“He evidently came back to New York, by all accounts.”
“Yes, and I’m going to have my own troubles to trace him from there. New York is so big.”
“I’m afraid I’ve given you too hard an assignment, Larry.”
“No, Mr. Emberg. I’ll get to the bottom of this mystery yet. You just wait.”
But several days went by, and Larry had to admit that he was baffled at every turn. The Russellville clews availed him nothing.
One afternoon he came in from reporting a big fire, to find a telegram awaiting him. Eagerly he tore it open.
“Anything of importance, Larry?” asked the city editor, who was passing through the room at that moment.
“I don’t know,” answered the reporter, “and yet it might be. It’s a wire from Bert Bailey, the old fisherman on the Jersey coast, who figured in the finding of Mr. Potter, the missing millionaire, you remember.”
“What does he say?”
“Why, he tells me he has a story for me. I asked him to let me know whenever anything unusual occurred down there, and he wires me this: