Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/70

 Our man on board Laminian, bound Puerto Locombia. Wire Washington. Will have him held by authorities to await instructions. The operator put the message on the table and calmly weighted it with his carborundum box. The other man suddenly realised, as he made note of McKinnon's attitude of unmoved neutrality, how automatic the human mind can become; how, when once immersed in the method of doing a thing, it can lose all sense of the thing itself. The man of the key had seen nothing but a string of words to be "sent." It was only too apparent that their meaning had escaped him.

"I suppose I've got to explain that," said the stranger, fondling one of his thick, short cigars in his thick, short fingers. "You'll notice that this message went to 60 Wall Street. You may or may not know that that's the Information Bureau of the Consolidated Fruit Concern. And if you've knocked about the Banana Belt long enough you've found out that those people just about own those little yam-eating republics down there.

McKinnon nodded as a sign that he understood.

"They've got a good many millions of money locked up in that export business o' theirs. And