Part 31 (2/2)

”Oh, my dear, and so you are to follow my job. Well, I wish you joy, sweetie. Tell Papa Trubus that I'll be back after lunch time for my check. And keep your lamps rolling on the old gink and he'll raise your salary once a month. He's not such a dead one if he is strong on this charity game. Life with Trubus is just one telephone girl after another ... ta, ta, dearie. I'm off stage.”

And she departed, leaving simple Mary decidedly mystified by her diatribe.

A few minutes brought another diversion. This time it was Sylvia Trubus and Ralph Gresham, her fiance, come for a call.

”Is my father in?” she asked, absorbed in the well groomed, selfish young man. Mary rang the private bell and announced Miss Trubus. Her father hurried to the door, and when he saw his prospective son-in-law his face wreathed in smiles.

”Ah, Mr. Gresham, Ralph, I might say, I am delighted! Come right in!”

Mary was startled as she heard the name of the young girl's sweetheart.

”I'm afraid that she will not be as happy as she thinks, if daddy has told me right about Ralph Gresham. But, oh, if I could hear something from Bobbie about Lorna. I believe I will call him up.”

She was just summoning the courage for a private call when the private office door opened, and Gresham, Sylvia, her mother and Trubus emerged.

”I will return in ten minutes, Miss,” said Trubus. ”If there are any calls just take a record of them. Allow no one to go into my private office.”

”Yes, sir.”

Mary waited patiently for a few moments, when suddenly a telephone bell began to jangle inside the private office.

”That's curious,” she murmured, looking at her own key-board. ”There's no connection.” Again she heard it, insistent, yet m.u.f.fled.

She walked to the door and opened it. As she did so the wind blew in from the open cas.e.m.e.nt, making a strong draught. Half a dozen papers blew from Trubus' desk to the floor. Frightened lest her inquisitiveness should cause trouble, Mary hurriedly stooped and picked up the papers, carrying them back to the desk. As she leaned over it she noticed a curious little metal box, gla.s.s-covered. Under this gla.s.s an automatic pencil was writing by electrical connection.

”What on earth can that be?” she wondered. The bell tinkled, in its m.u.f.fled way, once more.

The moving pencil went on. She watched it, fascinated, even at the risk of being caught, hardly realizing that she was doing what might be termed a dishonorable act.

”Paid Sawyer $250. Girl safe, but still unconscious.”

Mary's heart beat suddenly. The thought of her own sister was so burdensome upon her own mind that the mention by this mysterious communication of a girl, ”safe but still unconscious,” strung her nerves as though with an electric shock. She leaned over the little recording instrument, which was built on a hinged shelf that could be cunningly swung into the desk body, and covered with a false front. As she did so she saw a curious little instrument, shaped somewhat like the receiver of a telephone receiver. Mary's experience with her father's work told her what that instrument was.

”A dictagraph!” she exclaimed.

Instinctively she picked it up, and heard a conversation which was so startling in its import to herself that her heart seemed to congeal for an instant.

”I tell you, Jack, the girl is still absolutely out of it. We can risk s.h.i.+pping her anywhere the way she is now. I chloroformed her in the auto as soon as we got away from the candy store. But that Burke nearly had us, for I saw him coming.”

”You will have to dispose of her to-day, Shepard. Give her some strong coffee--a good stiff needleful of cocaine will bring her around. Do something, that's all, or you don't get a red cent of the remaining three hundred. Now, I'm a busy man. You'll have to talk louder, too, my hearing isn't what it used to be.”

”Say, Clemm, quit this kidding about your ears. I've tried you out and you can hear better than I can. There's some game you're working on me and if there is, I'll....”

”Can the tragedy, Shepard. Save it for that famous whipping stunt of yours. Beat this girl up a bit, and tell me where she is.”

”I'll do that in an hour, and not a minute sooner, and I've got to have the other three hundred.”

Mary dropped the receiver. She wanted to know where that conversation could come from. Down the side of the desk she traced a delicate wire.

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