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Mystery of the Iron Box

<h2 id='chap06' class='c011'>CHAPTER VI</h2> <div class='nf-center-c0'> <div class='nf-center c013'> <div>UNEXPECTED CALLER</div> </div></div> Sandy shot Ken one startled glance. He picked the box up and hefted it in his hands, as if he might be a better judge of its weight than the scales could be. Then he put it slowly down again. “How could it not be the same box?” he demanded. “When could a substitution have been made?” “At Sam’s,” Ken said quietly. “You mean you think Sam would—?” “No, of course not,” Ken interrupted. “But whoever wanted the box—wanted the real one, I mean—found out that we had taken it there for repairs, and when we would come back for it.” “This imaginary character you’re talking about must have a crystal ball,” Sandy said scathingly. Ken shook his head. “Just a broken watch crystal.” Sandy stared at him unbelievingly, but Ken went on. “What could have been simpler than breaking a watch crystal, if somebody wanted an excuse to follow us into Sam’s store and find out how long the box would be there?” Sandy ignored the question. Instead he asked one of his own. “And do you also have a ‘simple’ explanation for how the switch was made?” “Of course,” Ken replied calmly. “We’ve been thinking that it was fortunate the man with the watch crystal was standing in front of that partition window when the fire broke out. It wasn’t fortunate. It was planned. It gave him the perfect opportunity to switch boxes and walk out of the store.” Sandy opened his mouth and shut it again. “What?” Ken prompted. Sandy grinned slightly. “I thought of something that supports your crazy theory. I was going to say it would explain why the man ‘forgot’ his change. He just wasn’t interested in waiting around for it when he’d managed to do what he came for.” Ken solemnly shook his hand. “Congratulations. That clinches it.” “Now wait a minute,” Sandy said hastily. “It doesn’t do any such thing. We still haven’t any idea why somebody should have wanted the box in the first place.” “I know. I know,” Ken told him. “You’ve explained that once. If it’s a stolen art treasure, Dad wouldn’t have been able to bring it into the country. And if it isn’t really valuable....” his voice trailed off. “Exactly,” Sandy said. “I must have been wrong about the weight that first night.” His voice sounded almost pleading. Ken ignored him. “Sam might be able to tell us if this is the box he worked on,” he said suddenly. “Let’s check with him tomorrow.” He straightened up, as if relieved at having reached a decision. “And now let’s finish up here, before Bert comes down to see if we’re scheming up some new trick for his downfall.” They were in Sam Morris’s store by nine the next morning, the iron box under Sandy’s arm. Mom had gone off right after breakfast to see her sister, so they had been able to borrow her present without arousing her suspicion. “Broken again?” Sam Morris asked, as Sandy unwrapped the package. “No. It works fine, Sam. We just need your help in settling an argument. Would you look at this thing carefully and tell us if it’s the one you repaired?” “One of you boys thinks that perhaps it isn’t?” Sam looked puzzled. “No.” Ken smiled at him. “But we have reason to believe the box is lighter now than it was when my father brought it here. And we didn’t see how the repair job could have changed the weight.” “It didn’t. I just straightened the lever. Do you think I exchanged your box for another one?” “Of course not,” Ken assured him. “But you think maybe someone did, eh?” Sam fitted his jeweler’s glass into his eye. “It sounds like nonsense, but let’s have a look.” After several minutes he removed the glass and shook his head. “I can only say that I think this is the same box I worked on. The lock mechanism is the same. But I was in too much of a hurry to inspect the box carefully. Still, I couldn’t testify under oath that this is it.” The phone rang and Sam excused himself to answer it. “Satisfied now?” Sandy asked Ken. Before Ken could answer, Sam was calling him. “This is for you, Ken,” he said. Ken was smiling when he came back from taking the call. “It was Pop,” he explained. “Dad phoned and gave him the information from the Motor Vehicle Bureau.” He handed Sam Morris a scrap of paper with a name and a New York City address written on it. “This is the man you were asking us about—the one who left without the change from his twenty-dollar bill.” Sam’s eyes widened. “How did you learn who he was?” The boys explained, and Sam shook his head in admiration. “Such a smart idea. Now I can send Mr. Barrack his money.” “Maybe you ought to write him first and make sure it’s the right person,” Sandy said. “Maybe the man you want was just sitting in a car that belongs to somebody else.” Sam looked worried. “Do you think that’s likely?” “I’ll tell you what, Sam.” Ken spoke up. “We’re going to be in New York tomorrow and we’ll check on it for you. Dad’s apartment is right near this address. It won’t be any trouble. Then you can be sure you’re sending the money to the right man.” Sam had to be persuaded. He insisted the boys had already gone to enough trouble, by learning the name and address. “If he has a phone we’ll just call him up,” Ken pointed out. “And even if he doesn’t it will only take a few minutes to run over there.” “Well, if you’re sure—” Sam said finally. “Fine,” Ken interrupted. “We’ll let you know what we find out. And thanks for checking the box for us.” Sandy waited until they were outside the store and then he spoke. “I don’t suppose you have any ulterior motive in offering to get in touch with—what’s his name?