It was nearly closing-time—midnight—that night when two men entered P. T. Ayres's corner drugstore. One of them wore a fur overcoat and a silk hat. The other was dressed in black, had a mourning-band about his hat, and wore black gloves. He carried a bag on which the sleepy lady cashier saw the “L” and the cabin tags of a transatlantic line. The man in black said to her:
“May this gentleman telephone for me, miss? My throat is in pretty bad shape, and I don't want to use it.”
It was in bad shape, indeed. She could hardly hear him.
“But, I say, dear chap—” remonstrated the fur-coated man, whose collar was so tight that he wiggled his head violently as if in search of comfort.
“This is as good a place as any,” whispered the man in black, impatiently. “Call 'em up! I say, miss, have you got any slippery elm or some kind of troches good for laryngitis?”
She remembered afterward that when she said she would call the proprietor he kept her from it by engaging her in conversation, which likewise prevented her from trying to hear what his companion was saying.
The fur-coated man had called up Spring 3100, which is police headquarters.
“Are you there? I say, are you there? Yes, I know this is not London. You know Mr. Pierce and Mr. Storrs and Mr. Boon and Mr. Gaylord? Well, tell your men they are in a residence on Fifth Avenue, in the servants' dining-room. It's Colonel Walton's house. Right-O! That's not your business. Go to the devil!” He came out of the booth with an angry face. “Confound their impudence! Where is my friend?”
“He's gone,” said the cashier. “Here—come back and pay for that call; five cents!”
The telephone clerk at police headquarters promptly told the news of the whereabouts of the missing jewelers—for whom the star men had been searching six hours diligently and secretly—and then tried, through the telephone Central, to get in touch with the pay station from which the “tip” had come, but couldn't, as they would not answer. The reason Ayres's drug-store wouldn't answer was that the Englishman in his ignorance had disarranged the connection without betraying that fact. The detectives said it showed a technical knowledge of telephones and their construction.