“I’m dizzy,” confessed the intelligence officer when they finally stopped for lunch. Leaving one of the agents to guard the bales in the basement, the others went to a nearby restaurant. Lunch was eaten quickly and with a minimum of talk, for every one of them knew that perhaps a man’s life hinged on the quickness with which they could find the tell-tale envelope.
They carried a tray of lunch back to the agent who had been left on guard and plunged once more into the mountainous task which still faced them.
The early hours of the afternoon slipped away. Bale after bale of paper was scanned with care and Bob felt his hopes sinking.
Another bale was finished and one more pulled down and clipped open. He knelt down again and picked up a handful of waste paper. An envelope drew his attention, but it was for another resident on the floor on which the filing chief lived.
Lieutenant Gibbons, whose lanky form was almost doubled in a knot from the hours of bending down and looking at slips of paper, suddenly straightened up with a triumphant cry.
“Here’s the letter!” he cried, waving a badly torn envelope.
The federal men, dropping the paper they had been sorting, rushed to his side.
Bob was the first to see the postmark on the envelope. It was marked from Rubio, Maryland, and was addressed to Arthur Jacobs.
The handwriting on the envelope was large and heavy and the pen which had been used was none too good for it had dropped ink in two places on the envelope.
Bob felt his heart leap. This was the clue they had sought for so many weary, back-breaking hours in the litter of paper in the basement.