“Carrying bonds from New Orleans to New York,” he said dully. “Nobody knew I had ’em. Can’t sleep on trains, and stopped over here to have a night’s rest. I went out for dinner.... The bonds are gone.”
“I’ll send for the police,” the desk-clerk assured him. “We’ve a splendid detective force here. If anybody could find them, Jamison can.”
Craig’s fingers unclenched and he automatically began to look through the articles in his suit-case again, in the utterly forlorn hope that he might yet be mistaken, and might yet find the bonds.
“Eighty thousand dollars!” he said apathetically. “I’m ruined! They’ll suspect me, even me, of stealing them. And nobody knew I had them!” He groaned. “Nobody knew I had them!”
The clerk slipped from the room and telephoned frantically, while he gave orders that assured the continued presence of every one of the hotel employees and a careful note of every guest who left the place. He would be able to give the police a list of every man who slipped out, and would be able to produce all the hotel help. It was quick and efficient work. But once that was done, the desk-clerk allowed himself to think sympathetically of the man in the room above. He had seen Craig stroll into the elevator, pleasantly flushed by his dinner and walk. And now that chalk-white man with sunken eyes, croaking of ruin and disgrace....
The desk-clerk shook his head in genuine regret.
II
A rather shabby young man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth strolled into the room without the formality of knocking. He nodded ungraciously at Craig.
“I’m Jamison,” he said gloomily. “Police Headquarters. They sent me down to find out about this robbery. What’s up?”
Craig, no more than the wreck of the debonair man of a half hour before, told his story, with his eyes glowing strangely from sunken sockets. Jamison listened from a comfortable chair, gazing at the ceiling.