Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/14

 Grost at Cincinnati, informed of the matter, immediately called up all the customers down the river on Goles' itinerary, and the one whom the salesman had last visited was at 10:45 o'clock, in Cincinnati, from whose shop the detective had followed him to the restaurant.

They did not even recall him in the restaurant. Obert Goles was so inconspicuous that even the waiter who brought him his commonplace lunch would not remember him, no matter how faithfully he was described in feet, inches, pounds, and complexion.

Unfortunately, Goles had no other customer to visit in Cincinnati when he entered the restaurant. He presumably was bound down to Warsaw, and it was noted that he had failed to tell whether he was going by railroad, taking the stage across from Glencoe, or by the river on the Packet, which would have been the obvious way.

Warsaw contained only one customer, Judge C. Wrest, of the Ofsten & Groner Company. He was a peculiar old man, with a large income from an unknown source. His strict orders to Ofsten & Groner were that no one should know that he purchased diamonds. He lived in a brick house on a knoll the fence of which was falling down, the yard grown to weeds, and some of the windows broken and patched with boards. Nevertheless, he purchased about five thousand dollars' worth of diamonds twice a year, for cash.