“You’ve got it, lad. This was just that car. What’s the amazing interest in it all of a sudden? Look here,” and he took them around to the other side of the car. “Last night two boys came here; my son saw them hanging around here. Then they disappeared. This morning I found the car that way.”
Ralph and Zeph stared in astonishment. A four-foot 204 space of the boards on the outside of the car had been torn away. At one point there was a jagged break in the inside sheathing. In a flash the same idea occurred to both of them.
“Too late!” groaned poor Zeph. “Some one has been here and the diamonds are gone.”
Ralph was stupefied. He remembered the rustling in the bushes when they were discussing their plans the day previous. He believed that their conversation had been overheard by some one.
Ralph asked the man to send for his son, which he did, and Ralph interrogated him closely. The result was a sure conviction that Ike Slump and Mort Bemis had secured the diamonds hidden in the box car about five years previous.