"What's that?" exclaimed the operative. "Trunks?"
"Yes. I remember sometime last spring, when we were figuring on how much summer goods we ought to carry, I mentioned the matter to Mr. Gerard, and almost automatically he replied, 'I'll wire for Edna and Grace.' Thinking he meant saleswomen, I reminded him that we had plenty, particularly for the slack season. He colored up a bit, caught his breath, and turned the subject by stating that he always referred to trunks of goods in terms of people's first names—girls for the feminine stuff and men's for the masculine. But Edna and Grace weren't on your list, were they?"
"No," replied Preston. "But that doesn't matter. Besides, didn't the two trunks of goods arrive?"
"Yes, they came in a couple of weeks later."
"Before Mrs. Vaughan came to town?"
"Oh yes, some time before she arrived."
"I thought so," was Preston's reply, and, thanking the girl, he wandered back to the hotel—convinced that he had solved at least one of the mysteries, the question of what Gerard did with his surplus "bankrupt stock." It was evidently packed in trunks and shipped to distant points, to be forwarded by the Vaughan woman upon instructions from Gerard himself. The wires he had torn up were merely confirmatory messages, sent so that he would have the necessary information before making a getaway.
"Clever scheme, all right," was Hal's mental comment. "Now the next point is to find some town in the Southwest where a new store has been opened within the past two months."
That night the telegraph office at Mount Clemens did more business than it had had for the past year. Wires, under the government frank, went out to every town on the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fé and to a number of adjacent cities. In each case the message was the same:
Wire name of any new clothing store opened within past two months. Also description of proprietor. Urgent.
Preston,
U. S. P. I. S.