"I shall always be delighted to have you call upon me; you have proved yourselves my real friends. But will you tell me how you managed to recover my bonds?"
"Not to-day; some day we will tell you all about it."
"And Goodlove—is he in jail?"
"No, it was his first offense and we let him off. He will leave New York, however, and start afresh. I think he has learned a lesson and will become honest."
On the day following Ike and Jack were at breakfast in a restaurant when they overheard the proprietor of the place and a customer discussing a great robbery that had taken place under the most startling circumstances. Ike, after the meal, secured a paper and read the account. The robbery was indeed a very startling one. An old miser had lived in a tumble-down house for twenty-odd years. No one knew that he possessed one cent; indeed, his neighbors were not aware that he was the owner of the old tumble-down house in which he resided. He was seldom seen on the streets, then only at night. He never begged alms, lived in the most frugal manner, as was supposed, as no one could tell where he did procure his food. He occupied the little old house alone, and, as stated, had gone on for years, never attracting any attention until one morning through the police the startling announcement was made that the old man was really a possible millionaire. Thieves had broken into his old house, chloroformed him and ransacked his apartments, and according to the old man's statement had carried off gold, bills, silver bonds, and securities to an amount which under all the circumstances appeared incredible. Indeed, as it appeared, the police had been in possession of the facts of the robbery for several days, but they had doubted the old man's story, doubted that he had ever possessed any property at all, but later revelations established the truthfulness of the old man's statement beyond all question. As it also appeared, the old man had gone to South America when a very young man. He had returned to New York twenty years previous to the time of the robbery, and had then purchased the old house where, for reasons of his own, he had lived seemingly the life of a miser. The papers spoke of him in contemptuous tones as an old miser, and said by intimation that it served him right to be robbed. It was a just retribution visited upon a man who for the pure love of possession had denied himself the comforts of life just to accumulate his hoards, which were useless to him and the thousands of needy people whom he might have aided. The robbery had been a very mysterious one. No one had been seen by any one lurking in the vicinity of the house, but some time between midnight and morning three men, as the old miser declared, had entered his house, had chloroformed him and then had deliberately gone all through his apartments and had taken everything of value they could lay their hands on. After the robbery, as it appeared, the old man had refused to take any one into his house as a guard. He did not relish the visits of the police, but declared that everything portable of any value had been taken. He had been very methodical and had the numbers of most of his bonds, and the usual notifications were sent to dealers; but it was well known that quite a number of the securities were unregistered and negotiable. Indeed, as it proved later, the old man was mistaken; the bulk of them were negotiable. Besides the securities, jewels of great value and hoards of gold and silver were taken.
Ike and Jack read over the account and later met their friend, Detective Du Flore, who knew all about the case, and he said:
"I was coming to see you. I wonder if we can get in on this job with any hope of success?"
"I don't know about the hope of success," said Ike, "but we can get in on the job."
"I will tell you something privately: there is an immense reward offered. It will be the job of our lives if we can run down those plunderers."
"We can try."