Tom found Mr. Conne poring over a scrapbook filled with cards containing finger-prints. His unlighted cigar was cocked up in the corner of his mouth like a flag-pole from a window, just the same as when Tom had seen him last. It almost seemed as if it must be the very same cigar. He greeted Tom cordially.
“So they didn’t manage to sink my old chum, Sherlock Nobody Holmes, eh? Tommy, my boy, how are you?”
“Did the spy get rescued?” Tom asked, as the long hand-shake ended.
“Nope. Went down. But we nabbed a couple of his accomplices through his papers.”
“I got a new mystery,” said Tom in his customary blunt manner. “I was going to give these papers to my boss, but when I got your letter I decided I’d give ’em to you.”
He told the detective all about Adolf Schmitt and of how he had discovered the papers in the chimney.
“You say the place had already been searched?” Mr. Conne asked.
“Yes, but I s’pose maybe they were in a hurry and had other things to think about, maybe. A man came there again just the other day, too, and said he wanted to read the gas-meter. But he looked all ’round the cellar.”
“Hmm,” Mr. Conne said dryly. “Tom, if you don’t look out you’ll make a detective one of these days. I see you’ve got the same old wide-awake pair of eyes as ever.”
“I learned about deducing when I was in the scouts,” said Tom. “They always made fun of me for it—the fellers did. Once I deduced an aeroplane landed in a big field because the grass was kind of dragged, but afterwards I found the fellers had made tracks there with an old baby carriage just to fool me. Sometimes one thing kind of tells you another, sort of.”