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Show CHAPTER XI Continued 11 He gained one advantage, though, from Its solidity. There would be no barm In making a light and having a look at It. He got out his cigarette lighter and struck a light There were two small pieces of electrical apparatus ap-paratus screwed to the wall above the door. One of them he recognized as an electric buzzer, and this, as he thought about it, seemed rather queer. Why wasn't it the other way around the push button on this side and the buzzer in Forster's apartment? Why should anyone already in the apartment apart-ment have to ring a door bell to get into this public office? The door was locked against the office and into the apartment. Well then, it wasn't a door bell. Of course it wasn't. It was a signal, and once It sounded In the stenographers' stenogra-phers' room it seemed a reasonable inference in-ference that It was Forster's way of summoning a stenographer. But what good was it to buzz for her If she couldn't get through the door? Was the door left unlocked during office hours? No, Forster would want to feel better guarded against intrusion than that. Martin held up the lighter again Id an attempt to identify the other thing. He had a hunch that it would be worth looking into. He'd have to have something some-thing to stand on, though. The ledge of the door was two feet above his head. The top step wasn't wide enough to balance a chair on, but one of those big steel waste-paper baskets down in the stenographers' room would probably prob-ably hold him up, and would just about give him the added height he needed. He brought one of them up and tried It It was going to be a pretty precarious pre-carious perch and the easy possibility of his falling the whole length of the ' flight with the basket on top of him wasn't a pleasant one. Well, there was no use thinking about things like that. He'd got to have a look at the . little sheet Iron box that was screwed to the wall beside the buzzer. He got out his penknife and dropped it, open, into the side pocket of his coat. It and the cigarette lighter were all he had by way of tools. Then, putting one foot on the rim of the basket he made a sort of spring and clutched the top of the door frame. He found he could hold himself with one hand, so he got out his cigarette lighter, lighted it and stood it on the ledge made by the door frame. He recognized the little sheet Iron box now. It was a transformer such as he'd bad when he was a small boy to run his electric train with. The 110-volt house current came into one side of It from a steel cable. A pair of low voltage wires went out the other side, connecting with the buzzer, but also going down through a hole In the door frame. Well, he understood under-stood It now. The door was held by on electric catch such as they use for Inner vestibule door3 of apartment houses. A button, probably on Forster's desk, sounded the buzzer and at the same time released the catch. The stenographer had to get to the door before Forster took his finger off the button. What afforded Martin a broad grin was the thought of Forster's precious security being betrayed by the careless electrician who had put the transformer. trans-former. outside the locked door Instead ef In. All Martin had to do was to scrape the Insulation off the wires and close the circuit and the door would be unlocked. Wait a minute, though. He'd have to disconnect the buzzer first. He'd nearly forgotten that, and he turned cold for an instant at the narrowness of his escape. But two minutes' work with his penknife sufficed to accom-pllsh accom-pllsh his purpose. As he twisted the two bare ends of the wire into contact he heard a sharp click which announced an-nounced that the door was unlocked. He sprang down from the basket and opened the door. Luck was still with him. There was no one on the other side. The whole corridor was deserted. de-serted. For a moment after he'd closed the door he stood still and listened. He henrd a man's voice, momentarily raised in anger; not on old man's voice and not Conloy's voice, yet again one that he somehow felt that he should remember. It guided him down the short transverse corridor and to the left down a longer one until it brought him to a halt outside a door. At that point the words became distinguishable and the voice Identified itself at the same time. "Oh to h 1 with the three hundred dollars! All right, i took it. What are you going to do nhout it?" The speaker was unmistakably Max Lewis, and it seemed equally beyond doubt to Martin that the person he was speaking to was lthoda. With no warning knock he opened the door and stepped inside. There was a good deal more light In here than In the corridor and he had to blink his eyes into focus before be-fore he could see very well. It was a girl Max wos talking to but she wasn't "T lthoda. She was facing him and before be-fore Max could turn she rapped out, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Martin would never forget that , . voice. It was Claire Cleveland. He realized as she stared at him that she could have no idea who he was. She'd never even glanced at him before. All she could recognize him by was his voice. He didn't answer her question. "Stay right