Page:Arthur Stringer - The Under Groove.djvu/159

 big office to measure wire trouble, a condenser, a one-half duplex set, dry batteries, a key and sounder, and a few yards of number twelve wire. The relay was attached to two wires covered with green insulating tape. These wires dropped from the table-edge, trailed across the back of the room, and disappeared through the window-sash at the rear of the building. I had my own suspicions as to just where they ran after that; and by hook or crook, it was my duty to verify these suspicions.

"Has anything gone through yet?" asked Mahler, swinging round the table.

"The scratches and jockeys and weights went through for the Jamaica events," answered the man, cleaning the nerve-drills. "They're on the card there!" Then he went on with his work.

Both Miron and Mahler bent over the card, studying it. I indulged in a careful scrutiny of the room as they did so. Then both men looked up together, for the doorbell had rung. A sense of suspense filled the place.

A moment later, a very warm and excited-looking young man had stepped inside. He seemed little more than a youth of twenty-one, open-faced, clear-eyed, well-nurtured, and strangely out of place in that thick and grimy atmosphere. He wore a scarab pin and gold