“That,” Tom explained, “is an impression taken from the bottom of a sleeping car window. When the Red Rover was kidnaped the window was jimmied. The end of the bar made a deep impression in the wood. It was an old bar with several nicks in it. If I ever come upon it I could identify it by this impression.”
“This,” said Johnny, “is getting too deep for me. Invisible footprints on sheets. Shavings from some whittler’s knife. Impressions in wood. These are to bring a man to justice. Pipe dreaming, I call it.
“By the way!” he exclaimed. “I have a jimmy bar all my own. Saved it from a watery grave.”
Stepping to the corner he produced a paper-wrapped package and then revealed the bar he had taken from the speed boat of Angelo Piccalo, Junior.
“Let’s have a look!” Tom Howe’s eyes fairly bulged.
“Say, boy!” he cried ten seconds later. “That’s the bar! Where’d you get it?”
“Why, what do you mean? The bar?”
“I mean it’s the bar that pried that car window open. See! The impression fits exactly. I say! Where’d you get it?”
“Nothing to get excited about,” Johnny grumbled. “Some one stuck it in the back of Angelo’s speed boat. Young Angelo, you know, son of the flower shop man.”
“Back of the boy’s speed boat. Humph!” Slouching down in his chair, Tom fell into a brown study.