“I know. Then I thought maybe I could find out the main, regular customers. Crazy idea, that one. You can’t just walk into a firm and say, ‘Who do you do business with?’ and be handed a list.”
“Harry’d tell you that too.”
“Sure. And wonder why the deuce I asked. He’s probably wondered already why the G-men were interested enough in his locked closet to ask him to open it and why that box intrigued them enough to make him open that. In fact, if what we think is going on is real, and if by any chance Harry knows what it is, which I doubt, then Harry is plenty worried by what has already happened. Worried enough, anyhow, so he’d never again have anything in that box in his closet except his precious platinum. I wonder how much it’s worth?”
“Probably two or three thousand dollars,” she said. “Awful funny way to keep your life savings.”
He nodded. “Certainly is! Hard to melt. Hard to make that ingot of it. Be like Harry, in a way, though.”
Eleanor licked her finger and absently tested her iron. “If you really want to know where that company hauls its stuff, I could find out.”
“You could? How?”
She resumed ironing, spreading out one of Charles’ shirts on the board. “Well, I naturally know quite a lot of girls who work downtown — secretaries, file clerks like me, and so on. And the stuff they ship—”
“Cargo.”
“The cargo is no doubt insured. It would be easy to learn what company insures it.