He glanced down to make sure that he had not left any tracks on the floor
and was glad he had not worn his boots. Then he snapped off the light,
went out, and left the door swinging and banging as it had been before.
If he learned no more, at least he was paid for the trip.
He went straight to the rear door of the building, taking no pains to
conceal his footsteps. The wind, he knew, would brush them out completely
with the sand and dust it sent swirling around the yard with every gust.
As he had hoped, the door was not bolted but locked with a key, so he let
himself in with one of the pass keys he carried for just such work as
this. He felt at the windows and saw that the blinds were down, and
turned on his light.
The place had all the greasy dinginess of the ordinary print shop. The
presses were here, and the motor that operated them. Being a bi-weekly
and not having much job printing to do, it was evident that _Las Nuevas_
did not work overtime. Things were cleaned up for the night and ready for
the next day's work. It all looked very commonplace and as innocent as
the paper it produced.
Starr went on slowly, examining the forms, the imperfect first proofs of
circulars and placards that had been placed on hook files. AVISO! stared
up at him in big, black type from the top of many small sheets, with the
following notices of sales, penalties attached for violations of certain
ordinances, and what not. But there was nothing that should not be there,
nothing that could be construed as seditionary in any sense of the word.
Still, some person or persons connected with this place had found it
expedient to change four perfectly good and quite expensive tires for
four new and perfectly commonplace ones, and the only explanation
possible was that the distinctive tread of the expensive ones had been
observed. There must, Starr reasoned, be something else in this place
which it would be worth his while to discover. He therefore went
carefully up the grimy stairway to the rooms above.
These were offices of the comfortless type to be found in small towns.
Bare floors, stained with tobacco juice and the dust of the street.
Bare desks and tables, some of them unpainted, homemade affairs, all
of them cheap and old. A stove in the larger office, a few
wooden-seated armchairs. Starr took in the details with a flick here
and there of his flashlight that he kept carefully turned away from the
green-shaded windows.
News items, used and unused, he found impaled on desk files. Bills paid
and unpaid he found also. But in the first search he found nothing
else, nothing that might not be found in any third-rate newspaper
establishment. He stood in the middle room--there were three in a row,
with an empty, loft-like room behind--and considered where else he
could search.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account