"I don't know that I feel any different from what I always do," replied Julian. "I will go there as soon as I can."
When Julian got into the street, his first care was to find his keys. They were all there; and, to gain the time that he would occupy in looking about the room, Julian broke into a trot, knowing that the police would not trouble him while he had that uniform on. At the end of an hour he began to draw close to Casper's room, and there he slackened his pace to a walk.
"Ten minutes more and the matter will be decided," said Julian, his heart beating with a sound that frightened him. "That boy has the box, and I am going to have it."
A few steps more brought him to the stairs that led up to Casper's room. It was over a grocery store, and the steps ran up beside it. He turned in there without anybody seeing him, and stopped in front of the door. The combination key was produced, and to Julian's immense delight the door came open the very first try.
"I guess I won't lock it," muttered Julian. "I might lock myself in. He does not keep his room as neat as we do ours."
Julian took one glance about the apartment, taking in the tumbled bedclothes, and the dishes from which Casper had eaten his breakfast still unwashed on the table, and then turned his attention to what had brought him there. There was no closet in the room, and the box was not under the bed; it must therefore be in his trunk. One after another of the keys was tried without avail, and Julian was about to give it up in despair, when the last key—the one on Jack's bunch—opened the trunk, which he found in the greatest confusion. He lifted off the tray, and there was the box, sure enough. Julian took it, and hugged it as though it was a friend from whom he had long been separated.
"Now the next question is, are the papers all here?" thought he. "There were seven of them besides the letter, and who knows but that he has taken a block of buildings away from us."
But the papers were all there. However much Casper might have been tempted to realize on some of the numerous "blocks of buildings" which the box called for, he dared not attempt the sale of any of them. It was as much as he could do to steal the papers. Julian placed the tray back and carefully locked the trunk, and then looking around, found a paper with which to do up his box. Then he locked the door, came down, and went on to deliver his message.
"That boy called us foolish because we advertised for Mr. Haberstro," said Julian, as he carefully adjusted the box under his arm. "I would like to know if we were bigger fools than he was. We could have found the police last night as easy as not, and it would have been no trouble for them to find the box. He ought not to have left it there in his trunk. He didn't think that we could play the same game on him that he played upon us."
Julian conveyed his message and returned to his office in less time than he usually did, and, after reporting, told Mr. Wiggins in a whisper that he would like to see him in the back room.