Percy shook his head. "What's the occasion?" he asked. "Oh, I don't know. Just bughouse, I guess." "So he wants you to go to Europe?" "Wants me? Orders me! Says I got to." McCarthy laughed. "Lovely thought!" He puffed out a cloud of smoke. "Says if I don't obey orders he'll send me a 'sign' to convince me!" went on the boss. "He's got a mean voice. He ought to have a tag hung on him and get carried to the morgue. He give me the shivers, like a dead man. I never hear such a unholy thing outside a graveyard at midnight!" Percy Darrow was surveying him with leisurely amusement, a slight smile playing over his narrow dark face. "Talking to get back your nerve," he surmised cheerfully to the usually taciturn boss. "I'd like to know what it was got you going so; it isn't much your style." "Well, you got yours with you," growled McCarthy, shifting for the first time from his solid attitude of the bulldog at bay. "His 'sign' he promised is apt to be a bomb," observed Darrow. "He's nutty, all right," McCarthy agreed, "but when he said that, he was doing the tall religious. He's got a bug that way." "Your affair," said Darrow. "Just the same, I'd have an outer office." "Outer office--rot!" said the boss. "An outer office just gets cluttered up with people waiting. Here they've got to say it right out in meeting--if I want 'em to. What's the good word, Perc? What can I do for you?" Darrow smiled. "You know very well, my fat friend, that the only reason you like me at all is that I'm the one and only man who comes into this office who doesn't want one single thing of you." "I suppose that's it," agreed McCarthy. The telephone rang. He snatched down the receiver, listened a moment, and thrust forward his heavy jowl. "Not on your life!" he growled in answer to some question. While he was still occupied with the receiver, Percy Darrow nodded and sauntered out. CHAPTER II THE SHADOW OF MYSTERY Darrow walked up the one flight of steps to the story above. He found his acquaintance in, and at once broached the subject of his errand. Doctor Knox promised the matter his attention. The two men then embarked on a long discussion of Professor Schermerhorn's discovery of super-radium, and the strange series of events that had encompassed his death. Into the midst of the discussion burst McCarthy, his face red with suppressed anger. "Can I use your phone?" he growled. "Oh, yes," said he, as he caught sight of the instrument. Without awaiting the requested permission, he jerked the receiver from its hook and placed it to his ear. "Deader than a smelt!" he burst out. "This is a nice way to run a public business! Thanks," he nodded to Doctor Knox, and stormed out. Darrow rose languidly. "I'll see you again," he told Knox. "At present I'm going to follow the human cyclone. It takes more than mere telephones to wake McCarthy up like that." He found the boss in the hall, his finger against the "down" button.