A PIECE OF PAPER
Delia having appeared at the time agreed on, and promptly withdrawing to
her own room, Patricia continued to worry for an hour and a half over
the problem that was perplexing her, trying vainly to write letters or
concentrate her mind on a book. But it was useless, and at length she
determined to put an end to her misery and suspense, in that direction
at least, and ring for something else. If Chester Jackson did not answer
this time, it would mean that he too had gone or been removed, and that
she was left without a single friend to rely on.
So once again she telephoned, this time for ice-water, and waited in
breathless suspense for the answering knock. The curly head and merry
eyes of Chet Jackson at the door was like a bracing tonic to her
overwrought nerves.
"Oh!" she quavered. "Whatever happened to you? I thought you were gone,
too."
He gazed at her in unfeigned astonishment. "I don't get yer!" he
remarked. "There ain't nothin' happened to _me_!"
She explained her agitation, and he laughed unfeelingly. "Gee! I gotta
_eat_ sometime or other. An' half past seven's about as early as I can
usually strike it. You hit my supper hour, miss!"
She laughed in relief and followed Chet as he came into the room to
place the tray on the table.
"Chester, I want to know the rest of what you were trying to tell me
this afternoon. What is it that you have found out? And how have you
discovered things?"
He glanced about the room cautiously, then tiptoed over and closed the
door into the hall.
"You can't be too careful in this place," he said apologetically. "I'll
tell you all I can in the little time I can spare, an' if I don't have a
chance to finish it now, I will come some other time. I bet you'll
hardly believe me, but I knew before ever you folks landed here that
your dad—beg pardon!—that the captain was comin' here an that he had
something secret an' important for the Gov'ment up his sleeve."
Patricia started involuntarily. "How—how did you know that?" she
stammered.
He grinned. "I told you I could make you sit up an' take notice. _Now_ I
guess you'll believe me! Well, I doped that out from the conversation of
two gents who had a room here for a couple of nights an' left the day
before you came. They was sending for things constant, eats and drinks
an' what not,—an' I was kept runnin' to their room as reg'lar as
clockwork. I got onto the fact that they was on the watch for some one
from one or two things they said before me. They seemed to think I was
deaf or dumb or hadn't any brains, just because I was only a bell-hop,
an' you bet I acted the part all right. So they often talked right out
before me, seemin' to think I wouldn't take it in.
"Once, when I came in, one of 'em was sayin', 'He's a captain in the
army, but he's not on active service 'cause he's been wounded; but I got
word from headquarters he's doin' something worth lookin' into. He's
comin' here in a day or two. He's got to be watched an' watched hard.
He's camouflagin' it, too, with some lecture stuff or other, but that
don't count.' 'Nother time, one of 'em says: 'He arrives to-morrow, so
we'll disappear to-night. But it's all right. Franz is on the job, and
so will Hofmeyer be, after to-morrow.'
"Well, there was other things, too, little things I can't remember now,
but I says to myself, 'This here looks shady, Chet; better get on the
job an' do a little detectin' work on your own! I didn't know this
'captain' from Adam, but I hate to see any one get done, especially by a
pair of Huns, like them two looked, so I decided to keep my eyes open.
Well, sure enough, them two gave up their room the night before you
came, an' I've never laid eyes on 'em since. The next day you arrived,
an' I just naturally cottoned to you both right away. You're the right
sort. You don't act as if a bell-hop was made of wood an' hadn't any
brains or any feelin's either. You treat 'em like human beings. An' your
dad—I mean your father—gee! I could lie down an' let him walk all over
me if he wanted to!
"An' I made up my mind more than ever that I wasn't goin' to let any one
put it over you two if _I_ could help it. So I kept my eyes open an'
managed it so's I could answer most of the calls in this corridor. An'
I've seen a few little things that would bear lookin' into."
Patricia had stood drinking in this information with swiftly beating
heart. "Chester," she exclaimed softly, "this is fine of you, and I
appreciate what you have done more than I can tell you, and so would
Father if he knew! But tell me, who is this 'Franz' and 'Hofmeyer'? Have
you discovered that? I have a special reason for asking."
"There ain't any one in this place who goes by either of them two
names," he replied, "but of course that don't count. Naturally, they
ain't the names any one would hand in here. But I got my suspicions
about one person in this here hotel, an' I think I don't have to give
you a hundred guesses who, either." He looked at her meaningly.
"You—you mean the waiter, Peter Stoger?" she hesitated.
"You said it!" he remarked succinctly. "He's a shady one, all right!
Say, if you'll believe me, I seen him once without his gilt teeth—"
"What?" gasped Patricia, incredulously.
"Yep, they was nothin' but a set of false caps, fit on over his real
teeth. He was hurryin' down the hall from his room, an' I guess he'd had
'em off an' forgotten 'em. After I passed him, I looked back an' saw him
take somethin' out of his pocket an' raise his hands to his mouth. Oh,
he's slick, all right! An' that funny droop in his eye, too. Once in a
while he ain't got that, either. He can do it himself somehow or other.
They're both just disguises, that's all. An' I bet my hat he's either
Franz or Hofmeyer, for looka here: he came the same day you folks did."
"Oh, I knew it!" sighed Patricia. "I knew there was something wrong
about him. I've felt it all along. But tell me, Chester, one more thing.
I must ask it, though I hate to. Have you ever discovered anything—queer
about—about Madame Vanderpoel and—and Mademoiselle de Vos? I hate to ask
it about them, but—but I have a reason."
"They was a curious pair, all right," replied Chet musingly. "An' I
could never rightly make 'em out. At first I was on to 'em good an'
proper, because the madame had her room changed from one on the next
floor to down here right opposite you. An' she sure did act queer to
that little mam'selle; or at least the mam'selle acted queer to her—as
if she just couldn't stand her. But I never saw the madame act ugly to
her till to-day when she wouldn't give her a chance to send you that
message. I watched 'em like a cat, but I never saw nothin' that made me
suspicious that they was harmful to you folks, an' you seemed to cotton
so to the little mam'selle. But there was somethin' always that seemed
to me blamed funny in the way she hated that madame, an' it used to make
me want to find out why.
"But say, I gotta go down now. I don't darst stay here another minute,
this trip. But before I go, I'll tell you this much. After that pair
left to-day, I had an errand on this floor, an' I just sauntered into
their vacant room a moment, before the chambermaid cleaned it up, to
have a look around. They hadn't left nothin' of interest, that I could
see, except just this. I found it in the waste-basket. Maybe you'd like
to have it."
He thrust a piece of torn and crumpled paper into Patricia's hand and
was gone before she had time to say another word.