Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/149



waited until the chamber-maid had finished putting his newly acquired room to rights. He waited still another moment or two until he heard the click of her pass-key in a room farther down the hall. Then he locked the door with its safety-latch, opened his suit-case and from it lifted out a coil of insulated wire, a dry-cell little bigger than a cigarette case, and a telephonic helmet made up of a band of spring-steel with two small watch-case receivers attached to its ends. Then he went to the window, opened it, and from an awning hook on the outside unwound the loose ends of two insulated wires.

These he drew in over the sill, shutting the window down on them and carefully connecting them with the ends of wire which he had taken from his suit-case. Having drawn down the window-blinds, he switched on the electric lights, swung an arm chair about, so that his back would be to the electrolier, and placed on the table beside him a pile of morning papers and a copy of the "Isle of Penguins."

He next adjusted the helmet to his head, fitting the microphones over his ears. He seated himself in his chair, with one knee crooked leisurely over the leather-covered arm. Thereupon he took out a cigar, lighted it, and lay back in his chair calmly and contentedly