Was there a link between that circumstance and the long delay which Lanyard
had suffered in the telephone booth? Had the Knickerbocker operator been
less stupid and negligent than she seemed? Was the truth of the matter that
Crane had surmised Lanyard would attempt communication with the Brooke girl
and had set a watch on the switchboard for the call?
Assuming that the Secret Service man had been clever enough for that,
it was not difficult to understand that Lanyard had purposely been kept
dangling at the other end of the wire till the call could be traced back to
its source and a messenger despatched from the nearest Western Union office
with instructions to follow the man who left the booth, and report his name
and local habitation.
Sharp work, if these inferences were reasonable. And, satisfied that
they were, Lanyard inclined to accord increased respect to the detective
abilities of the American.
But this note, this hurried, unsigned scrawl of five unintelligible words:
what the deuce did it mean?
On the evidence of the handwriting a woman had penned it.
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