Convincing the Police

The boys headed for police headquarters. They undertook their task with trepidation, wondering how they would be received, feeling that possibly it was an unwise course to take, that perhaps if they tried they might capture the gangsters themselves without having to be ridiculed by unbelieving police. And coming to think of it, all the evidence at their command was flimsy, in many cases unreasonable and illogical. Besides, they were youngsters, and if they narrated all the events, they would be considered mentally distorted. The fact that they were perfectly normal and were sincere and truthful was beside the point. It was whether they would be able to convince that would tell the tale.

They were very silent as they walked down Main Street toward police headquarters. Each one was thinking his own thoughts about the past week. Jack asked himself what the best approach might be. Paul tried hard to think how to narrate the story so that it would sound convincing, and in his mind he went over the words and phrases that he thought would be most suitable to use. Ken was thinking that with the police entering the case it would be soon ended and their mystery solved. But would it be?

Suppose the gang of counterfeiters were caught, what then? The boys had started out to solve the mystery of the white card—who was responsible for leading Betty away to the end of the town? Who was responsible for the fires? Who was responsible for the robbery at Professor Link’s? And these three things were linked together by virtue of the white card. The boys felt so convinced of the white card as a clue, that if it were found to be not so, they would be badly disappointed.

Jack muttered skeptically, “I hope we don’t get thrown out before we get a chance to see Chief Bates.”

Ken assured his friend, “Oh, you’ll see him all right. The important thing is, can you convince him?”

Paul laughed and joked, “Whether we convince him or not, wouldn’t it be a fine predicament if to crown all our effort and glory, Chief Bates throws us into jail.”

“What for?” demanded Ken.

“For any number of reasons,” answered Paul. “He might put us away to cool us off. Or he might jail us for doing detective work without a license.”

“You don’t need a license to be an amateur detective,” argued Ken.

“Amateur is a perfect word for it,” ironically commented Jack. “He will think we are a bunch of amateurs running wild.”

“Well, let’s not anticipate his reception of us. The chief might give us a bunch of onions for a prize and that would be something,” remarked Paul.

“I’m hungry,” exclaimed Ken. “Let’s go in for an ice cream soda.”

“That’s the perfect idea,” agreed Paul. “And I hope it will put us into the right spirit.”

“Most likely it will cool us off,” remarked Jack. “But I’ll also have a soda.”

They entered a drugstore and ordered three ice cream sodas. As Jack said, it cooled them off, but it also picked them up in spirits. They emerged smiling, cheerful, confident. The police headquarters was a short distance away and they were soon in front of the building. They hesitated before entering. Each one of them felt his heart sink low and his pulse begin to throb. Paul shrugged his shoulders and commented, “Well, as the saying goes, faint heart never won fair maiden. Let’s go in.”

They entered the hall. At one side was a desk with a sergeant behind it. “Yes, boys,” he called to them, “What do you want?”

Ken said, “I want to see Chief Bates; my name is Ken, Ken Armstrong.”

The policeman smiled patiently. “The chief is very busy, you know, and unless you have important business with him, you can’t see him.”

Jack piped up, “Oh, it’s very important.”

Paul pulled his friend away. Ken said confidently, “Oh, he will see me all right. You see, he knows me. Just say that Ken Armstrong wants to see him.”

“And what shall I say is your business with him?” inquired the sergeant, amused at the boy’s self confidence.

“It’s personal. Just say I would like to see him.”

The policeman nodded and very lazily picked up his telephone. “Hello, hello,” he called into the speaker, “give me the chief’s office.” He waited for several seconds, in the meanwhile looking the boys up and down. Again he spoke into the mouthpiece, saying, “There’s a boy here by the name of Ken Armstrong who wants to see the chief. Says that the chief knows him and will surely—most surely—see him.” The policeman scowled as he said that. Again he waited for an answer. Several seconds later, he answered, “All right.”

He hung up the receiver and turned to Ken. “I guess he knows you all right.” Ken was overjoyed while his two friends were glad and cheerful. “Go down to the end of the corridor,” directed the sergeant, “and then turn left. On the door that says Police Chief, go in there and his secretary will take care of you.”

“Thank you,” said Ken.

The three boys walked down the corridor and turned left. They entered the office of the Chief of Police and his secretary, a very attractive young woman, greeted them. “Which of you is Ken?” she asked.

Ken spoke up. “I am.”

