“Where are the jewels,” he was asked.
“They are in the hands of a fence. I think I can get them—but it will take some more telephoning. This time I’m not fooling.” He continued to insist that the calls had to be unmonitored.
Durant was permitted to make telephone calls from a public pay station—and to wait for a return call. The return call came within a few minutes, and when he had hung up the receiver, Durant said, “Everything looks all right. I think we can get the stuff this evening.”
That evening the colonel’s mysterious contact called for him at the pay station. This time Durant said, “We can get the jewels any time we wish. They’re at the Illinois Railroad Station.”
Two agents accompanied Durant to the station. He walked to an electric wall fixture near the luggage lockers, reached up, and removed a key from the fixture. He opened a nearby locker and removed a package which he handed over to the agents. The package contained a large number of emeralds, sapphires, pearls, rubies and other stones.
Durant counted the gems carefully and then exclaimed, “Some of the stuff is missing. Let me make another telephone call.” Again he called his contact and this time he reported, “We can’t get the stuff until Monday.”
On the following Monday, June 10, Durant again called his unknown contact. This time he told agents the remainder of the jewels were checked at the North Western Railroad and the claim check was hidden in a telephone booth across from the parcel room.
When Durant and the agents reached the station, Durant searched the telephone booths without finding a claim check. “It doesn’t matter,” Durant said. “I got the number of the check in case anything should go wrong. It’s number 110.”
But there was no parcel numbered 110 at the North Western Station. Durant hurried to a phone booth and placed another call to his contact man. When he completed the call, he said, “I misunderstood the instructions. We should have gone to the LaSalle Street Station.”
At the LaSalle Street Station, Durant went to the sixth telephone booth and took from behind the instrument panel a slip of paper. He read it and handed it over to the agents. On the paper was a handwritten note which said: “Too bad. My hat knocked your ticket off. Guess I have a right to keep the baggage.”