Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/288

 graft story, and I left, not unwillingly. My special work just now was keeping on the trail of Kennedy, and I was glad to go back to the apartment and wait for him.

"I suppose you saw that despatch from Washington in this afternoon's papers?" he queried, as he came in, tossing a late edition of the Record down on my desk.

Across the front page extended a huge black scare-head: "NAVY'S MOST VITAL SECRET STOLEN."

"Yes," I shrugged, "but you can't get me much excited by what the rewrite men on the Record say."

"Why?" he asked, going directly into his own room.

"Well," I replied, glancing through the text of the story, "the actual facts are practically the same as in the other papers. Take this, for instance, 'On the night of the celebration of the anniversary of the battle of Manila there were stolen from the Navy Department plans which the Record learns exclusively represent the greatest naval secret in the world.' So much for that paragraph—written in the office. Then it goes on:

"The whole secret-service machinery of the Government has been put in operation. No one has been able to extract from the authorities the exact secret which was stolen, but it is believed to be an invention which will revolutionise the structure and construction of the most modern monster battleships. Such knowledge, it is said, in the hands of experts might prove fatal in almost any fight in which our newer ships met others of about equal fighting power, as with it marksmen might direct a shot that would disable our ships.

"It is the opinion of the experts that the theft was executed by a skilled draughtsman or other civilian employé. At any rate,