Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/195

Rh He got up and started for number seventeen. The girl who waited there was very charming and attractive—but what did he know about her? What did she want with this money? He paused. This other girl came from Hal Bentley, a friend of friends. And she claimed to have every right to this precious package. What were her exact words?

Why not wait until morning? Perhaps, in the cold gray dawn, he would see more clearly his way through this preposterous tangle. Anyhow, it would be dangerous to give into any woman's keeping just then a package so earnestly sought by desperate men. Yes, he would wait until morning. That was the only reasonable course.

Reasonable? That was the word he used. A knight prating of the reasonable!

Mr. Magee unlocked the door of number seven and entered. Lighting his candles and prodding the fire, he composed a note to the waiting girl in seventeen:

"Everything all right. Sleep peacefully. I am on the job. Will see you to-morrow. Mr.—Billy.