"That being the case, Chief, why take any chances right now? The case hasn't gotten into the papers, so why not release Thurene?"
"And keep him under constant surveillance? That wouldn't be a bad idea. The moment he started to leave the country we could nab him, and meanwhile we would have plenty of time to look into the matter. Of course, there's always the danger of suicide—but that's proof of guilt, and it would save the Service a lot of work in the long run. Good idea! We'll do it."
So it was that Robert J. Thurene of New Haven was released from custody with the apologies of the Secret Service—who retained the counterfeit money, but returned the real bills—while Spencer Graham went to work on the Baltimore end of the case, four operatives took up the job of trailing the stationer, and Rita Clarke found that she had important business to transact in Connecticut.
Anyone who didn't know Rita would never have suspected that, back of her brown eyes lay a fund of information upon a score of subjects—including stenography, the best methods of filing, cost accounting, and many other points which rendered her invaluable around an office. Even if they found this out, there was something else which she kept strictly to herself—the fact that she was engaged to a certain operative in the United States Secret Service, sometimes known as Number Thirty-three, and sometimes as Spencer Graham.
In reply to Spencer's often-repeated requests that she set a day for their wedding, Miss Clarke would answer: "And lose the chance to figure in any more cases? Not so that you could notice it! As long as I'm single you find that you can use me every now and then, but if I were married I'd have too many domestic cares. No, Spencer, let's wait until we get one more big case, and then—well, we'll say one month from the day it's finished."
Which was the reason that Graham and his fiancée had a double reason for wanting to bring Thurene to earth.
The first place that Graham went to in Baltimore was the Pennsylvania station, where he made a number of extended inquiries of certain employees there. After that he went to the newspaper office, where he conferred with the clerk whose business it was to receive the lost and found advertisements, finally securing a copy of the original notice in Thurene's handwriting. Also some other information which he jotted down in a notebook reserved for that purpose.
Several days spent in Baltimore failed to turn up any additional leads and Graham returned to Washington with a request for a list of the various places where counterfeit fifty-dollar bills had been reported during the past month. The record sounded like the megaphonic call of a train leaving Grand Central Station—New York, Yonkers, Poughkeepsie, Syracuse, Troy, and points north, with a few other cities thrown in for good measure. So Spencer informed the chief that he would make his headquarters in New York for the next ten days or so, wired Rita to the same effect, and left Washington on the midnight train.
In New York he discovered only what he had already known, plus one other very significant bit of evidence—something which would have warranted him in placing Thurene again under arrest had he not been waiting for word from Rita. He knew that it would take her at least a month to work up her end of the case, so Graham put in the intervening time in weaving his net a little stronger, for he had determined that the next time the New Haven stationer was taken into custody would be the last—that the government would have a case which all the lawyers on earth couldn't break.
Early in December he received a wire from Rita—a telegram which contained the single word, "Come"—but that was enough. He was in New Haven that night, and, in a quiet corner of the Taft grille the girl gave him an account of what she had found.