"Locked doors!" snorted Tom, putting his cigar away for a surreptitious smoke. "Not on your life. Not against me. You bet she was open whenever I rang."
"But it might just as well have been locked," said Bob. "The place is so jammed full of stuff. I couldn't make out what it was, but there was a wad of it."
The unsuspecting brakeman then gave Bob what he was hoping to get.
"Well, I stopped and saw it," he confessed. "I roused up the coon after midnight to have a look at the ropes and when I came back I took my time. They got a case of powder or dynamite in there marked 'Explosive.' I didn't bother that but the rest was plain. Half the boxes in the car were labeled 'balloon works' or 'motor works.' It's a balloon show—nothing else."
"Where is the car going?"
"They ain't consulted me," laughed Tom.
A few moments later Bob was in the office of the division superintendent. When he left he knew that the Placida would be dropped on the only siding at the little town of Clarkeville in New Mexico. He had also looked over the best map in the offices and fixed in his mind the topography of the adjacent country.
Before half past nine Bob had presented these scattered facts to his city editor.
"It's a story, all right, Bob, and a good one. Go to it," said the editor. And Bob did the best he knew how—in a newspaper way. On the suggestion of the editor he telegraphed to the representative of the Comet in Chicago: "Who is Ned Napier?" In a little over an hour he had a hundred and fifty word telegram outlining Ned's aeronautic career and concluding: "Why? What do you know? Napier not here. Family won't talk."
Then Bob began his story. It was, for a reporter of his experience, brilliant, with good deductions, good guesses and good ambiguous generalities. It seemed to tell more than it really did.