“Not much of one. In the first place, I’m going out to Norton’s house, and see what I can learn. I want to get there before the other reporters over-run the place.”
Harry Norton lived in a modest, though well-built, house on Staten Island. He was a bachelor, and an aged sister kept house for him. As Larry was on his way to the home of the missing clerk, he went over the details of the robbery. He realized that Norton, as well as Witherby, had been in a position to take the valise filled with money, and substitute another filled with bricks for it. Though just how the exchange was made was not yet clear to him.
The first thing Larry noticed, on reaching the house, was a little pile of bricks in a side yard. He knew them at once as the same kind that had been in the valise. They were some left, of a quantity that had been used to repair a fireplace in the clerk’s home, he learned later.
“So here is where Norton got them,” he reasoned. “He could pick them up at his leisure, and no one would be any the wiser. He could bring them to the bank in a valise any time. So far so good!”
Larry found the aged sister in tears, for already she had heard of her brother’s disgrace. At first she would have nothing to say to the young reporter, but he finally prevailed on her to talk.
She could say little of consequence, however, and Larry was sure she knew nothing of her brother’s whereabouts.
On his way out of the house the young reporter saw something lying on a hall table. He picked it up, shoved it quickly into his pocket, and hurried away.
“I rather think, unless I get fooled again, that this will help me find the man with the million,” mused Larry.
As he passed down a side street he saw Peter Manton, his rival, going up to the house.
“Too late again!” said Larry to himself, with a smile.