“Birch burned them all up. Aaron saw him do it.”
“I know that. Wish we knew the amount he destroyed.”
Waltham shrugged his shoulders. Evidently the loss of the counterfeit bills did not disturb him. He seemed satisfied that the plates had been seized.
“We’ve ended the supply,” he said. “That’s all there is to it. We’ve got Birch. He was the man behind it.”
“I guess you’re right,” replied the other secret-service man. “But I thought there was a bigger game to it. We don’t know where Birch had the stuff printed.”
“That doesn’t matter so much.”
“Well, who engraved the plates?”
“Listen, Jim. We want to find out about all of it. But we might just as well quit kidding ourselves. Birch is liable to tell us everything in time. He won’t stick to that story that the stuff was brought in to him, and that the plates must have been planted.
“Now we’re after the engraver, and the place where the printing was done. I figure that Birch hired some fellow to make the plates. The man got paid and cleared out.
“That may have been a year or more ago. We’ll center on Birch. Make him come clean. That’s our only course.”