One of the men had discovered, back of the gambling rooms on the second floor, a little office evidently used by those who ran the joint. It was scantily furnished, as though its purpose might have been merely a place where they could divide up the profits in private. A desk, a cabinet and a safe, besides a couple of chairs, were all that the room contained.
Someone, however, had done some quick work in the little office during those minutes while Garrick was opening the great ice-box door with his hydraulic ram, for on every side were scattered papers, the desk had been rifled, and even from the safe practically everything of any value had been removed. It was all part of the general scheme of things in the gambling joint. Practically nothing that was evidential that could be readily removed had been left. Whoever had planned the place must have been a genius as far as laying out precautions against a raid were concerned.
Garrick, Dillon and I ran hastily through some scattered correspondence and other documents that spilled out from some letter files on the floor, but as far as I could make out there was nothing of any great importance that had been overlooked.
Dillon ordered the whole mass to be bundled up and taken off when the other paraphernalia was removed so that it could be gone through at our leisure, and the search continued.
From the "office" a staircase led down by a back way and we followed it, looking carefully to see where it led.
A low exclamation from Garrick arrested our attention. In a curve between landings he had kicked something and had bent down to pick it up. An electric pocket flashlight which one of the men had picked up disclosed under its rays a package of papers evidently dropped by someone who was carrying away in haste an armful of stuff.
"Markers with the house," exclaimed Garrick as he ran over the contents of the package hurriedly. "I. O. U.'s for various amounts and all initialed—for several hundred thousands. Hello, here's a bunch with an 'F.' That must mean Forbes—thousands of dollars worth."
The markers were fastened together with a slip in order to separate them from the others, evidently.
Garrick was hastily totalling them up and they seemed to amount to a tidy sum.
"How can he ever pay?" I asked, amazed as the sum crept on upward in the direction of six figures.