—with this Barrack fellow?” Ken grinned. “You have a low suspicious mind.” “It’s not nearly as suspicious as yours,” Sandy retorted. “You have no reason to believe that box is valuable. And Sam didn’t exactly support your idea of the thing having been switched—” “He didn’t say he was sure it was the same box,” Ken interrupted. “And I still think it’s possible that Dad brought home a valuable antique, and that somebody stole it and left in its place a worthless modern copy—the one we’ve got now. But don’t worry. I’ve thought of a way to check up on that theory. We’ll take the box in to Felix Lausch at the Metropolitan Museum and ask his advice.” “That’s an idea.” Sandy’s eye lit up at the thought of the art expert who was Richard Holt’s friend and who would, both boys knew, give them any aid he could. “If Lausch says this is an old box, but not worth very much, then we’ll write the whole thing off as a bad dream. Right?” “Fair enough,” Ken agreed. Before they left for New York, some time before noon, they wrote a note to Mom and left it on the kitchen table. “We’re borrowing your new jewel box so we can show it to Mr. Lausch,” it read. “Hope you won’t mind. We’ll take good care of it.” Sandy stared at the note dubiously as they departed. “She’ll mind, all right,” he said. “Mom likes to own antiques, and she even brags about ’em once in a while. But she’ll think we’re crazy to take one all the way to New York to show to an expert.” He shrugged. “Well, come on. But I’m going to tell her it was all your idea, when she starts lighting into us.” By two o’clock that afternoon they were climbing the stairs to the Holt apartment on Seventieth Street. There was a scrawl in Ken’s father’s handwriting propped against the phone. “Call me at Global when you get in,” it read. Ken dialed the number and talked briefly to his father, completing arrangements for meeting him later on. “We’re eating at Dominick’s,” he reported to Sandy. “And Dad says he’s already called Dominick and warned him, so we ought to be prepared for something special.” Sandy beamed. “Swell. That sounds like spaghetti. How long have we got to work up an appetite?” “Until six thirty.” “I could do it in half that time,” Sandy said. Ken ignored him. He was leafing through the New York telephone book. “Barnes ... Barotti ... and here’s a Barrack, Charles. But no Amos Barrack. Guess our friend with the broken watch crystal doesn’t have a telephone.” “Maybe it’s unlisted—like your dad’s,” Sandy suggested. “I tell you what. Call information and ask her if there’s any phone at all at his address. If it’s an apartment house there might be one in the lobby.” “That’s a good idea. Then we could at least leave a message for him.” Ken twirled the dial, made his request, and a moment later was scribbling down the number he had been given. “Only one phone at that address, listed under the name of Marie Mallory,” he reported, as he began to dial again. “I’ll try it.” The ringing was answered shortly by a woman who spoke so loudly that Ken had to jerk the receiver away from his ear to avoid being deafened. “Is there a Mr. Barrack there?” he asked. “A Mr. Amos Barrack. I’d like to speak to him if it’s possible.” “He’s not here now,” the woman bellowed. “He works. He’ll be home tonight, I guess. He’s got a room here. I’m the landlady. Any message?” “My name is Holt,” Ken answered. “I’m calling Mr. Barrack about something he left in Brentwood the other day.... That’s right. Brentwood. Would you tell him that, please, and ask him to call me this evening?” “Sure. I’ll tell him. What time?” “Eh—let’s see.” Ken calculated quickly. “I won’t be here until after eleven o’clock.” “All right. I’ll tell him,” she repeated. Ken gave her his father’s number and then hung up, holding his hand to his long-suffering ear. “She said—” “I heard her,” Sandy assured him. “And now let’s go see Lausch and get that off our minds, so I can start concentrating on spaghetti.” Felix Lausch declared that he was delighted to see them. He inquired for his friend, Richard Holt, insisted upon showing them one or two of his department’s newest acquisitions, and then took them into his private office and settled them comfortably. “Now,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “what can I do for you? You’re not involved in another one of those investigations you two seem to get into, are you?” Ken grinned. “Sandy says we’re not. But I’m wondering if you could tell us anything about this box?” He unwrapped it and put it on Lausch’s desk. The round-faced little man bent forward to look at it. “Just what did you want to know?” he asked. “This is not in my line, you understand—even though it does look Italian to me. But