“And when you speak of trouble,” Jimmie broke in, “always spell it with a big ‘T’, for that’s the way it opened out on us!”
“I’m going to begin right at the beginning,” Mr. Havens said, with a smile, “and the beginning begins two years ago.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Jimmie. “That’s a long time for trouble to lie in wait before jumping out at a fellow!”
“In fact,” Mr. Havens went on, “the case we have now been dumped into, heels over head, started in New York City two years ago, when Milo Redfern, cashier of the Invincible Trust Company, left the city with a half million dollars belonging to the depositors.”
“That’s a good curtain lifter!” exclaimed Carl. “When you open a drama with a thief and a half million dollars, you’ve started something!”
CHAPTER X.
WHERE THE TROUBLE BEGAN.
“When Redfern disappeared,” Mr. Havens went on, “we employed the best detective talent in America to discover his whereabouts and bring him back. The best detective talent in America failed.”
“That ain’t the way they put it in stories!” Carl cut in.
“We spent over a hundred thousand dollars trying to bring the thief to punishment, and all we had to show for this expenditure at the end of the year was a badly spelled letter written—at least mailed—on the lower East Side in New York, conveying the information that Redfern was hiding somewhere in the mountains of Peru.”
“There you go!” exclaimed Ben. “The last time we went out on a little excursion through the atmosphere, we got mixed up with a New York murder case, and also with Chinese smugglers, and now it seems that we’ve got an embezzlement case to handle.”