To prove his point he had told her of the seemingly innocent wireless
message that an operator, listening in, had picked up, at a time when
Germans were still permitted to use the wireless station on Long Island
for commercial messages to the Fatherland. On the face of it, it was
the mere announcement of the death of a relative with a few details.
But a little later the same operator caught the same message coming
from another part of the country, with the details slightly different,
and still later another message of the same purport. Evidently, by
comparing the messages, the United States authorities had been able to
work out a code.
Remembering this, Jane decided that it was her particular duty just now
to follow the old German and note everything he did. For several blocks
she trailed along behind him, without arousing any suspicion on his
part that he was being followed. He stopped once to light a cigarette,
the girl behind him diverting suspicion by hastily turning to a shop
window. Again he stopped, this time before the display of viands in the
window of a delicatessen store. Thoughtfully Jane noted the number,
observing, too, that the name of the proprietor above the door was
obviously Teutonic. She was half-expecting to see her quarry turn in
here, but he walked on to the middle of the next block, where he
entered a stationery store.
Hesitating but a second, to decide on a course of action, she followed
him boldly into the store. She felt that she must ascertain just what
he was doing in there. As she entered she saw that in the back part of
the store was a lending library. Mr. Hoff had gone back to it and was
inspecting the books displayed there. Unhesitatingly she, too,
approached the book counter.
“Have you ‘Limehouse Nights’?” she asked the attendant, naming the
first book that came into her head. She had a copy of the book at home,
but that seemed to be the only title she could think of.
“We have several copies,” the girl in charge answered, “but I think
they are all out. I’ll look.”
As the clerk examined the shelves, Jane kept up a desultory talk with
her, questioning her about various books on the shelves, all the while
watching the old German out of the corner of her eye. His back was
toward her, and he seemed to be examining various books on the shelves,
turning over the pages as if unable to decide what he wanted. Curious
as to what his taste in reading was, Jane endeavored to locate each
book that he removed from its place, her idea being that she would
later try to discover their titles. To her amazement she found that it
was invariably the third book in each shelf that he removed and
examined—the third from the end. It did not appear to her that he was
examining the contents of the pages so much as searching them as if he
expected to find something there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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