“I guess we should be able to find out,” said Don. “Suppose we go down to the newspaper office and hunt up the reporter that took the account? Surely he should be able to tell us something about the cup, for it is more than probable that he saw it.”
At their earliest opportunity they went to town and to the newspaper office, where they asked for the reporter who had taken down the account of the robbery. He was a young man of a pleasant personality and he was very willing to talk to them.
“Just what is it that you want to know, boys?” he asked.
“In the account that you wrote up of the robbery you detailed the articles stolen from the different vaults,” Don said. “We saw that among the effects taken from the Gates family vault there was a silver cup mentioned. Did you see that cup?”
“Yes,” responded the reporter. “I saw all of the recovered articles. The cup was among them.”
“What did it look like?” Don asked, trying not to appear too interested.
“Why do you want to know?” countered the reporter.
“Mr. Gates won several cups in his school days, and he won one at Woodcrest,” Don answered. “We were just wondering if it was the Woodcrest cup that was stolen.”
The boys, when planning their method of procedure before coming to the newspaper office, had decided on that story. The reporter was satisfied at once.
“Why, I can’t tell you that exactly,” he said, slowly. “I didn’t notice anything but the date on it.”