Jack bowed again, and returned to his taxi.
29
Jack returned to New York on the night train. At the hotel he found a message from Starr of the Bienvenu Hotel reading:
"A.D.T. boy 791 came with a package for Miss Culbreth to-day. When he was told she was out of town he took it back with him."
Jack's police credentials smoothed the way for him with the A.D.T. officials, and within two hours of the time he received the message, No. 791, otherwise Tommy Mullulus, was on his way to the Madagascar to be questioned.
He was a small, thin boy with a wary eye that testified to a wide experience of the world, and an insinuating grin that was still childlike. His meager limbs were lost in his faded, flapping trousers, but he had a doughty air far beyond his years. His official age was fifteen; had he not to swear to that to get his "working papers"? But actually he was about two years short of it.
He was disposed to be evasive in answering Jack's questions.
"You brought a package to the Hotel Bienvenu yesterday?"
"Yes, sir."