Two of the salesmen hustled the man unceremoniously toward the buyer’s office. Mr. Rexford retired into the mail-order room, only to appear almost instantly with Farley. The salesman’s face was ghastly, his usually sleepy eyes were dark with fear. He walked quietly beside the buyer, however, making no effort to flee.
Mr. Rexford stopped and said something in a low tone to Mr. Denby, the man who had charge of the fiction. The salesman hurried out of the department, while the buyer motioned Farley into his office, stepped in after him and closed the door.
A little group of workers gathered at one side of the department to discuss the meaning of the scene they had just witnessed.
“I suppose they’ve been stealing. Looks like it,” advanced one young man. “Who’s that dark fellow? I’ve seen him around the department talking to Farley. He’s the last person I’d accuse of stealing. He’s been here for ten years.”
“It’s cribbing, all right enough. Here comes Prescott, the head detective,” murmured one of the men who had escorted the Frenchman into the office. “I wonder who spotted the game?”
Harry Harding might have given that information, but, instead, he stood in silence, listening to the talk that went on among the men. Glancing at the clock he saw that it was five minutes to eight. The law forbade any boy of his age to work after that hour. He was glad of it. He would go at once. He feared he might be called behind that closed door to testify against the offenders, and he shrank from doing so. He was not really needed. Mr. Rexford had caught the men in the act of exchanging stolen goods. Now the detective could do the rest. Harry lost no time in turning his night pass over to the man on the door and leaving the store behind him.
He had been gone perhaps fifteen minutes when Mr. Rexford emerged from the office and asked for him.
“He went home on the dot of eight,” reported Mr. Denby, the fiction salesman. “You know these boys have to keep within the labor law.”
Mr. Rexford smiled. “That boy has done a good deal more to-night than keep within the labor law. He’s been of untold service to Martin Brothers and to me. He has rounded up the ringleaders of a gang of thieving employees that have been profiting at the store’s expense for a long time. What I’d like to know is where he got his first clue?”