Evening star., 1924-12-09
The Ark of the Covenant
A Story of Mystery and Adventure
BY VICTOR Mcclure.
b Harper& Brothers
BY VICTOR MacCLURl
1924, by Harper & Brothers.

me to a realization of what the morn
lngs outrage involved.
"But what were the police doing all
the timer" 1 demanded.
sleeping, as far as l can make
OUT he said dryly
The details of the affair, as Dick
told me them, were incredible. The
first intimation that anything was
wrong in the Wall street district
came when policeman recovered
consciousness to find himself lying on
the sidewalk. He thought he had
tainted or suddenly dropped into
sleep. and in either case was afraid
of losing his job, for they want
neither sluggards nor heart cases on
the force. He got to his feet, glad
that he had not been discovered by
his patrol, and he began to hurry
along his beat. He had not gone far
when he fell over the feet of some
body who was sprawled across the
steps in doorway, and he stopped
| over to investigate. He found it was
his own inspector and he had no
| sooner laid hands on him than the
| sleeper awoke. Dick did not go into
| details of what the cop said to the
| inspector, or vice versa, but it must
| have been mighty interesting. Any
| how, the pair Joined forces and set off
| round the district
| They We're half-dazed, the two of
! them. and to their badly working
| inteiligences it seemed as If they had
| suddenly found themselves in a city
of the dead. All along the sidewalks
! and in doorways, even in the middle
! of the streets, sleeping men were ly-
| ing a intervals. Dick Schuyler want
| cd to bet me that there never had
been as bewildered a pair of men in
| nf he
cops, but ! would not take him.
| 1t is difficult to bring things to-
gether in their right sequence. What
/ gather from the many accounts |
get that morning is that suddenly
| the police headquarters became noisy
| with repeated telephone calls, as bank
| after bank reported it had been rob
! bed. Squads of police were rushed
| into the area at once, but when they
| arrived the thing was over and the
! thieves had got clean away. ! re-
| member wondering what would have
| happened under the old system of
! direct alarms to police headquarters.
| But this system of course. had been
! largely discarded after the scandal
| of 1928. when the police were proved
/ to have been in colluSion with the
crooks who effected the big robbery
| of the Dyers' National 1t would
! nave be0u interesting u sec " nal
/ would have happened to the police if
| they had been rushed into the dis
| trict during the unaccountable two
| hours.
| The other four banks were in like
| case to the National MetaliurGicai.
| For two hours in the morning the
guards and watchmen had been asleep
| and could tell nothing. Something in
| the nature of oXyecetylene had been
| used to effect entrance to all the
! buildings concerned, and their strong
| rooms had been cut open by the same
means. The thieves had got away
| with an enormous haul while the dis
! trict was fast asleep.
/ | got much of this Information from
| Dick Schuyler as We were walking
| along, and | had the chance to con-
| firm lot of it first hand. The neigh
| borhood now was filling rapidly, and
automobiles and motor cycles were be-
ginning to be frequent in the street.
Newspaper men were everywhere,
eagerly searching for information,
but, beyond the one central inexpli-
cable fact of the mysterious two
hours. found little data for theig
write-ups. One excited little report