Italian paintings are a big enough field for one man. I am an amateur in all other aspects of Italian art.” “We’d like to know if it’s really an antique,” Ken explained, “and if it’s valuable. We’d also like to know if there’s any reason to think it might have been stolen recently—from some European collection, that is. Probably in Italy.” Lausch’s stubby finger traced the scrollwork on the lid of the box. “I could make a guess at the answers to your first two questions, but that’s all it would be. I think you would rather have the opinion of an expert.” He picked up his phone and asked for a number. “Sintelli is a dealer in Italian antiques,” he explained. “He should be able to help. As for your last question, I can only say I’ve seen no notice of the theft of any such box as this.” He waited an instant and then he was saying, “Sintelli?... Lausch here. Tony, I’ve got a question for you—three questions, in fact. I’ve got what appears to be an old Italian box— ... What?... No, a small box. Iron, with a lead lining. I want to know if it’s old, if it’s valuable, and if it might have been stolen recently from some European collection—public or private.... Yes, I think so.” He looked up at the boys. “Can you leave it here? Sintelli will pick it up and return it in the morning.” Sandy hesitated only a moment. “Sure. But he won’t hurt it, will he?” Lausch smiled. “It would be too bad if we experts had to ruin everything we examined. No, it will be quite safe.” He spoke into the phone again briefly and then hung up. “Tony will drop it off here tomorrow about ten, on his way to his shop. So I’ll have a report for you any time after that.” They were halfway to the door a few minutes later, on the way out, when Ken turned back. “There’s just one other thing. Suppose I wanted to have an exact copy of that box made. Could it be done?” Lausch shrugged. “There are craftsmen good enough to copy anything, I suppose, if one knows where to find them. It would probably be an expensive job, however. But I’ll check that with Sintelli too. He’ll know.” Over the red-checkered tablecloth at Dominick’s that night Ken told his father about the inquiries they had set in motion about the iron box. Mr. Holt looked slightly amused, but just as he was about to comment, at the end of Ken’s recital, he glanced at his watch. “Come on!” he said, leaping up. “The first match begins in a few minutes. We’re going to have to leave before they’re over, anyway, if I’m going to catch my Washington plane. So let’s not miss the beginning.” The wrestling matches were particularly exciting. Conversation, as the boys and Richard Holt watched them, was limited to shouts of encouragement and howls of dismay. And Ken’s father made no reference to the box as they drove him out to the airport. But as he got out of the car there, with a minute or two to spare, he turned back for a final word. “I’m not going to tell you to drop this iron box mystery you’ve cooked up,” he told Ken. “That wouldn’t do any good.” He grinned at his son. “But I think Sandy’s reasoning is sound. If the box is valuable—if it’s been stolen, say—I’d never have been allowed to bring it through customs. And if it isn’t, why go through any hanky-panky about it, as the British say?” He took his brief case off the seat and slipped it under his arm. “In any case, take it easy. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. You’ll be in Brentwood then?” “Probably, Dad,” Ken said. “But we’re not going back until we’ve used the basketball tickets you’ve left us for tomorrow night,” Sandy added. “Have a good time.” Holt raised his arm in a farewell salute and disappeared through the doors of the terminal building just as the loud-speaker announced the ten-thirty flight to Washington. It was a few minutes past eleven when the boys let themselves into Holt’s apartment. “I hope we haven’t missed Barrack,” Ken muttered. “Don’t worry. He’d try again if he didn’t get us the first time. He must have remembered by now what it was he left in Brentwood. I don’t suppose there’s anything in the refrigerator, is there?” Sandy added thoughtfully as he hung up his coat. “Probably not,” Ken agreed. “When Dad’s only at home for a day or two he—” But Sandy had already opened the refrigerator and the expression on his face made it unnecessary for Ken to look inside. A note pasted to the inner side of the door read, “I figured you’d be hungry before bedtime.” “Cold ham,” Sandy was chanting, “cheese, milk, oranges....” “And there’s bread and a pie in the breadbox,” Ken added, peering under the lid. Sandy rubbed his hands. “Well, what’ll we have for our first course? How about—?” The sharp sound of the buzzer cut him off. The boys looked at each other in surprise, and Ken shrugged as he walked into the hall to press the button that released the lock on the downstairs door. Sandy was behind him as he opened the apartment door and thrust his head into the hall to listen. They heard the lower door shut, and then the sound of mounting footsteps. A moment later a slender, neatly dressed man about thirty-five years old rounded the last bend in the stairs and came into view. He smiled at them as he came up the last