a chair over a lurid, paper-covered novel—but upon whose boyish, freckled cheeks a closely-shaven, heavy beard might have been detected by a near examination—while still others took a roundabout route and descended to the street on the opposite side of the building. At last, only Mr. Pauling and Henderson were left and the two friends, glad of a chance to have a quiet smoke and to be free from care for a short time, sat chatting and talking over Mr. Pauling’s last trip to the West Indies.