The Treasure-Train

by Arthur B. Reeve

Burke accompanied us almost all the way home, with Sydney adding his urging. I could tell that the whole combination of circumstances at the Burridge had had an effect on Kennedy.

I went to bed, tired, but through the night I knew Craig was engaged on some work about which he seemed to be somewhat secretive. When I saw him again in the laboratory, in the morning, he had before him a large packing-case of stout wood bound with steel bands.

"What's that?" I asked, mystified. He opened the lid, a sort of door, on which was a strong lock, and I looked inside.

"My traveling laboratory," he remarked, with pride.

I peered in more closely. It was a well-stocked armamentarium, as the doctors would have called it. I shall not make any attempt to describe its contents. They were too varied and too numerous, a little bit of everything, it seemed. In fact, Craig seemed to have epitomized the sciences and arts. It was not that he had anything so wonderful, or even comparable to the collection of his laboratory. But as I ran my eye over the box I would have wagered that from the contents he might have made shift to duplicate in some makeshift form almost anything that he might need. It was truly amazing, representing in miniature his study of crime for years.

"Then you are going with Burke to St. Thomas?" I queried, realizing the significance of it.

Kennedy nodded. "I've been thinking of what I would do if an important case ever called me away. Burke's proposal hurried me, that's all. And you are going, also," he added. "You have until noon to break the news to the Star."

I did not say anything more, fearful lest he might change his mind. I knew he needed the rest, and that no matter what the case was in the islands he could not work as hard as he was doing in New York.

Accordingly my own arrangements with the Star were easily made. I had a sort of roving commission, anyhow, since my close association with Kennedy. Moreover, the possibility of turning up something good in the islands, which were much in the news at the time, rather appealed to the managing editor. If Kennedy could arrange his affairs, I felt that the least I could do was to arrange my own.

Thus it came about that Craig and I found ourselves in the forenoon in a taxicab, on the front of which was loaded the precious box as well as our other hastily packed luggage, and we were on our way over to Brooklyn to the dock from which the Arroyo sailed.