where you are," Max By Henry Kstchell Wctstcfl? Copyright by Th Bobbs-MerrUl Co. WNU Service said to Martin. His face was blotchy with rage, yet there was a vicious sneering look of exultation about it, too. "You've come to exactly the right place. I've got something for you." Then he wheeled on Claire. "You can get out and you needn't wait ! You needn't come back, either. I'm through with you. You'd better go quietly. If my uncle finds you're up here you'll be riding in a patrol wagon before you know it." The opening of the door seemed somehow to bring her to a decision.. She stood still considering for a moment mo-ment before she walked out. "All right," she said, "I think I'll Just let him know I'm here and see what he does about it. You see, you really are too much of a fool." Max closed the door. He was ready to say something, but Martin spoke first. "I've come up here to get Miss Rhoda White," he said. "It will save time and argument if you will taT;e me to her." "You're too late for her," Max answered. an-swered. "She was here but she's gone away. I saw her out myself. Did you think that was what I had for you? Well, it isn't. It's something else. You'll save yourself the worst of it if you'll hand over what you and that other girl stole from me this afternoon. after-noon. I mean a railroad ticket and a trunk check. Come across now ! Quick!" Atnrtin hfld a sudden realization of his folly in coming into Max's presence pres-ence with the ticket and the receipt for Ithoda's trunk upon his person. There was no misunderstanding what Max meant to do. Martin, who was no boxer, and Indeed In-deed no physical match on any terms for his antagonist, tried to slip around him and get to the door. But Max was quicker than he was and he met his rush with a blow on the jaw that was like the kick of a mule. A crashing crash-ing sound accompanied by a brilliant display of lights was the last thing Martin was conscious of for several minutes. The next thing was a stream of cold air and wetness and a pair of light hands exploring beneath his unbuttoned unbut-toned coat. He did not remember Rhoda's trunk check and ticket, that Max had said he meant to get, but all the same he tried to push the hands away. Even as he did so the fog lifted enough for him to realize that they were a girl's hands and that they weren't picking his pockets. The shaky voice that said, "It's all right. Lie still," sounded like Rhoda's and the face he giddily saw bending over him looked like Rhoda's. It couldn't be, could It? What would she be doing here? Where was this, anyhow? any-how? And why was his head drenched with water? It was Rhoda. She was getting clearer every minute. "It really is you, isn't it?" he said. She nodded and said, "Don't talk. Lie still." As his vision cleared and things got less swlmmy he saw that she'd been crying, and the shock of that discovery discov-ery lifted the fog from his memory. Tills was the room where he'd encountered encoun-tered Max Lewis. "What's he been doing to you?" he asked. "Max? Nothing. He didn't know I was here. He thought I'd gone, just as he told you." "But you must have been here to have heard him tell me so." "I was In that room in the dark. Claire was In here waiting for him, but she didn't see me when I came in. "It's All Right. Lie Still." I heard all he and Claire said while they were quarreling. But they were both so angry, each with the other, that I could hardly toll what it was about." It struck him that he ought to know the framework of their quarrel ; probably prob-ably lie would when he'd come to a little belter. He asked. "Why was he chasing you around the place if he thought you'd por.e?" "lie wasn't," Rhoda said. "I wasnt running away fro:n him. I'd had a long rhik with Mr. Forster. I think I found out quite a lot from him, Martin. Mar-tin. Then I taiied with Max. All he fc wanted was to get rid of me, and he thought he had. And then I heard my uncle talking to Mr. Forster and I simply bolted In a panic. It was perfectly per-fectly silly, but I'm glad I did or I wouldn't have been here now." "What happened after Max knocked me out?" He had already begun exploring ex-ploring his pockets. "He took an envelope," she suid. "Out of that pocket; the first one he felt in. I suppose it must have been the ticket and trunk check he said you'd stolen from him. He didn't look inside. Just crammed it in his pocket and went out, as quickly as he could." "How long ago was that? I mean, how long was I out?" She turned away from him as she answered, "I don't know. It seemed a long time to me. Was it something Important that he got away with?" He told her how he'd seen Max carrying car-rying off her trunk and the stratagem by which Babe had got the trunk check from him. "The thing for us to do," he decided, "is to get out of here and beat it to that baggage room. I know the way to the stairs. That's how I got in." But almost as he spoke there came the clatter of a metallic object falling fall-ing downstairs. Somebody on the other side of that door had just had an unforeseen un-foreseen encounter with Martin's waste-paper basket. Then, as they involuntarily in-voluntarily stopped with held breath, they heard a key driven into the lock. Right at hand was a door, "a little ajar, opening