This haul's big enough for three."

"Well, what _is_ your haul?" demanded the ba.s.s voice.

Again there was a silence of several seconds.

"Cough it up," prompted Redney. The silence that ensued seemed to imply that the younger man was slowly and reluctantly arriving at a change of front. There was a sound of a chair being pushed back, of a match being struck, of a gla.s.s being put down on a table-top.

"Chuck," said the treble-voiced youth, with a slow and impressive solemnity that was strangely in contrast to his earlier speech, "Chuck, we're up against the biggest stunt that was ever pulled off in this burg of two-bone pikers!"

"So you've been insinuatin'," was the answer that came out of the silence. "But I've been sittin' here half an hour waitin' to get a line on what you're chewin' about."

"Chuck," said the treble voice, "you read the papers, don't you?"

"Now and then," acknowledged the diffident ba.s.s voice.

"Well, did you see yesterday morning where the steamer _Finance_ was rammed by the White Star _Georgic_? Where she went down in the Lower Bay before she got started on her way south?"

"I sure did."

"Well, did you read about her carryin' six hundred and ten thousand dollars in gold--in gold taken from the Sub-Treasury here and done up in wooden boxes and consigned for that Panama Construction Comp'ny."

"I sure did."

"And did your eye fall on the item that all day yesterday the divers from the wreckin' comp'ny were workin' on that steamer, workin' like n.i.g.g.e.rs gettin' that gold out of her strong room?"

"Sure!"

"And do you happen to know where that gold is now?" was the oratorical challenge flung at the other man.

"Just wait a minute," remarked that other man in his heavy guttural.

"Is _that_ your coup?"

"That's my coup!" was the confident retort.

"Well, you've picked a lemon," the big man calmly announced. "There's nothin' doin', kiddo, nothin' doin'!"

"Not on your life," was the tense retort. "I know what I'm talkin'

about. And Redney knows."

"And _I_ know that gold went south on the steamer _Advance_,"

proclaimed the ba.s.s voice. "I happen to know they re-shipped the whole bunch o' metal on their second steamer."

"Where'd you find that out?" demanded the scoffing treble voice.

"Not bein' in the Sub-Treasury this season, I had to fall back on the papers for the news."

"And that's where you and the papers is in dead wrong! That's how they're foolin' you and ev'ry other guy not in the know. I'll tell you where that gold is. I'll tell you where it lies, to the foot, at this minute!"

"Well?"

"She's lyin' in the store-room in a pile o' wooden boxes, on that Panama Comp'ny's pier down at the foot o' Twenty-eight' Street!"

"You're dreamin', Tony, dreamin'. No sane folks leave gold lyin' round loose that way. No, sir; that's what they've got a nice stone Sub-Treasury for."

"Look a' here, Chuck," went on the tense treble voice. "Jus' figure out what day this is. And find out when them wreckers got that gold out o' the _Finance's_ strong room. And what d'you get? They lightered them boxes up the North River at one o'clock Sat.u.r.day afternoon. They swung in next to the _Advance_ and put a half-a-dozen cases o' lead paint aboard. Then they tarpaulined them boxes o' gold and swung into the Panama Comp'ny's slip and unloaded that cargo _at two o'clock Sat.u.r.day afternoon_!"

"Well, s'pose they did?"

"Don't you tumble? Sat.u.r.day afternoon there's no Sub-Treasury open.

And to-day's Sunday, ain't it? And they won't get into that Sub-Treasury until to-morrow morning. And as sure as I know I'm sittin' in this chair I know that gold's lyin' out there on that Twenty-eight' Street pier!"

No one in that little room seemed to stir. They seemed to be sitting in silent tableau. Then I could hear the man with the ba.s.s voice slowly and meditatively intone his low-life expletive.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!"

The youngest of the trio spoke again, in a lowered but none the less tense voice.

"In gold, Chuck, pure gold! In fine yellow gold lyin' there waitin' to be rolled over and looked after! Talk about treasure-huntin'! Talk about Spanish Mains and pirate ships! My Gawd, Chuck, we don't need to travel down to no Mosquito Coast to dig up our doubloons! We got 'em right here at our back door!"

Some one struck a match.

"But how're we goin' to pick 'em?" placidly inquired the man called Chuck. It was as apparent that he already counted himself one of the party as it was that their intention had not quite carried him off his feet.

"Look here," broke in the more fiery-minded youth known as Tony, and from the sound and the short interludes of silence he seemed to be drawing a map on a slip of paper. "Here's your pier. And here's your store-room. And here's where your gold lies. And here's the first door. And here's the second. We don't need to count on the doors.

They've got a watchman somewhere about here. And they've put two of their special guards here at the land end of the pier. The store-room itself is empty. They've got it double-locked, and a closed-circuit alarm system to cinch the thing. But what t'ell use is all that when we can eat right straight up into the bowels o' that room without touchin' a lock or a burglar alarm, without makin' a sound!"

"How?" inquired the ba.s.s voice.

"Here's your pier bottom. Here's the river slip. We row into that slip without showin' a light, and with the kicker shut off, naturally.

We slide in under without makin' a sound. Then we get our measurements. Then we make fast to this pile, and throw out a line to this one, and a second to this one, to hold us steady against the tide and the ferry wash. Then we find our right plank. We can do that by pokin' a flashlight up against 'em where it'll never be seen. Then we take a brace and bit and run a row of holes across that plank, the two rows about thirty inches apart, each hole touchin' the other. Don't you see, with a good sharp extension bit we can cut out that square in half an hour or so, without makin' any more noise than you'd make scratchin' a match on your pants leg!"

"And when you get your square?"

"Then Redney and me climbs through. Redney'll be the stall. He watches the door from the inside. You stay in the boat, with an eye peeled below. I pa.s.s you the gold. We cut loose and slip off with the tide. When we're out o' hearin' we throw on the kicker and go kitin'

down to that Bath Beach joint o' yours where we'll have that six hundred and ten thousand in gold melted down and weighed out before they get that store-room door unlocked in the morning!"

"Not so loud, Tony; not so loud!" cautioned the conspirator called Redney. There was a moment of silence.

In that silence, and without the aid of my microphone, I heard the sound of steps as they approached my door and came to a stop.

"Listen!" suddenly whispered one of the men in the other room.

As I sat there, listening as intently as my neighbors, the k.n.o.b of my door turned. Then the door itself was impatiently shaken.

That sound brought me to my feet with a start of alarm. Accident had enmeshed me in a movement that was too gigantic to be overlooked. The one thing I could not afford, at such a time, was discovery.

Three silent steps took me across the room to my microphone. One movement lifted that telltale instrument from its hooks, and a second movement jerked free the wires pinned in close along the gas pipe.

Another movement or two saw my apparatus slipped into its case and the case dropped down behind the worn leather-couch back. Then I sank into the chair beside the table, knowing there was nothing to betray me.

Yet as I lounged there over my bottle of _Chianti_ I could feel the excitement of the moment accelerate my pulse. I made an effort to get my feelings under control as second by second slipped away and nothing of importance took place. It was, I decided, my wall-eyed waiter friend, doubtlessly bearing a message that more lucrative patrons were desiring my fetid-aired cubby-hole.