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Show The Scaled Trunk By Henry Kitchell Webster Copyrlf ht by The Bobbt-MerrUI C. WNU Service would be to walk op to the desk and ask the clerk. But Instinctively Instinc-tively be shied at that Forster was do ordinary transient guest here, A man as rich as he was, and permanent! domiciled here, would have special defenses. Too wouldn't be able to mention his name without starting something. The better way would be to drift Into casual talk with somebody, a bellhop or the girl who sold theater thea-ter tickets, lead up to bis question and ask It Idly. But It wasn't so easy as It looked, to frame that question so It would sound casual. And if he failed. If his question roused suspicion, sus-picion, he'd be worse off than if he'd gone straight to the clerk In the first place. Ills gaze was questing about the lobby, noting everything that everybody did, studying faces In the hope of finding one dull and friendly and unsuspicious enough to suit his purpose. The man who bad Just come down In one of the elevators and now stood talking to the cuptalo hadn't a face like that; very much the contrary. In fad, bleak and rocky as a chunk of the great American desert and he talked as If be were biting oil the heads of finishing nails. Martin stared ot him, regardless of the risk of catching his eye, until, un-til, In his own mind's eye, he had put a derby hat on his bead and a brown overcoat on bis back and a little leather notebook In his band, and recognized him. lie was the "Conley'a expecting a reporter around here In a few minutes, a reporter re-porter from the Dally News who's trying to find out about ,the disappearance disap-pearance of a girl, lie had you laid off because he thought you knew something about her." "1 dont know anything, about any girl that's dlsapiea,red," protested pro-tested the boy. "Say,' who are you?" "I'm the reporter Conley'a expecting ex-pecting In about fifteen minutes. Didn't you see a girl a red haired girl? Didn't you answer some questions of hers or take her somewhere?" some-where?" ' "Sure I" enld the boy. "Forster was expecting her. 1 took her up to the top floor, to the private elevator. ele-vator. Conley ran her up from there." "How do you know Forster expected ex-pected her?" Martin asked. "Because we ran her right up the minute she gave her name. Miss White, It was. She didn't know Forster owned the hotel and she seemed sort of scared; when she found she was going up to that bungalow of his on the roof. Con-ley Con-ley came down In the private elevator ele-vator to take ber np." "What time was this?" "I don't know," said the boy. "This afternoon sometime. Say, do you think they're keeping her up there?" Martin nodded. He hadn't thought so until a moment ago. But a bungalow on the roof offered opportunities. "I'm going up to see If she's there, anyhow." "How you going to get In?" th a. j a iini.A t CHAPTER X-Continued ' 11 ' "Get out of here I" be said. "Ill ' make It worth your while to talk to me some other time, If you get out now before my uncle finds you here.? ; For an Instant she stared np at , him blankly, the realization break ing over ber that be didn't know she'd already seen bis uncle; that be thought she was voluntarily waiting for him. "All right," she said, "I'll go. But you'U have to show me the way out" , He didn't altogether release ber, but bis grip on ber aim relaxed as he started leading ber toward the door she had come In by. Halfway Half-way to It they were halted by Con-ley's Con-ley's volca He bad come In by one of the smaller doors. Conley came up to them briskly. "Let the girl alone," he continued. "She's no affair of yours. Mr. Forster wants her to wait here." Now Max did let go her arm, but It wasn't In obedience to Con ley's order. "Lay off It," be said. "You aren't In on this. The young lady's a friend of mine and now she's badly, and I dont know why. He's been advertising for her, and somehow some-how or other has managed to find ber." Babe asked rather tensely bow be knew. "It was Forster," be told her. "who brought you two down to work this morning In his limousine. Where did be pick you up. Just as yon were leaving the building here?" She answered with a nod. "I guess It's my fault, If anything"! happened," she said, pretty humbly for Babe. "I know bow be found her, all right Yon see, I answered an-swered his ad myself. He telephoned tele-phoned one in, the morning after Max had brought me home. Max bad asked me that night If ber real name wasn't Rhoda McFarland. I took the ad over the phone and got Forster's name and address. I'd tried to get Red to answer It the night before, but she wouldn't It said 'something to her advantage,' and I thought It probably was. So I called him np at lunch time at the Worcester and told him If be'd write her a letter, cars of me. I'd laiKea xo me sne