Chapter 7
Charles George Adams was born November 20, 1905, at about 12:50 pm. He came out howling as if he was protesting the whole idea of being born. Matilda assisted the doctor and nurse. They cleaned him up and gave him to his mother. George Adams was allowed in and saw his first birth for the first time and was ready to hand out cigars! When he went to the office that day, he was a little later than his usual time and missed the opportunity for the gold dust exchange. He did not mind, he was on cloud 9 and handed cigars, expensive cigars out to all his colleagues who smiled and congratulated him. Later that day, around 4 pm, Mrs. Adams left her home and went to stay with her parents on her doctors' orders. Mr. Adams had discussed this move with the doctor and agreed to make sure that his wife and child were safe and healthy and that her parents would be the best place for her to stay.
The 23 of November came. Since no one was at home, he had gotten himself up early and gone into his job early as usual. Sam and Dave saw him open the door at 9 am. Jason, waited a few minutes and then walked into the office, and stood off to the side observing Mr. Adams open the safe and take out the gold dust bags, Mr. Birns also was there quietly not noticed but watching as Mr. Adams used his scaled to weigh the dust, take some out, place the black sand in the bag and put the other gold dust into the little bottle and put it in his pocket. He finished and put the bags on the hand truck to be officially weighed.
Mr. Adams had not said or done anything unusual, but he had seen Jason and Mr. Birns, he looked out the window and saw two people across from the local store. He decided to go to the backroom, and as his fellow colleagues were coming in, he slipped out of the back door. He did not get far as the two detectives who were positioned there saw him and held their gun pointed at him.
"Fellows, what are you doing? Are you going to rob me? I don't have any gold!" he said as he flung an envelope straight at the gun that one of the detectives was holding, then he jumped over the railing and ran. They ran after him as well. When he had not come back Sam and Dave were signaled to go help the detectives. Jason went around the side of the building as well. Mr. Adams was coming straight at Jason, he did not see Jason, as his head was turned looking back at the men running after him. But Jason stopped him, and the others caught up with him.
"Mr. Adams, we need to ask you a few questions about you acquisition of gold dust!" said Mr. Birns as they took him back to the office where they asked him to show them the private box that was kept in the safe. Mr. Adams took the box out but when the officers took it, they knew it was not the box they expected.
"Oh, that box, well, I took that home last night. Has nothing but private papers in it!" he said hoping that they would buy the lie. However, they did not buy it and they took him to his house and searched for the box. When they found it, they asked him to open it. At first, he said he didn't have the key, but finally he said the key was at the front desk in the writing room. They went to get the key, but that too was locked, and he would not say where the key for the writing desk was. He kept stalling and finally they found a way to open the desk, get the key and open the box. In it were some special scales and a box of medicine capsules, he used for carrying the sand to trade. They then took him to the police station and searched for him and found some gold dust and about $12,000 in cash. He was taken to jail. He tried to get bail saying that his wife had just had a baby and he needed to be there. But the police chief said:
"Sir, you wife will be okay, she is with her family and not alone!" He hung his head and had to wait until the next day to find help and witnesses that would help him get out of this mess.
Mr. Birns thanked Matilda and told her that she would be able to pay her friends at the end of the week. He also thanked Jason, Sam and Dave. Jason brought the horseless carriage around and they all got in. Matilda was sitting in the front and Sam and Dave in the back.