“Very well. Have a seat and Mr. Bates will see you in a few minutes. He is busy just now.”

The boys sat down and the secretary returned to her desk and typewriter. To the boys it seemed that she typed faster than the eye could follow. They looked around the room and noticed the various pictures and other office furniture. Every moment was to them an hour. Jack was sure that the chief would take one look at them and then throw them out of his office. Paul wondered how it happened Ken was acquainted with Chief Bates and made a mental note to ask his friend about it.

A buzzer sounded in the room and the boys jumped up. The secretary nodded and said, “You can go in now, Ken.”

Ken proceeded toward the door, followed by his friends. The secretary stopped them. “I thought only Ken was going in?”

“Oh, no,” he replied. “These are friends of mine and they are coming in with me.”

The young woman shrugged her shoulders. “Very well,” she said, “go right in.”

Ken knocked on the door and someone called loudly, “Come in.”

They entered. Behind a large desk toward the rear of the room sat Chief Bates. He was a man of about forty-five, well-set, husky and strong. He called out, “Hello Ken. I’m glad to see you.”

“Hello, Chief,” Ken answered, “these are friends of mine. I hope you don’t mind—”

“No, not at all. Pull up chairs, boys.” He leaned back in his swivel chair. When they were seated, he said, “Well what is it, Ken. But I warn you, I don’t have much time, so you better talk quickly.”

Ken said, “We are here to ask you a favor, Chief.”

“Anything within reason, Ken,” shot back the chief, “and I’ll do it.”

“The favor is,” continued Ken, “that you listen to something very, very important.”

“Very, very important,” added Jack.

Ken turned to Paul and said, “You tell him, Paul.”

Paul drew up his chair and leaned on the desk. He began, “You see, Chief, what we are going to tell you may sound very fantastic but I want you to believe that we are telling the truth and that we are not inventing anything.”

“Go on, go on,” urged the chief, nonchalantly leaning back in his chair.

“Well, to begin with,” continued Paul, “we have discovered a gang of counterfeiters—”

The chief almost jumped out of his seat. He flew forward to the desk and cried, “You have what? What are you talking about? Are you telling me stories or something?”

Paul felt his confidence shaking. He realized that the chief was a terror and would be hard to convince, but, he said to himself, he had to be convinced. “You see,” he said, “already you think we are telling you some fictionized story or trying to shock you. Please listen, it’s very important, and if you want to catch the gang, you have to act quickly.”

“Go on, go on,” said the chief, leaning on his desk.

“At 752 York Street, there is an empty house. In the cellar of that house you will find a printing press and all the things necessary to make counterfeit money.”

“How do you know all that?” demanded the chief.

“We were in there; we saw everything.”

“And how did you happen to be in there?”

The chief shot his questions like arrows and Paul began to waver; he was becoming confused. “That’s a long story, Chief,” he said, “and I am trying to come to the point directly.”

“Never mind, tell me the whole story.”

“But Chief Bates, that would take too long and it is important that you act quickly. The point of the story is that there are a gang of counterfeiters operating in the cellar of the empty house at 752 York Street. There is also a tunnel leading from that cellar to the cellar of the house in the rear of 752 York Street. That’s how they get in and out without being noticed.”

“But, my dear boy,” exclaimed the chief, irritated, “how do you know all that? Do you have any evidence? How am I to believe that what you are telling me is not a hoax of some sort?”

Jack jumped to his feet, impatient and exasperated. “Why don’t you go down there and find out?” he cried.

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. Paul began to say something, but the next instant Jack jumped up and cried, “Here, here is your evidence. Look at this. When we were down there, there were a number of such bills on the table and I put this one into my pocket.”

The chief picked up the fake five dollar bill that Jack had thrown on the desk and examined it carefully. He rose and walked to the door and called to his secretary. “Tell Jim Spencer I want to see him right away.”

He returned to his swivel chair and said to the boys, “Now fellows, I am not doubting your story; on the contrary, I think that you may be telling the truth. But you understand that I have to question you closely.” He paused and the boys looked relieved; they even smiled happily. “In the meanwhile, I do wish you would tell me the whole story, from beginning to end, how you happened to discover this gang and all that.”

Paul looked at his friends and they nodded to him. Jack said, “Go on, Paul, tell him. But it will take a long time, though, Chief.”

The Chief of Police nodded. “That’s all right. I’m a good listener.”