aoesn i want to aee C. J." Conley agreed with a grin, "I guess she doesn't But she don't leave this room until the boss comes back." Glancing np at Max, Rhoda could see that that word, "back" troubled him, though be hadn't yet made out the Implication in It Rhoda started for the door, and she kept on going, though Conley barked at her, "Come back here, you I" She was aware that Max Interposed to check Conley's rush for ber. The last thing she heard before she closed the door after her was the thud of a heavy blow, and she Inferred from the fact that she wasn't Immediately pursued and dragged back, that the recipient recipi-ent of It must have been Conley. She walked It seemed safer somehow than breaking into a run down the broad corridor and around the corner, retracing her way In, although It was a stairway she hoped to find rather than the elevator. However, by almost unbelievable un-believable good luck, she found the elevator there waiting for her, with both Its own door and the outer forward It to her. I dldnt see how that gave her away, but It must have, somehow. I suppose you'd like to beat me up for butting In like that" He patted her shoulder Instead. "It's no use worrying about that now," he said. "I'm glad you told me. It's between him and the Cleveland Cleve-land woman, then. They are fighting fight-ing earl) other, that's one good thing. But one of them has got her. somehow. If that bad been a plain broken connection she'd have called again. ..." The telephone bell Interrupted him. Babe was nearest and caught np the Instrument before he could get to It. "Red I" she cried. "Is that your But It wasn't Rhoda, Babe was looking rather puzzled. "No," Martin Mar-tin heard her say. "She hasn't come back yet. We're expecting her. . . . This Is her friend. Babe Jennings. Say, who Is this?" Martin started over to take the telephone away from ber, but she clung to It, pressing the mouthpiece tight against her chest "Martini" she cried excitedly, "I WJ WBUteu lu auuw. liic jiivaii elevator's locked np except when they run It themselves. The only stair except the service stair comes down Into Forster's office on the top floor. That's all locked up now." "How about the Ore escape?" Martin asked. The boy's face lighted at this suggestion, but chiefly, Martin was disappointed to discover In admiration ad-miration of the reporter's nerve In contemplating It. "There's a fire escape landing outside the window right at the end of the corridor on the top floor. And there's a steel ladder goes up from there that curves over a sort of stone railing at the edge of the main root That ladder must be pretty scary, climbing right op over the edge of nothing." It may be confessed that It struck Martin that way. But all he said was that it looked like the best bet He shook hands with the boy and walked away, with the best air of unconcern he could assume, as-sume, to the elevators. "A 8 far as you go," he said In response to en Inquiring glance from the elevator boy. He hoped the phrase would conceal his ignorance ig-norance of the actual number of the top floor, and It did. He perceived, per-ceived, though, that even the briefest brief-est hesitation on his part when he stepped out of the elevator at the top would be fatal to his plan. The boy would ask him whose room he was looking for. He must choose In advance which way to turn. Very well, he'd turn to the right. It seemed at first that he had made a disastrously bad guess, for he found himself walking straight toward a transverse partition of glass and oak with a door In the middle of it marked "C. J. Forster." For-ster." The door was sjnr and there was a light Inside, The elevator ele-vator hadn't started down. The boy was certainly watching him. The only thing he could possibly do was to push open the door and walk In and see what happened i ll. A. His Gaze Was Questing About the Lobby. man who bad come to the studio last night, getting names for the new city directory. And this Identification Iden-tification led on so quickly to another an-other that It was like firing the second barrel of a shotgun. This was the man whose voice he had Just now been trying to remember, the man on the telephone who had been pretending be was Forster. It seemed a reasonable guess that the tustructions Blue Serge was giving the captain were that any reporter or other lnqulsltlvo person asking questions about C J. Forster or trying to get through to him was to be dealt with In a special manner. Satisfied that the captain understood under-stood these Instructions, whatever they were, Blue Serge left him and crossed the lobby to the desk. Here guara gate standing wide open. There was no attendant there. It was one ot thos6 mysterious little lit-tle elevators you were supposed to run yourself. She, swiftly scrutinized scruti-nized the little row of push buttons, and pressed the one marked . "Down." There was a faint protesting pro-testing buzz, but nothing hap- pened. In less desperate haste she might have reflected that an automatic auto-matic elevator which could descend its shaft while its guard gate stood open would be a veritable deathtrap, death-trap, but on the verge of panic as she was she couldn't think at all. Then she heard a door open somewhere and stepped back Into the corridor, poised for flight but not knowing which way to flee. A Tlg, booming voice swept over her and, even before she consciously recognized It or took any meaning i from what It said, all but paralyzed her with childish terror. ilium it a (.iic Tviruiciu u i imq niauuu , the Cleveland woman! Listen, and see If she sounds like she did when yon telephoned to her this afternoon." He'd been motioning to her frantically fran-tically to take the transmitter away. "She can hear every word you say when you hold It like that Talk to her I Ask her where she Is. Give me the receiver so I can hear what she says." But all he was In time to hear was 'the click of disconnection. Claire had hung np on them. "Well," Martin remarked as he himself hung up, "thanks to that chest trick of yours she knows how we framed her and Max this afternoon. aft-ernoon. But she hasn't got Rhoda or she wouldn't have called up here to ask for her. That mokes the Worcester our best bet I'm going go-ing there now and try to find her. You stick tight yon understand "... Very well. But I warn you, yon are making a serious mis- 1 take. I shall find her In spite of you, and if necessary, in spite of 1 ' herself. She Is a minor and I am her guardian in effect at any rate. Her interests are In my hands and I shall protect them." It was six years since she had heard those heavy menacing tones. It was her uncle, William Royce the ogre I She fled now, as a child would, I running blindly down one corridor, op another, turning corners at random. ran-dom. There must be a stairway somewhere. She was Just getting over this panic and beginning to try to feel ashamed of it when it was renewed re-newed by the sound of heavy and, to her ears, ogrelsh footsteps coming com-ing briskly along the transverse corner which she was approaching. " She was passing, at the Instant, a door which stood ajar. Instinctively Instinc-tively she pushed it open and stepped Into the room it gave upon. The room was dark, but she per celved at once It wasn't empty, since a woman's silhouette was visible against one of the windows. The woman hadn't heard her come In : -I. - t.1 to that telephone so that you can answer the second she calls, If she does call again." With that he snatched his hat and fled. Fifteen minutes Inter, In a telephone tele-phone booth In the lobby of the Worcester hotel, he looked up Forster's Fors-ter's number and telephoned from there. When a man's voice answered with a "Hello? Who Is this?" he said that he was a reporter from the News and he wanted a personal Interview In-terview with Mr. 0. J. Forster. The rather surprising ' answer came back, "This Is Mr. Forster speaking. speak-ing. What was it you wanted to speak to me about?" Ap&rt from the fact that you wouldn't have expected Forster to answer his own phone, there were two queer things about this. The rhythm of his talk wasn't right The man wasn't speaking for himself. him-self. He was being prompted. That meant of course, that he wosn't Forster, but was Impersonating Imperson-ating him under orders from some one else. The other strange thing was that his voice was one that Martin holt recognized; felt, at least that be ought to be able to recognize. his business was not with the clerk but with the manager, who promptly prompt-ly came out of his little private office of-fice to talk with him. The manager mana-ger was taking orders, too, with an alertness which showed be recognized rec-ognized their Importance. Leaving the desk and a completely complete-ly Instructed manager behind It the man In the blue serge suit now started across the lobby In a new direction; one that would bring him, unless be veered off, uncomfortably uncom-fortably close to Martin's chair. But before this embarrassment became be-came acute he was diverted by one of the bellboys who crossed his path. The boy seemed perfectly unaware of hi in, but Blue Serge, after a sharp look, turned on his heel and went back to the desk, summoned the manager again, brought him out into the lobby a little way, and nodded after the boy. Then he went off and disappeared disap-peared into en elevator. The manager, returning to his office, paused for a word to the bell captain. The bell captain spoke to the boy Blue Serge had pointed out The boy, with a look of surprise, went into the manager's mana-ger's office to come out again a minute or two later flushed, indlg- Mam an1 u-fthat nyrfiimiHwr r n , Biter UJUU Nothing happened. A sense that he had