"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Just this," the reporter replied. "The theft of this rocket proves conclusively that the superior intellect, the master mind, is back on the job. Something has forced him out of hiding—out of the unknown into which he passed about three months ago. He's getting scared. He realizes that the finger of suspicion, sooner or later, will be pointed at him, and he's trying to destroy all evidence of his guilt."
"That is, of course, a possibility," I agreed. "But this theft of the rocket, now. Why, to me, it makes the whole thing seem more and more of a puzzle."
"It's the best thing that could have happened," McGinity observed. "It will prepare the public for the exposé, which is bound to come now, and put your brother in right. Public sentiment is always with the man who has been duped."
"Does this mean that we will not go on with our investigations?" I inquired.
McGinity shook his head. "My instructions from the Desk," he answered, "which I just received on the phone, are to continue with our private investigations. And my first job is to make contact as soon as possible with your brother Henry. And let me say, right here, that I think it highly important that we keep nothing back from him. We must give him a clear, succinct account of the whole matter as we know it up to this moment."
"Whew!" I exclaimed. "You don't know Henry. He would consider any move like that, on our part, as highly meddlesome, even offensive."
"But in enlisting his services in tracking down the stolen rocket—ten to one, it's been dumped in the East River, which is only a few blocks from the museum—we must acquaint him with all the particulars that have come to light. Tell what we know and suspect in the matter. He's got to know sometime—why not now?"
"Very well, then," I assented; adding, with an amused chuckle: "Looks like we've got a very busy afternoon ahead of us."
"Busy isn't the word," McGinity rejoined, as he began making some hasty notes on a bunch of copy-paper, which he always kept handy in his coat pocket. "However, this is only the beginning."