“What would happen if any one met me, and saw what I had in this package,” mused Larry, as he walked up Wall street with the bricks in their newspaper wrappings under his arms. “If some of the police, or detectives, who are working on this bank mystery, happened to see me come out of the Consolidated building with this package they’d surely think I was a new kind of a confidence man, or a gold-brick swindler.
“Or they might take me for an up-to-date hod-carrier,” he added, with a smile. “Well, being a reporter makes you do all sorts of queer jobs, but I like it. I only hope I can solve this mystery, and get the thief. And suppose I recovered the money? A million dollars!”
The idea was so tremendous that Larry lost himself for a moment in thinking of it, as he neared the busy throngs on Broadway. Then another thought flashed into his mind.
“Twenty thousand dollars reward,” he said softly. “If I should get that, or even half of it, I could afford to get out of the newspaper game. And yet I don’t know as I would. There is too much excitement in it. I like it. And I might get at least ten thousand dollars, if I found the thief. I might have to divide with some one who helped me arrest him, for I could hardly take him into custody alone.
“Oh, but what’s the use of thinking about it until I’ve got more of a clew than I have at present?” he asked himself. “Well, maybe the bricks will help me, but it’s a pretty slim chance.”
Larry, however, was used to taking slim chances, as indeed most reporters are, and so he was not going to get discouraged before he had even started on the new trail. There were many things to think of, and he began on some new lines.
“I wonder why that fellow Witherby comes across my path so often?” mused Larry. “I don’t like him. Not because he acted so toward Miss Mason, in the subway, but because there is something suspicious about him. He always acts as though he was afraid of me.
“Maybe that’s because I hauled him off the platform. But he’s bigger than I am, and he ought to be able to trim me in a fight. Though I wouldn’t be afraid of him. I can’t understand it.”
Larry shook his head over the problems he was called on to solve, but still he liked the hard work.
“And, come to think of it, there’s something else,” went on Larry, who had a habit of thinking things out in detail; a habit formed by his experience as a reporter. “Witherby and Director Wilson seem to be quite friendly. Mr. Wilson sends Witherby in to see if President Bentfield is in his office, or——”