"Yes," said Mrs. Cleaver. Her breathlessness seemed quite natural.
"I'm so glad you called up. I can't explain very well. There's
something queer. I'm afraid they may be listening at the switch
down-stairs."
"Something in connection with our two young gentlemen?" asked the voice.
"Yes, one of them is acting so strangely."
"The principal one?"
"No, the other. He seems well--suspicious. I could explain better if
I saw you. Can I see you?"
"Yes, if you wish," came the calm reply.
"Where?"
"Let me see--you'll have to come at once, because I am leaving town
this afternoon. Suppose you come to the Hotel Bienvenu, and meet me in
the main lobby."
"Half an hour," Jack whispered to Mrs. Cleaver.
"I'll come just as soon as I can dress," she said over the 'phone.
"Can you give me half an hour?"
"Very well. I shall expect you in half an hour."
Jack's heart beat high with hope. He immediately called up police
headquarters and got the Third Deputy Commissioner on the wire. After
identifying himself to that individual, he asked to have a plainclothes
man meet him in the bar of the Hotel Bienvenu in twenty minutes time,
to make an arrest. The Deputy Commissioner said he would bring the man
up himself, so there could be no possibility of missing Jack.
To Mrs. Cleaver Jack said: "I will go to the Bienvenu now and wait for
my men. You leave here in precisely twenty-five minutes. Have your
chauffeur let you out at the side door of the Bienvenu, and then walk
around by the street to the front door. This will bring you past the
windows of the bar, and will give me a chance to point you out to my
policeman. Then I'll send him up into the lobby, and I can remain in
the background. He will arrive in the lobby at the same moment with
you."
All the preliminaries passed off as Jack had planned. The Deputy
Commissioner and the plainclothes man turned up in the bar of the
Bienvenu at the very moment of the time appointed. They took up their
post at a window, and sure enough in five minutes Mrs. Cleaver swam
past their ken, regal and languid in her silver fox furs.
"That's the woman," Jack said to the policeman. "Mark her well. Now
go up into the lobby. As you get there she will just be coming in the
front door. Watch who approaches her. Arrest the man with whom she
gets in conversation. He's supposed to be an elderly man, short,
stocky, with gray hair brushed forward of his ears, gray mustache and
Imperial. But he may be disguised. Arrest any man that goes up to her
and engages her in conversation. Watch yourself well, for he's a
desperate character."
"We'll wait down here," added the Deputy Commissioner. "If you need
help blow your whistle."