Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/17

 "He's an old timer," the detectives decided. "He knew about that customer, and he took in the cash—more than five thou'! Now how did he know about the customer? Easy enough! He rapped Goles over the head, carried away his stock and itinerary, and he knew it was safe to go to Warsaw"

The case was pigeonholed until they could trace out some of the men who were abroad who might pull such a job as that. But the matter remained pigeonholed only a week.

From Warsaw arrived Judge C. Wrest, the purchaser of diamonds, limping and whimpering:

"They stole my diamonds!" he wailed to Manager Grost. "A fellow came in and pulled a gun on me; he tied me to a chair, and he moved me up to the fire-place, and—and he put my feet against the coals. I couldn't stand it! I like to died—and I was muzzled so's I couldn't holler. I had to give 'em to 'im—most a hundred thousand I paid for 'em. But—but he didn't get 'em all!"

"You told the officers?" Wrest was asked, for he had seen no mention of the theft in the newspapers. "Not a word!" the old man shook his head. "I don't know what to make of it!"

"What kind of looking men held you up?"

"Only one, suh—just an ornery looking fellow, kinda middling, you might say, and just a purring kind of