into what was probably a closet. Martin, catching Rhoda up with one arm as if she'd been a package, pack-age, fairly lifted her inside and shut the door after them. They heard the SLun uuui upeu, Luej ueaiu sieps along the corridor. But, instead of going by, the steps paused outside the closet door. CHAPTER XII Sound-Proof The next moment they heard the click of a key. For some reason this closet was supposed to be kept locked. What sort of closet was It? Martin's right hand reaching Into the corner rested on a cane. That might come in handy, he thought, and he gripped it. The door swung open, letting in quite a lot of light from the corridor, but at the same time cutting off hlg view of everything but the inner face of the door. He heard a gasp from Rhoda and a growled "What the devil !" in a man's voice. Conley's ! There was a click of a switch and the closet light came on overhead. "So this is where you've got to, is it?" Conley said. "I had an Idea you were still on the premises. Well, the old man will be glad we haven't lost you. Come out of there!" At that Martin shifted his grip on the cane, noting as he did that Its rubber shod furrule was heavily weighted, and kicked shut the closet door with a slam. The unexpected and unaccountable sound of that door slammed to behind him must have frozen Conley for an instant, for he and Rhoda presented, as Martin first saw them, the effect of a tableau vivant, Rhoda backed flat against the wall only was It a wall or was that middle panel In it a door? Conley gripping her by one arm In the midst of his arrested attempt to haul her away. The next instant he turned, saw Martin and Jumped for him. Martin, who had already shortened his grip on the cane, knowing that he wouldn't have room in that closet for a full swing, met the rush with a backhand back-hand stroke at the side of his assailant's assail-ant's head. Thanks to the thick rubber rub-ber cap with which the ferrule was shod the Impact was practically noiseless, noise-less, but the big detective wilted and went down under it like a stock yards steer under the maul. Rhoda and Martin gazed at each other aghast across him. "It's ail right," Martin said. "It's Just another knockout, I guess. I must have caught him on the jaw, too. He'll start coming to in a minute and then we can beat it out of here." "When he opened the door," Rhoda said, "he was coming straight toward me as if he knew I'd be standing right here. But he didn't know, because he jumped when he saw me. Martin, I can't stand it like this. Let's do something. some-thing. Can't we open the door?" He didn't answer instantly, or move. He was looking at the outlined panel in what appeared to be the wall behind be-hind her. She swayed slightly and caught for support at the nearest of the clothes hooks; then uttered a cry of astonishment as she started to fall, not forward but back. The thing she was leaning against was a door and it was swinging open behind her. Martin sjirang over Conley and caught her. Without a word the two of them stood staring into the strange little chamber which the opened door revealed, staring and drawing deep breaths of an air that seemed, after the overwhelming stuffiness of the closet, fresh and cool. The place was oddly furnished, In a manner that suggested a stage set. It comprised one solid-looking black oak, leather-seated chair In the mission mis-sion style, more or less, a small square oak stool that evidently served the occupant to put his feet on, an oak table with a telephone of the new cradle type on it, and an ash-tray. A proscenium arch, which wasn't an arch but an oblong opening, didn't come clear to the floor of the stage. It stopped thirty Inches above it, and it wasn't an opening since it was filled by an enormous sheet of plate glass. Rhoda, to Martin's consternation, said after she'd stood staring at it beside be-side him for a minute, "I know what this is," and walked boldly up the three steps onto the stage beckoning him imperatively to come. The man she was gazing at an old bird whom Martin instantly recognized as the man he'd had a glimpse of in the limousine that morning, was sitting sldewise to his desk in a high-backed, leather-cushioned, swivel chair, smoking smok-ing what was probably an after-dinner cigar and reading a document of some sort which he was holding in both hands. "Isn't it great?" Rhoda whispered. "He can't see us no matter how hard he looks." "How do you know he can't?" "Why, I know because I was in there hours, this afternoon. This thing we're looking through is the picture pic-ture over the fireplace. Conley must have been in here all the time Mr. Forster and I were talking. That's why he always came in at the right time. I thought he was listening, but he must have been watching Instead. That's why there had to be an imitation imita-tion fire Instead of a real one. It's in this box." She put her hand as she spoke on a wooden protuberance that was where the prompter's box would have been if this had been a grand opera stage. "I thought," she added, "that that picture pic-ture looked sort of like stage scenery but I couldn't see through it at all. And there's a glass on the front of It as well as on the back, so I don't believe he can bear." It still seemed rather