few steps. “Holt?” he inquired politely, looking from Sandy to Ken. “I’m Ken Holt.” “I’m Amos Barrack,” the stranger said. “My landlady told me you phoned about something I left in Brentwood.” Ken was trying to collect his scattered wits. “But you’re not the man we thought you’d be.” Barrack smiled. “And I don’t know what I left in Brentwood. Nothing, so far as I know. I thought maybe I’d better drop by and get it straightened out tonight.” The boys stepped back from the doorway. “Come on in,” Ken said, and closed the door behind their visitor when he had stepped into the foyer. “Sit down, won’t you?” He led the way to the living room. “We seem to have caused you some unnecessary trouble,” he added, as Barrack settled himself somewhat tentatively on the nearest chair. “But we were trying to do you a favor.” He smiled. “A favor?” Barrack sounded more puzzled than ever. Ken glanced at Sandy to see if he wanted to explain, but Sandy’s expression told him that this was his problem. “It’s this way,” Ken began. “The day before Christmas a man stopped in at Sam Morris’s jewelry store in Brentwood—that’s where we live—to have his watch crystal replaced. When he returned to pick it up he paid Morris with a twenty-dollar bill. But just at that moment a small fire broke out in the store. Just a little blaze in a wastebasket. When the excitement died down and Morris looked around for his customer a few minutes later, to give him his change, the man had disappeared. Morris was worried about it, and eager to find the man and give him his money. So—” “But what made you call me?” Barrack interrupted. Ken explained, briefly, about the picture Sandy had taken and how they had traced the car’s license number. “But, of course,” he concluded, “if you’ve never been in Brentwood we must have made a mistake somehow. Maybe we didn’t read the license number correctly.” “But I was there that same day,” Barrack corrected him apologetically. “I should have explained that. And my car was parked opposite a jewelry store—right at the time the fire happened, as a matter of fact. But I didn’t go inside the store at all. And I can’t understand—” He broke off suddenly and his puzzled look gave way to a smile. “It must have been my passenger,” Barrack explained. “I’d forgotten all about him until this minute.” Ken and Sandy both smiled too. “Good,” Ken said. “Then if you know who it was—” Barrack shook his head. “But I don’t. I guess it’s my turn to explain. I’m a salesman for the Tobacco Mart—a company that sells smokers’ supplies. I was on my way back from a trip through the Pennsylvania territory that day, and one of my customers in some little Pennsylvania town asked me if I could take a passenger to New York. A friend of his, I guess. He didn’t want to have to take the local into Philadelphia, and then another train on from there. It’s a long trip that way. I agreed, of course, and the fellow came along. I thought he stayed in the car while I stopped to make a call in Brentwood—I cover New Jersey too—but for all I know he might have broken his watch then and gone across the street to have it fixed.” “And you don’t know who he was?” Ken asked. “Haven’t the slightest idea.” Barrack looked regretful and then he brightened. “My Pennsylvania customer would probably know, though. I could ask him the next time I go by there and then let you know.” He got to his feet. “Thanks,” Ken said. “We’d appreciate that—or, rather, Sam Morris would. He doesn’t like to owe people money.” “But probably the fellow will write to the jeweler and ask for his change before long,” Barrack pointed out. “Probably,” Ken agreed. “Anyway we’re sorry to have bothered you.” “No bother at all,” Barrack assured him. “I was kind of puzzled. Thought I’d stop in and find out what it was all about.” Their good-nights were brief but polite. But the door had scarcely closed behind Barrack when Sandy grabbed Ken’s arm. “We could ask him the name of his customer,” he said, “and call the man up.” He reached for the doorknob. “Why didn’t we think of that while—?” Ken’s hand found the doorknob first and held it. “Don’t bother,” he said. “There’s no use trying to get any honest information out of that gentleman.” “Huh?” Ken locked the door and slipped the safety chain into place. “I didn’t think of this myself until he was giving his little spiel about his passenger, but this phone here is unlisted. Dad’s name isn’t in the phone book.” Sandy stared at him. “What’s your father’s phone got to do with Mr. Barrack—or anything else?” “But the phone number is all I left with Barrack’s landlady. I didn’t give her this address.” “Oh,” Sandy said. “I see. And he couldn’t have got the address by asking the phone company for it, because they don’t give out that information.” “Right,” Ken told him. “At least they don’t give it to anybody but the police. And Barrack’s no policeman.” “Then how did he know how to find us,” Sandy asked, “without telephoning first?” “Probably,” Ken said slowly, “because he’d been here before—looking for the box.” <div class='pbb'></div> <hr class='pb c000' /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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