Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/367

 "Trust Keudell for that!"

"But he didn't see my message—he couldn't have seen it. I even folded it before I handed it over to the operator. And I watched him take it back to his desk. There wasn't a moment when that old man could have seen or read a word of it."

"And he was still in the office when yuh left?"

"Yes, he was still there. I remember that."

Sadie's laugh was not altogether a happy one.

"And he sat there, of course, waitin' for his own message from Mount Clements. And bein' able to read Morse, he sat there until the operator sent out our message. And that means he sat and read ev'ry word of it as it went on the wire."

Sadie got up from the bed and went listlessly back to her seat at the center of the room.

"I thought something had stirred up that bunch o' rubbernecks. They're hep to the fact that things aren't quite right. The Lord only knows how much they've got wise to. But there's one thing we've gotta face. And that's the fact that Keudell knows I'm in this burg!"

"Will that make—any difference?"

"That's up to me to find out. But there's times when it don't pay to advertise. They don't know;