“I will tell you. Both Jasniff and Merwell are inveterate cigarette smokers. I have seen them smoking many times. They smoke a Turkish brand of cigarettes, having a peculiar blue and gold band around the box. This is the same kind of a box, and I am convinced that this box was emptied and thrown away in your offices by Jasniff or Merwell.”
CHAPTER XIII—DARK DAYS
Oliver Wadsworth listened to Dave’s words with deep interest. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“That sounds pretty good, Dave, were it not for one thing. Do you imagine that two masked fellows, bent on blowing open safes, would stop to light and smoke cigarettes?”
“I think Merwell and Jasniff would, Merwell especially. When Link is nervous the first thing he does is to take out a cigarette and light it. It’s an almost unconscious habit with him.”
“This story about what that doctor said interests me most of all,” went on the manufacturer. “I think we ought to have a talk with him. For all we know, he may be one of the guilty parties.”
“No, I don’t think he is that kind. Besides, he was very angry at Merwell and Jasniff and wanted nothing more to do with them.”
“The detective who was here thought he had a clew against a professional bank burglar. Personally, I think this looks more like the work of professionals than fellows just out of school,” said the manufacturer; and there, for the time being, the matter rested.
During the day two more detectives appeared and went over the ground, as the other officials had done. One thought he saw in the robbery the hand of a criminal known as Red Andrews.
“This is just the way Red Andrews would go at a job,” said the detective. “He was sent up for robbing a private banker some years ago, and he got out two months ago. He was in New York—I saw him on Fifth Avenue, not far from the Carwith mansion. He may have heard about the jewels there. I am going to look for him.” And he departed on a hunt for Red Andrews.