incredible even after Martin knew how the trick was done. There was a thin screen of theatrical gauze between the two plates of glass. You could see it was painted since it wasn't equally transparent trans-parent all over, and the strong cross-lighting cross-lighting from just above the frame, which accounted no doubt for the curious filtered look of the light In the observation post, would be enough to prevent anything being seen through it, unless there was a light back here. He checked his impulse to ask Rhoda what she'd been doing for hours and hours in the room they were looking into and what she meant by saying that Conley had always come in at the right time. What his mind fastened upon was her conclusion that Forster's bodyguard, stationed here where his eye could command the whole room, was not able to hear what the actors In the scenes he watched were saying. If that were true the converse was probably true also, that Forster wouldn't be able to hear any ordinary sounds. "He must to a timorous old rabbit of a rascal," he remarked, re-marked, rather low but In his natural voice. Rhoda was rather startled at this and admonished him to be careful, but she smiled in agreement with his characterization char-acterization of Forster. And when she saw that Martin's voice hadn't reached the old man's ears, she said In a tone that matched his, "He thought for a minute this afternoon that I'd come up to shoot him; made me take my hands out of my pockets. And Conley was In the room through that little door down there almost before I'd had time to do It. Only I don't see," she added, "why he wouldn't want him to listen as well as look." "I think I do," Martin told her. "The poor old goat lives in terror of physical violence, you see. I imagine he's something some-thing of a crook. He must have to have lots of talks with people he's t fTM 1. He'd Never Gagged Anybody Before. afraid to be left alone with. Well, a spy who could hear everything they said would have pretty good hold on the old man if ever he wanted to use it. Blackmail, don't you see? But he can watch from up here, ready to come in if he sees anybody make a pass at him, without ever knowing what it's all about." Forster startled them both by a swift glance straight in their direction direc-tion and a perceptible motion of the head that must have some sort of signal. They both started back precipitately, pre-cipitately, and Rhoda collided with the table, which moved with a protesting protest-ing grunt much louder than their voices had been. "It's all right," Rhoda said, "he didn't hear." "We'll soon hear something, though," Martin said very quietly in her ear. "Conley will be coming to, down there in the closet. We'd better beat It out of here while we have a chance." He was at the foot of the little flight of stairs before he realized she wasn't following. Conley was by now well along the road to recovering consciousness. conscious-ness. In another minute he might again be formidable. Turning back impatiently to learn why Rhoda didn't come, he saw her gazing out through the glass with the utmost intentness, bright-eyed with excitement, utterly oblivious to their pressing need for haste. "Hurry!" he called. "It will be too late of you don't." She answered without turning her eyes away from wdiatever she was gazing gaz-ing at In the room. "I can't. Something's" Some-thing's" happening that I've got to watch. Claire Cleveland's in there with him." If Martin could have been sure that he dared leave the prostrate detective alone long enough to dash back, pick Rhoda up and carry her out by force, he would probably have done it. He'd have liked to do it. He was furious with her just then. But already Conley Con-ley had rolled over prone and was trying to get to his feet. Martin had just time to bestride him and drop liard with both knees on the small of the man's back. In almost the same instant he snatched his wrists and pulled around so that they crossed behind be-hind his back. Conley's head hit the edge of the step pretty hard, and he went limp once more. "I've got him now," Martin called to Rhoda. "Only for heaven's sake come along." "I can't," she answered. Incredibly in the next breath she added, "I wish you wouldn't keep talking to me." If she wouldn't come along he must manage to find out what she was doing do-ing up there. So:;ie vague memory, probably of the movies, suggested an expedient. Holding the crossed wrists with one hand he unbuckled the man's trousers belt with the other, pulled it through the loops :'iid mannced. after a little experimenting, to bind Conley's Con-ley's arms together in a way tl.nt he thought would hold. lie was about to leave him thus when a faint groan suggested another necessity, and simultaneously the sight of a white silk mutiler dangling from the pocket of one of the overcoats hanging in the closet suggested the means of serving It. He'd never gagged anybody before and wasn't quite sure how it was done, but he succeeded In getting several folds of the thick silk between the relaxed jaws, and tied the ends tight at the back of the man's neek. Then he sprang up the steps to Rhoda and stood beside her, looking out through the glass at the scene she was so absorbed ab-sorbed In watching. (TO B9 OO.VTLNUEO |