'Go on, boy; wound me where I'm weakest,' scoffed Dave.
But I chose to ignore Dave's chaff.
'I suggest that we join the crowd early, and stay with it late.'
'Done!' cried he.
'It's hard to tell where they will elect to work. There will be a thinning out inside the buildings, but a crowd outside, and such a crowd as this will be—all with necks craned and attention fixed; ladies in gay attire, the cream of the city's visitors as well as the other side; and there will be at least half a dozen false cries of "There she comes!" and somebody's pocket will suffer at each cry.'
'Right you are!' agreed Dave. 'It'll be a swell crowd, and it's my opinion that our men will be in the thick of it.'
Early the next morning I went to see if anything had been reported concerning the diamond robbery, for as yet little had been accomplished. There was one of the attendants, a young woman, whom I had felt uncertain about. She was pretty, and I thought artful and vain; and I had learned from another employé of the Lausch Pavilion that she had formed the acquaintance of a rather flashily dressed person wearing much jewellery, and that just before the robbery she had been seen to receive two or three slyly-delivered billets-doux. The girl was being closely watched, and one of the guards, who was stationed near, and who was said to have been seen loitering near the pavilion oftener and longer than was needful, was likewise under close surveillance.
But this morning there was something to report. It did not come through any of the men at work upon the case, nor was it in the nature of a discovery. It was an anonymous letter, and it came through the United States mail, having been posted in Chicago, at the up-town post-office.
It was addressed 'To whom it may concern,' at the bureau, and was brief and to the point.