“So as to make the chance of him being seen with the bricks so much less. He picked up the bricks at some building at night, you say, and I believe it.”
“There’s hardly a doubt of that,” spoke Larry. “For he wouldn’t risk going up in an open manner and asking some mason for the bricks. Whoever he asked for them would have remembered it, when the story came out, and we’d have more evidence—which we now haven’t. So I believe he took the bricks at night, from some building, without asking any one.”
“Of course,” agreed the detective, “and he’d want to travel as short a distance afterward as possible. For, look you, Larry, a fellow with a load of bricks might meet a policeman, or a detective, who, naturally, would be suspicious. So I think the thief just slipped out of his house, went a short distance, picked up the bricks, and skipped back.”
“By Jove! I never thought of that!” exclaimed Larry. “You mean——”
“I mean that you ought to get a list, showing where every employee of the bank lives. Then take a walk around each of their houses, and see if there isn’t a new building going up near some of them, where these bricks are being used. Then you may have something to work on.”
“I will!” cried Larry, the light of a new hope shining in his eyes. “This is great, Bill! I guess I’ve got lots to learn, after all. I will take a walk around, and keep my eyes open.”
“There’s only one trouble,” suggested the detective, with a twinkle in his eyes; “you may find half a dozen new houses with these bricks scattered about them, and some bank employee may live near each one. Then you’ll have six fellows to be suspicious of.”
“That’s better than having a whole bankful,” replied the young reporter. “I’m off now.”
His first care was to get from Mr. Bentfield a list of the residences of all the bank employees. Nor would he say why he wanted it. Then Larry began a sort of walking tour, intending to cover a good part of New York. He would first locate the house of some employee, and then circle about it to find a building in course of erection—a building where the bricks were used that had played such a part in the robbery. “Million-dollar bricks,” Larry called them, and it is as good a term as any other to employ in describing them.
“Well, this may make a good story, even if I don’t get any real clew out of it,” mused Larry, as he began his walk.