“It’ll be O.K.,” Ken told him. “Sam said we could pick it up in half an hour.”
“Good,” his father said.
“Good,” Pop echoed, almost absent-mindedly. “Go on, Dick. Did they ever find out who was doing the wire tapping?”
Richard Holt grinned. “It was the old woman who cleaned the office. They certainly never would have suspected her—she looked too old and harmless. But she got jittery finally, and disappeared. And they were curious enough to investigate. Now, I understand, you can’t get a job cleaning the municipal offices there unless you’re recommended by the prime minister himself.”
“Wow!” Bert said. “What a yarn! Did they track down the rest of the gang then too?”
“What’s this all about?” Ken wanted to know. “Start from the beginning.”
“It’s not a very lively story, except for the old lady,” Mr. Holt assured the boys. “Just an ordinary tale of slick counterfeiters, though they did have an expert engraver capable of turning out beautifully engraved ten-dollar bills. United States bills, that is, which are always popular in Europe, and therefore easy to pass. Of course the banks could spot them, and they did eventually—a few at a time. But as long as the gang had its wire-tapping service in operation, it could keep informed as to police suspicions—and shift its plates and its printing apparatus to a new location if the police began to make inquiries in the neighborhood where they were.”
“Did they track down the gang?” Bert persisted.
“Unfortunately not,” Richard Holt admitted. “And you can imagine how the police chief felt, under the circumstances. He’s pretty sure they’ve cleared out of his territory, but of course that’s not enough to satisfy him. And of course the U.S. Treasury isn’t very happy about it either. Last I heard, it was sending some T-men over to lend a hand, because the counterfeits were American bills.”
Bert nodded. “Those T-men work fast. We received a circular here about six months ago, about some bad twenties that were turning up in this vicinity. But before we could print the story, the counterfeiters were nabbed. Of course,” he added, “most counterfeit bills here are made by the photoengraving process, and that’s pretty crude compared to a good engraving.”