Penny had told of the cache of brass in the Harper basement, and also of seeing Sweeper Joe and Clark Clayton dump much of the loot in the river. She was assured that the ruins of the house would be searched in the morning and that a dredge would be assigned to try to locate the brass which had been thrown overboard into the deepest part of the channel.
Heiney Growski produced records he had kept, showing a list of Gandiss factory employes known to be implicated in the plot.
"Most of the persons involved are new employes who smuggled small pieces of brass out of the factory and turned them over to Sweeper Joe for pin money," he revealed. "The leaders are Joe, Clayton, and Glowershick. With them behind bars, the ring will dissolve."
"There's one thing I want to know," Penny declared feelingly. "Who planted the brass in Sally's locker while she was working at the factory?"
No one could answer the question at the moment, but the following day, after police had repeatedly questioned the prisoners, the entire story became known. Sweeper Joe, the real instigator of the plot, had slipped into the locker room himself, and had placed the incriminating piece of evidence in Sally's locker, using a master key. He had disliked her because several times she had resented his attempts to become friendly.
Although police had obtained signed confessions, tangible evidence also was needed, for as Chief Bailey pointed out to Mr. Gandiss, the men might repudiate their statements when they appeared in court. Accordingly, police squads were sent to the Harpers' to search the ashes for evidence, and also to the river to supervise dredging operations.
Throughout the day, between trips to the hospital to see Sally, Jack and Penny watched the dredge boat make its trips back and forth over the area where the loot had been dropped.
"I hope I wasn't mistaken in the location," Penny remarked anxiously as the vessel made repeated excursions without success. "After all, the night was dark, and I had no way of taking accurate bearings."
Across the river and barely visible, the blackened, smoking skeleton of the Florence lay stranded on a sandbar. Throughout the night, a fireboat had steadily pumped water into the burning vessel, but even so, fires had not been entirely extinguished.
Morning papers had carried the encouraging information that there was only one known casualty as a result of the disaster. That many lives had not been lost was credited entirely to the courageous action of Captain Barker.
Becoming weary of watching the monotonous dredging operations, Jack and Penny joined a throng of curious bystanders at the Harper property. Police had taken complete charge and were raking the smoldering ruins.
"Find anything?" Jack asked a policeman he knew.
The man pointed to a small heap of charred metal which had been taken from the basement. There were many pieces of brass, but the missing lantern was not to be found in the pile.
However, from a member of the arson squad, they learned that enough evidence had been found to prove conclusively that the fire had been started with gasoline.
"Ma Harper spilled the whole story," one of the policemen related. "She and her husband were fairly straight until they became mixed up with Sweeper Joe, who has a police record of long standing. Ma had a black market business in silk stockings that didn't amount to much. So far as we've been able to learn, she and a taxi driver whom we've caught, were the only ones involved. Her husband and the other men considered the stocking racket small potatoes for them."
After talking with the policemen for awhile, the young people wandered down to the river's edge to see how dredging operations progressed.
"They're hauling something out of the water now!" Jack exclaimed. "By George! It looks like brass to me!"
Finding a boat tied up at the dock, they borrowed it and rowed rapidly out to the dredge. There they saw that some of the metal which Sweeper Joe had dumped, had indeed been recovered.
Prodding in the muddy pile in the bottom of the dredge net, Penny uttered a little scream of joy. "The brass lantern is here, Jack! What wonderful luck!"
Seizing the slime-covered object, she washed it in the river. "Let's take it straight to Sally at the hospital!" she urged.
