He was alongside her now; he could risk a glance toward the door. He looked, and his heart rejoiced inside of him, for the messenger had swung about, as had half a dozen others, all arrested by the harshness of his words--and the messenger was staring at him. Marr gave the correct signal--with quick well-simulated nervousness drew a loose match from his waistcoat pocket, struck it, applied it to his cigar, then flipped the still burning match halfway across the floor. No need for him again to look--he knew the artifice had succeeded. "Here's your number," said the affronted young woman. With a vicious little slam she stuck a metal plug into its proper hole. Marr had not the least idea what concern or what individual owned Worth 10,000 for a telephone number. Nor did it concern him now. Even so, he must of course carry out the pretense which so well had served him in the emergency. He entered the booth, leaving the door open for Hartridge's benefit. "Hello, hello!" he called into the transmitter. "This is V. C. Markham speaking. I want to speak to"--he uttered the first name which popped into his mind--"to George Spillane. Want to order some tickets for a show to-night." He paused a moment for the sake of the verities; then, paying no heed to the confused rejoinder coming to him from the other end of the wire, and improvising to round out his play, went on: "What's that?... Not there? Oh, very well! I'll call him later.... No, never mind, Spillane's the man I want. I'll call again." He hung up the receiver. Out of the tail of his eye as he hung it up he saw Sig Gulwing just entering the hotel, in proper disguise for the character of the district telegraph manager with a grudge against pool rooms and a plan for making enough at one coup to enable him to quit his present job; the job was mythical, and the grudge, too--bits merely of the fraudulent drama now about to be played--but surely Gulwing was most solid and dependable and plausible looking. His make-up was perfect. To get here so soon after receiving the cue he must have been awaiting the word just outside the entrance. Gulwing was smart but he was not so smart as Marr--Marr exulted to himself. In high good humor, he dropped a dollar bill at the girl's elbow. "Pay for the call out of that, miss, and keep the change," he said genially. "Sorry I was so boisterous just now." Thirty minutes later, still radiating gratification, Marr stood at the cigar stand making a discriminating choice of the best in the humidor of imported goods. Gulwing and Hartridge were over there on the sofa, cheek by jowl, and all was going well. Half aloud, to himself, he said, smiling in prime content: "Well, I guess I'm bad!" "I guess you are!" said a voice right in his ear; "and you're due to be worse, Chappy, old boy--much worse!"