Mr. Brett seemed a little more interested in the matter, as he again turned the document over in his hand; then opening it, he read its contents.
In silence his subordinates watched him, and noticed an increasing excitement in his manner as he progressed.
This was the letter which Cobb had written and sent with the safe, and of which he had spoken to Craft and Hathaway.
Having read the main document, the Treasurer returned to the briefs and saw that it had been transmitted by five Secretaries, as their indorsements were upon it; but after the year 1904 no more indorsements were made, and it was apparent that the paper had been mislaid since then. Handing the bundle to Mr. Peck, the Treasurer said:
“That is a most curious document, I must say. Can you make anything out of it?”
The latter perused it carefully, and also looked at its indorsements.
“If such a safe is now in the vaults,” he answered, returning the communication, “it should be looked after at once, for the time has long since passed when it should have been opened. Perhaps you did not notice that the last indorsement says that the safe was deposited in the certificate vaults on January 7, 1904, by Treasurer Chamberlin. I think it would be well to look into this matter; and if you wish it, I will at once attend to searching that vault.”
“I quite agree with you, Mr. Peck, that we ought not to let this matter drop without at least trying to discover if the safe mentioned in the paper is now in this department. I wish you would take the matter in hand and thoroughly search the old vaults, especially the one mentioned as containing the safe on January 7, 1904. Notify me if your labors are rewarded by success. Good morning,” and the Treasurer bowed to Mr. Peck as the latter left the office. In passing out, Peck motioned to Mr. Howell to follow him.
The vaults of the Treasury were cut up into many small and minor vaults. Some had been used for the storage of old documents of the department which had no further value than that, by law, they could not be destroyed. One series of these latter were the certificate vaults containing the stacks of fraudulent certificates used by the Chinese, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, to gain admission into the country, and in one of which the safe was supposed to have been deposited.