Part 10 (1/2)

”If you don't deliver it in five minutes,” declared the officer, ”I shall call the American consul!”

The official made no reply.

”You can read this code, I suppose?” he asked of Ned.

”Certainly.”

”Well, I'll communicate with the manager, and if he says it is all right I'll give you the message and take your receipt for it. Will that answer?”

”It must, I suppose,” replied the officer.

The obdurate official left the room.

”Gee, but it's close in here!” Jimmie declared, in a moment. ”Seems like a hop joint in Pell street.”

”There is opium in the air,” the officer said. ”See if you can find a window.”

Jimmie found a window opening on a large court and lifted the lower sash. Then he called to Ned.

”I don't like the looks of this,” he said. ”If they should try to hold us here, what?”

”They won't do that.”

”Oh, they won't tie us up, I guess,” said the little fellow, ”but they may delay our departure.”

”Go on,” smiled Ned.

”An' communicate with the ginks that have been chasing us ever since we left the submarine,” concluded the boy.

”In time, Jimmie,” Ned answered, ”you may even get into the thinking row. I have been wondering ever since we came in here if we were not with enemies instead of friends.”

”I can soon find out,” declared Jimmie.

”Yes? How, may I ask?”

”I'll rush out into the other room an' try to get to the street. If there's anythin' in the notion we have, they'll turn me back.”

”You might try that,” smiled Ned, and the officer clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder and declared that he was a ”brick.”

So Jimmie hustled out into the front office. The listeners heard sharp words, and then a slight scuffling of feet. Then next instant the boy was pushed back through the doorway.

”What is the trouble?” asked the marine of the a.s.sistant, whose flushed face showed in the half-open doorway.

”You'll all have to be identified before you can leave here,” was the curt reply. ”You have asked for important state dispatches, and we want to know what your motive is.”

”My motive is to get them,” replied Ned, coolly.

”Wait until you prove your right to them,” said the other, and the door was slammed shut. Ned stepped back to the window and looked out into the court. The walls were four stories high, and there seemed to be no pa.s.sage out of the box-like place. The officer suggested that he force his way through the outer office and reach the American consul, but Ned did not approve of this. He thought there must be some other way. Then a hint of that other way came from the court in the call of an owl.