“Radford came to me last night, declaring Mark had given him money, but he didn’t know what became of it.”
“I haven’t seen Mark,” said I, “but I’ll guarantee he’s all right.”
“So I’ve believed,” said McCord, “but it’s queer somehow. Perhaps,” he added, “it’s the result of one of Radford’s drunks. He’s gone, and I’ll wait until he turns up. In the meantime will you see Shinburn?”
I promised I would, and, accordingly, a few minutes later, Mark had heard from me Jack McCord’s story. At that he hauled the money from his pocket and tossed it at me. I looked the surprise I felt.
“I thought you’d settled with Radford?” I said.
“So I did, but the fool threw the dust out of the cab window, and while I went back after it, he vanished.” Then Mark told me, in detail, all that happened. It was all made very clear to me. I left him saying I would make an appointment for him with McCord at the Washington Parade Ground at the lower end of Fifth Avenue, that evening. Mark was there and paid McCord the money, who in no gentle language scored Radford for his drunken escapade.
“You can give me the credit of saving the dust for the duffer,” said Mark to me subsequently, “for I had to run back nearly two blocks, and then got it by only a hair.”
But I must return to Captain Young. He had pocketed the seventeen thousand five hundred dollars, the outcome of his secret trip to Westminster, and was in a way congratulating himself. Had he not given his two prisoners, so cleverly captured, over to the Maryland authorities? Had he not done a great piece of detective work? None better, the public would think, upon hearing of it, done up with the right sort of glamour. There was one way to put that touch on, so he called in the Police Headquarters reporters, who had offices across Mulberry Street. To them he related the story of his astuteness in getting a “line” on the looters, adding everything that he could conjure up to make a glowing yarn, in which he was the central figure. The newspapers told at great length of the desperate encounter he and his sleuths had had with the prisoners, who had to be taken at the pistol point.
“I turned the prisoners over to the Baltimore authorities,” the newspapers quoted him as saying, “heavily ironed, and they started south with a clear case against them. They couldn’t escape from long terms in prison, with the evidence against them.”
It was not until several months later that the dear public awoke to the cold fact that Chief of Detectives Young’s great capture and brace of prisoners, which started for Maryland, only reached the Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Jersey City.