"Not that your answer will make any difference," Worth cut in joyously.
"n.o.body need get the idea that they can take this suitcase away from me--"cause they can"t. It"s mine. I paid eight hundred thousand dollars for this box; and I"ve got a use for it." He chuckled. Louie regarded him with uncomprehending toleration--queer doings were the order of the day at the Gold Nugget--and allowed negligently.
"You"ll get to keep it. It don"t belong here." Then, as a coin changed hands, "Thank _you_."
"But didn"t it ever belong here?" our girl persisted forlornly, and when Louie failed her, jingling Worth"s tip in his calloused palm, she wanted the women asked, and we had a frowsy chambermaid called who denied any acquaintance with our sole leather discovery, insisting, upon definite inquiry, that she had never seen it in Skeels" room, or any other room of her domain. Little Miss Wallace sighed and dropped the subject.
As we stepped out of the elevator, I behind the others, Kite caught my attention with a low whistle, and in response to a furtive, beckoning, backward jerk of his head, I moved over to the desk. The reading gentlemen in the easy chairs, most consciously unconscious of us, sent blue smoke circles above their papers. Kite leaned far over to get his mustache closer to my ear.
"You ast me about Steve," he whispered.
"Yeah," I agreed, and looked around for Barbara, to tell her here was her chance to meet the gentleman she had so cleverly deduced. But she and Worth were already getting through the door, he still clinging to the suitcase, she trailing along with that expression of defeat. "I"m sort of looking up Steve. And you don"t want to tip him off--see?"
"Couldn"t if I wanted to, Jerry," the Kite came down on his heels, but continued to whisper hoa.r.s.ely. "Steve"s bolted."
"What?"
"Bolted," the Kite repeated. "Hopped the twig. Jumped the town."
"You mean he"s not in his room?" I reached for a match in the metal holder, scratched it, and lit my cigar.
"I mean he"s jumped the town," Kite repeated. "You got me nervous asking for him that way. While you was on the roof, I took a squint around and found he was gone--with his hand baggage. That means he"s gone outa town."
"Not if the suitcase you squinted for was a brown sole leather--" I was beginning, but the Kite cut in on me.
"I seen that one you had. That wasn"t it. His was a brand new one, black and shiny."
Suddenly I couldn"t taste my cigar at all.
"Know what time to-day he left here?" I asked.
"It wasn"t to-day. "Twas yestiddy. About one o"clock."
As I plunged for the door I was conscious of his hoa.r.s.e whisper following me,
"What"s Steve done, Jerry? What d"ye want him for?"
I catapulted across the sidewalk and into the machine.
"Get me to my office as fast as you can, Worth," I exclaimed. "Hit Bush Street--and rush it."
CHAPTER VIII
A TIN-HORN GAMBLER
After we were in the machine, my head was so full of the matter in hand that Worth had driven some little distance before I realized that the young people were debating across me as to which place we went first, Barbara complaining that she was hungry, while Worth ungallantly eager to give his own affairs immediate attention, argued,
"You said the dining-room out at your diggings would be closed by this time. Why not let me take you down to the Palace, along with Jerry, have this suitcase safely locked up, and we can all lunch together and get ahead with our talk."
"Drive to the office, Worth," I cut in ahead of Barbara"s objections to this plan. "I ought to be there this minute. We"ll have a tray in from a little joint that feeds me when I"m too busy to go out for grub."
I took them straight into my private office at the end of the suite.
"Make yourself comfortable," I said to Miss Wallace. "Better let me lock up that suitcase, Worth; stick it in the vault. That"s evidence."
"I"ll hang on to it." He grinned. "You can keep the rope and hook. This has got another use before it can be evidence."
Not even delaying to remove my coat, I laid a heavy finger on the buzzer b.u.t.ton for Roberts, my secretary; then as nothing resulted, I played music on the other signal tips beneath the desk lid. It was Sunday, also luncheon hour, but there must be some one about the place.
It never was left entirely empty.
My fugue work brought little Pete, and Murray, one of the men from the operatives" room.
"Where"s Roberts?" I asked the latter.
"He went to lunch, Mr. Boyne."
"Where"s Foster?" Foster was chief operative.
"He telephoned in from Redwood City half an hour ago. Chasing a Clayte clue down the peninsula."
"If he calls up again, tell him to report in at once. Is there a stenographer about?"
"Not a one; Sunday, you know."
"Can you take dictation?"
"Me? Why, no, sir."
"Then dig me somebody who can. And rush it. I"ve--"
"Perhaps I might help." It was little Miss Wallace who spoke; about the first cheerful word I"d heard out of her since we found that suitcase on the roof of the Gold Nugget. "I can take on the machine fairly."
"Fine!" I tossed my coat on the big center table. "Murray, send Roberts to me as soon as he comes in. You take number two trunk line, and find two of the staff--quick; any two. Shoot them to the Gold Nugget Hotel."
I explained the situation in a word. Then, as he was closing the door, "Keep off Number One trunk, Murray; I"ll be using that line," and I turned to little Pete.
"Get lunch for three," I said, handing him a bill. From his first glance at Barbara one could have seen that the monkey was hers truly, as they say at the end of letters. I knew as he bolted out that he felt something very special ought to be dug up for such a visitor.
The girl had shed coat and hat and was already fingering the keys of the typewriter, trying their touch. I saw at once she knew her business, and I turned to the work at hand with satisfaction.
"You"ll find telegram blanks there somewhere," I instructed. "Get as many in for manifold copies as you can make readable. The long form.
Worth--"
I looked around to find that my other amateur a.s.sistant was following my advice, stowing his precious suitcase in the vault; and it struck me that he couldn"t have been more tickled with the find if the thing had contained all the money and securities instead of that rope and hook. He had made the latter into a separate package, and now looked up at me with,
"Want this in here, too, Jerry?"