"He's gone," said the cashier. "Here--come back and pay for that call; five cents!"
The telephone clerk at police headquarters promptly told the news of the whereabouts of the missing jewelers--for whom the star men had been searching six hours diligently and secretly--and then tried, through the telephone Central, to get in touch with the pay station from which the "tip" had come, but couldn't, as they would not answer. The reason Ayres's drug-store wouldn't answer was that the Englishman in his ignorance had disarranged the connection without betraying that fact. The detectives said it showed a technical knowledge of telephones and their construction.
The news was kept from the newspapers, in the first place, because the jewelers requested it of the Police Department; and, secondly, because it was deemed wise by the sleuths to fight mystery with mystery. As a matter of fact, the detectives were confident of apprehending the miscreants shortly--for had they not left a trail as broad as Fifth Avenue?
The jewelers went back on their words to the colonel, who saved their lives. From their descriptions and the information given by Ayres and the fair cashier, they knew the husky-voiced man with the scar on the back of his hand must be Whispering Willie, a clever all-round crook. The Englishman, they thought, was an amateur. The police communicated with the _Ruritania_ by wireless, and asked the purser if among the passengers were a man of middle height, smooth-shaven, about forty years of age, with paralyzed vocal cords that made him talk as if he had acute laryngitis, and a tall, well-built, blue-eyed, blond Englishman with a nervous affliction of the neck like a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. Within twenty-four hours the purser had sent the reply: "St. Vitus here, under name of Lewis J. Wright. No trace of Laryngitis."
So headquarters cabled to Scotland Yard to hold the tall blond afflicted with St. Vitus's dance, who was thought to have sailed under the name of Lewis J. Wright, until the detective sergeant and one of the jeweler's clerks could arrive with extradition papers. And that's how Mr. L. J. Wright was arrested in Liverpool, less on account of New York's request than by reason of the absurd yarn he told. There was no such Dr. Cephas W. Atterbury as Wright declared he was going to see. The letter of introduction to the doctor, moreover, was a blank sheet of paper. The New York police learned about W. W. Lovell in this way and knew they were on the right trail.