no time to waste all hut betrayed him Into a mistake. The project that was on the rails of his mind was the one he'd come up in the elevator with, namely, to get out the window at the end of the corridor onto the fire escape, and he bad his hand on the knob when the thought of something else halted halt-ed blm. The helpful bellboy who had remembered Rhoda had spoken of a stairway leading from the office of-fice up Into Forster's apartment He turned back at once and started start-ed through the suite of offices looking for It When be saw It going boldly op from the second room he entered evidently the stenographers' room, since there were four typewriter type-writer desks In it his first thought was that this was too easy to be true,t it wasn't as easy as It looked, however, for he found at the head of it a solid mahogany door locked. It would take a competent com-petent burglar with a full set of tools to get in through that door, he thought despairingly. He gained one advantage, though, from Its solidity. There would be no harm in making a light and his cigarette lighter and struck a light There were two small pieces of electricnl apparatus screwed to the wall above the door. One of them be recognized as an electric buzzer, and this, as he thought 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 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 tbe stenographers' room It seemed a reasonable Inference 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 oflic hours? No, Forster would want tc feel better guarded against lntru-8ln lntru-8ln than that TO BE CONTINUED ! moved. But the footsteps which had frightened Rhoda were now Just outside the door and pausing there. The man was coming In too. She wasn't cornered yet however, for another door communicating with . tbe adjoining room stood open, too, ; and she retreated through it Just before the man switched on the light. The next moment she heard Max Lewis demanding angrily, "What the devil are you doing here?" He hadn't seen her, though; he was speaking to the woman. CHAPTER XI To the Rescue. BABE and Martin stood staring at each other across a dead telephone. . "What do you suppose made her voice sound to funny?" Babe asked. "Sure It was hers, are you?" he shot at ber. "Oh," cried Babe disgustedly, "don't 1 know Red's voice? Look here, have you really got anything on your miud, or are you just generally gen-erally cuckoo about her, I mean?" "I've got that Cleveland woman jn my mind," he answered, "and a man named C. J. Forster, who wants to get bold of ber pretty "I don't much want to talk about It over the telephone," Martin said, and then added casually "and I don't believe you do, either." Evidently they whoever they were at the other end had to go Into conference over this remark, for It produced quite a silence. Finally the man who said he was Forster asked, "Who are you? What's your name?" On Martin's telling him he said: "If you've really got anything to say you can have your Interview. But you'll have to tell me what It's about" "It's about' said Martin, "the disappearance of Miss Rhoda McFariand. Mc-Fariand. Do I get my Interview V There was a long silence at that Evidently they were having an argument ar-gument about It. I "Nothing doing," the voice said at last "I don't know that she's disappeared. I don't know that there's any such person." "You don't want to say, then, why you've been advertising for her?" The only answer he got to that question was a click which meant that the other receiver had been slammed down on the book. So Martin bung up, too, and left tbe booth.. The first thing to find out was the number of Forster's apartment, and of course, the obvious way sled. Something bad happened to him that he seemed utterly at a loss to account for; discipline, evidently, evi-dently, that be felt to be undeserved. unde-served. He was coming along slowly In Martin's direction. That was luck. - But it wasn't until the boy was In the act of passing his chair that the significance of the little play clicked Into a pattern in the reporter's re-porter's mind. That boy had seen something. He possessed, probably without suspecting It some piece of damaging information, and they'd taken measures to prevent his giving that Information away. Martin rose from his chair Just when bis doing so Intercepted the boy's progress toward the door. "I guess you're looking for me," he said. The boy stopped in surprise and answered, "I'm not looking for anybody, any-body, that I know ot What made you think I was looking for you?" Martin took the plunge. "If they Just laid you off." he said, "I think I can tell you why they did. Who's the hatchet-faced man In the blue serge suit who works for Forster? He pointed you out to the manager just now." "Do you mean Conley? I haven't done anything to him. Say, who are you? How do you know they laid me off?" |
