affair that cost your father his life is one of those things.”
Smitty was bursting with curiosity. Looking, with his ingenuous moon-face and china-blue eyes, like a slow-witted huge child, he stood literally on one foot and then the other.
“Did you find out anything, chief? Did your one-man raid on that gang do any good?”
Nellie had recovered her spirited composure. Her gray eyes rested distastefully on the giant.
“He got me out of there before I could get my silly self killed. That’s doing some good, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” said Smitty, with a twinkle in his deceptively dumb-looking blue eyes not matching the carelessness of his voice. “Seems to me when a person asks for a sock, she ought to be left to take it—and like it.”
“The trip out there resulted in very little, Smitty,” Benson said. “Just one thing, which Miss Gray overheard. The crowd is planning to blow up another building. This time by design, and not by accident.”
Smitty’s eyes lost their levity at once.
“Another—” His huge hands clenched. “Then there’ll be more deaths! More people blown to pieces as there were in Washington Square!”
“I’m afraid so,” said Benson somberly. “The worst of it is that no hint was dropped as to just what building figured in their plans. So it is impossible to move to forestall them. You can’t put a precautionary guard around every building in New York City!”
CHAPTER XII
Metal Peanuts
Upper Broadway, near Riverside Drive, is usually crowded at six in the evening. This particular section, this evening, was not.
There was a bank on the corner, several haberdashery and clothing stores that were open but without customers at the dinner hour, and then some apartment buildings. Only a handful of passers-by were on the sidewalk.
The handful was swelled by two men, who got out of a car down the block a hundred yards and walked to the bank. One of the men was about fifty, heavy-set, with a rather pale face. He had on a derby and a dark-blue business suit.
The other man had jet-black eyes, black hair that grew down in a widow’s peak on his forehead, and wore dark clothes.
They walked side by side, quite close together. The black-eyed man said something to the older man and smiled jovially. The older man smiled back with his lips, but his eyes seemed worried. More than worried, indeed.
The bank was small. It was a branch of a downtown bank. It occupied the ground floor of hall the building it was in. The floors above the bank were turned over to sales agencies and doctors’ offices. All the building above the bank was dark, except the windows just above, on the second floor. Here, where a sign proclaimed that Dr. Phelps, a dentist, worked, were lights.
The older man tapped at the door of the bank branch, which was of glass with ponderous bronze bars over it. The black-eyed man stood a little behind him, hands carelessly in his coat pockets.
Inside the bank, a figure suddenly appeared. The watchman. He stared out. In the older man tapping at the door, the watchman recognized the branch manager. He looked puzzled, and his eyes went swiftly over the man behind the manager.
Later there was indignant wonder that the watchman should have opened the door at all, even for the manager of the branch. And yet it was natural enough.
The man with the manager carried no bundle of any sort. And if his presence with the manager hadn’t been on the level, he would have had to carry something; all the valuables were shut in the massive vault of the bank, at this hour. And the vault couldn’t be opened, because it was worked by a time clock. Therefore, anyone entering the bank with robbery in mind would have had to have blasting material with him. Just a gun, which could be concealed, would do no good.
The man with the manager had nothing remotely large enough on him to tackle that vault door.
Probably the watchman reasoned thus. Anyhow, with his boss motioning for him to open up, he
Smitty was bursting with curiosity. Looking, with his ingenuous moon-face and china-blue eyes, like a slow-witted huge child, he stood literally on one foot and then the other.
“Did you find out anything, chief? Did your one-man raid on that gang do any good?”
Nellie had recovered her spirited composure. Her gray eyes rested distastefully on the giant.
“He got me out of there before I could get my silly self killed. That’s doing some good, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” said Smitty, with a twinkle in his deceptively dumb-looking blue eyes not matching the carelessness of his voice. “Seems to me when a person asks for a sock, she ought to be left to take it—and like it.”
“The trip out there resulted in very little, Smitty,” Benson said. “Just one thing, which Miss Gray overheard. The crowd is planning to blow up another building. This time by design, and not by accident.”
Smitty’s eyes lost their levity at once.
“Another—” His huge hands clenched. “Then there’ll be more deaths! More people blown to pieces as there were in Washington Square!”
“I’m afraid so,” said Benson somberly. “The worst of it is that no hint was dropped as to just what building figured in their plans. So it is impossible to move to forestall them. You can’t put a precautionary guard around every building in New York City!”
CHAPTER XII
Metal Peanuts
Upper Broadway, near Riverside Drive, is usually crowded at six in the evening. This particular section, this evening, was not.
There was a bank on the corner, several haberdashery and clothing stores that were open but without customers at the dinner hour, and then some apartment buildings. Only a handful of passers-by were on the sidewalk.
The handful was swelled by two men, who got out of a car down the block a hundred yards and walked to the bank. One of the men was about fifty, heavy-set, with a rather pale face. He had on a derby and a dark-blue business suit.
The other man had jet-black eyes, black hair that grew down in a widow’s peak on his forehead, and wore dark clothes.
They walked side by side, quite close together. The black-eyed man said something to the older man and smiled jovially. The older man smiled back with his lips, but his eyes seemed worried. More than worried, indeed.
The bank was small. It was a branch of a downtown bank. It occupied the ground floor of hall the building it was in. The floors above the bank were turned over to sales agencies and doctors’ offices. All the building above the bank was dark, except the windows just above, on the second floor. Here, where a sign proclaimed that Dr. Phelps, a dentist, worked, were lights.
The older man tapped at the door of the bank branch, which was of glass with ponderous bronze bars over it. The black-eyed man stood a little behind him, hands carelessly in his coat pockets.
Inside the bank, a figure suddenly appeared. The watchman. He stared out. In the older man tapping at the door, the watchman recognized the branch manager. He looked puzzled, and his eyes went swiftly over the man behind the manager.
Later there was indignant wonder that the watchman should have opened the door at all, even for the manager of the branch. And yet it was natural enough.
The man with the manager carried no bundle of any sort. And if his presence with the manager hadn’t been on the level, he would have had to carry something; all the valuables were shut in the massive vault of the bank, at this hour. And the vault couldn’t be opened, because it was worked by a time clock. Therefore, anyone entering the bank with robbery in mind would have had to have blasting material with him. Just a gun, which could be concealed, would do no good.
The man with the manager had nothing remotely large enough on him to tackle that vault door.
Probably the watchman reasoned thus. Anyhow, with his boss motioning for him to open up, he
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