Larry came to a sudden stop, as a new idea came to him.
“Maybe Mr. Wilson wasn’t in the bank just now, after all!” the young reporter said, half aloud. “Come to think of it, he wouldn’t be very likely to be there so late. And, if he was, he’d come in to see the president by the private door, opening from the corridor, and not through the clerk’s cage. By Jove! I believe Witherby made that yarn up. He wanted an excuse to come into the president’s office, to see what I was up to, and he took that one. There’s something wrong about Witherby, I’m sure.
“But I’ve got to keep quiet about it. I’ll just work up that clew. Still, come to think of it, he and Mr. Wilson are a bit friendly. I’ve often seen them talking together.
“Pshaw! I guess I’d better try one thing at a time. I’ll see what the bricks can do for me,” and, with this idea, Larry hurried to get home as soon as possible, and map out a plan of campaign.
“Well, Larry,” exclaimed his mother, when he came in and put the bricks on the table, “are you going into the building business?”
“Oh, he’s going to play blocks with me; aren’t you, Larry?” asked little Mary eagerly.
“Of course!” laughed Larry, catching her up in his arms and kissing her. “You can build a little house by yourself, Mary, while I look over these papers, and then I’ll build a house for you.”
The bricks, which had been found in the substituted valise, were not the ordinary kind. They were somewhat smaller, and of the variety known as pressed-glazed. They were used in the better class of houses, to make a neat appearance around the kitchen range or in bathrooms, and on the side walls of restaurants. There were quite a number of them, for they were smaller than the ordinary red brick.
Mary began building a “house” with them, when Larry had put them on the floor for her, and the young reporter carefully looked at the newspapers in which the specimens of building material had been wrapped.
If he had hoped for a clew from the prints he was disappointed, for there were several sheets of a New York paper, with nothing on them to distinguish them from thousands of other sheets of the same date.