The operative said, "I do not know. He will explain that when he sees you."
Erfert replied, "I am in a hurry and haven't time. I'm late anyway, and will call and see him tomorrow."
The operative said, "You can either go with me right now and see Mr. Furlong, or I will call the policeman (pointing to a policeman who happened to be standing diagonally across the street from where they were) and have him take you to police headquarters, and probably Mr. Furlong will go there and see you. Now it is up to you. If I take you to police headquarters your name and picture will appear in the papers in the morning and you will probably get a lot of undesirable notoriety."
"I don't want any notoriety," replied Erfert, "but I can't understand what Mr. Furlong wants to see me for tonight. However, I will go with you, but I will put these packages in the store."
The operative said, "No, take these packages with you. What is in them?"
Erfert replied, "I have two fine clocks that were sent over to my store by mistake and are too expensive to sell at auction, and I intend to take them back to the main store, where they belong."
"Well," said the operative, "you take them up to Mr. Furlong's office, and after you have seen him he will probably allow you to take them to the main store."
The operative brought Erfert to my office, packages and all. I had known Erfert since his boyhood, and on his entering the office I took him into my private office.
Here I will say that on the second day I had put another operative to work on this case, unknown to the first operative, who had been shadowing the first operative and had witnessed everything that had occurred, and had reached the office a few minutes ahead of the first operative and Erfert, so that I was fully aware of all that had occurred.