"Sure," returned Doyle, already beginning to line up his prisoners against a blank wall on one side. "He'll be here in a minute. But don't wait for him, if that's your man. Search the place—and, see here, you," he menaced the former operative, "no monkey-shines. You give Mr. Kennedy them papers—or—" Doyle trailed off in one of his picturesque oaths.
While Doyle's men completed the line-up against the wall, Kennedy led the now quaking No. 6 into the hall, followed by Doyle, Brooks, and myself.
We mounted the stairs, looking into every closet and cranny. Hundreds of cases of "wet" goods must have been concealed in the place, which later we discovered was more than a "speak-easy," for it proved to be a veritable moonshine still almost in the heart of the city.
Our search was not long. The stress of threat and circumstance broke down the former crook detective, who now was as keen to clear himself, gratis, and hang something on Rascon, as before he had been to collect his graft and get away with it.
Directed by him, in a hall bedroom, under the worn carpet, we loosened a board of the floor and took from the lath and plaster of the ceiling below a flat packet done up in oiled silk.
At last we had the purloined Rascon letters.
Doyle's eyes widened at the sight of what Craig had uncovered. Here was a whole set of reports such as that which we had already obtained, only of far greater value.
Kennedy was immersed in reading them already.
"What's in them?" asked Doyle, reaching eagerly for the sheaf of precious tissue-paper carbon copies.
Kennedy did not stop reading, but merely motioned to be let alone, as, quickly, he ran his eye over one after another.