Just then a tall, husky man entered the office and said, “You called for me, Chief?”

“Yes. Take a look at this.” And the chief gave Jim Spencer the counterfeit bill.

The detective quickly and expertly glanced at the bill and announced, “It’s fake, all right, Chief. Very clever work, though. Most likely the work of Moonshine Charlie.”

“You know what these boys are telling me, Jim?” asked the Chief. The detective shook his head and Bates continued, “They say that they have located the gang, have been down in their hangout and all they want now, I guess, is for us to step in and clean the gang up, isn’t that so, fellows?”

“That’s right,” cried Jack. “And you had better hurry, too.”

“Very interesting,” commented Jim Spencer. “How did they happen to discover it all?”

“That’s just what I’m trying to get out of them,” answered the chief, “but it’s like pulling teeth. Sit down and listen to the story.” To Paul, he said, “All right, go on with your story.”

“Well,” began the boy, “how it all began may sound a little fantastic. But you remember, Chief, that a week ago today, Ken’s little sister, Betty, disappeared for about an hour. Jack happened to be on Leonard Street at the moment and he saw her. He couldn’t understand what she was doing there, but after questioning her for some time, she told him that a tall man bought her candy and then took her for a walk and then he left her all alone at almost the end of the town.”

“And so you three became detectives and undertook to find the man, isn’t that so?” commented the chief, smiling.

“Yes, but wait a minute. This man had given Betty a blank, white card.”

“Here it is,” cried Jack, and threw the card on the desk.

The chief and the detective glanced at it casually. “Go on,” said the chief.

“Several days later,” continued Paul, “there was a fire on Water Street and—”

“Yes. I remember that,” said the chief. “And you very bravely ran into the burning house and saved an old couple and an infant. That was a very brave deed, my boy.”

“The important thing,” said Paul, “is that in the door of the room where the infant was, I found another card like that.” He searched in his pocket and produced the evidence. The chief and the detective examined the two cards. “And to make a long story short,” continued Paul, “there was a robbery at Professor Link’s and—”

“And you found another such card,” said the chief, interrupting.

“Yes.”

“But that is no evidence; it means nothing,” said the chief. “You can find cards like these everywhere you go, by the dozen.”

“Well, that may be so,” said Paul. “But to us it was evidence, and we figured that the same man committed all the three crimes. And we decided to track him down.”

“Why didn’t you come to us and tell us?” demanded Chief Bates.

Paul was perspiring. He was very tense and he felt that he was being hindered rather than helped. “Well, I don’t know,” he remarked, “I guess we didn’t think of it.”

“Didn’t think of it!” exclaimed the chief.

Jack saw how his friend was suffering and he jumped to his feet and cried, “What difference does all that make? The important thing is that we discovered the gang of counterfeiters and if you don’t act quickly they will escape.”

“I’m sorry for interrupting,” said the chief, somewhat embarrassed. “Go on with your story.”

“Well, we came across this man. To us he is known as Mr. Grey. And—”

“And how did you come across him and how did you know it was he?”

“There are a lot of little details that I’m leaving out to make the story short. At any rate, Jack followed him one night to the empty house at 752 York Street. We searched the house several times until we found the secret door to the cellar. And that’s the end of the story.”

“Well, there are some other things too, but we can tell you that later.”

The chief and the detective eyed each other. Detective Spencer asked, “Do you happen by any chance to know any of the members of this counterfeit gang?”

Paul nodded. “Yes,” he answered. “The fellow they call the boss and who seems to be the chief is a big, fat, dark featured individual. The—”

Chief Bates and the detective exclaimed simultaneously, “Moonshine Charlie!”

“Two other men call themselves Pete and Joe. Another member of the gang is a man who runs a grocery store at Main and Jones Streets.”

“Don’t forget Mr. Grey,” added Jack.

Paul nodded and said, “That’s right, and Mr. Grey. That’s all we know.”

“That’s plenty,” cried Jim Spencer. “Where is their hangout?”

“At 752 York Street; in the cellar.”

Just then they were interrupted by the entrance of the secretary, who said, “A gentleman to see you, Mr. Bates. He—”

The man was directly behind her and he said, “Never mind telling who I am and what my business is. I’ll do it myself.”

Everybody looked at the speaker. The boys jumped to their feet as if they had been touched by an electric spark. Simultaneously, they all cried, “Mr. Grey!”