Evans and Barton at once held a conference on the subject. Barton was at first inclined to assume that there was a good reason for Fraser’s recall and to advise leaving matters alone until further developments should arise. He did not feel that there was adequate reason to suppose that Evans’s secret method of communication had broken down. If it had not, Mortimer would already be investigating Rich, and any unnecessary use of the method would add to the danger of its discovery. If the method had broken down, any message Evans might send would go to Rich instead of to Mortimer and would thus serve only to help the wrong man by giving him information and putting him on his guard. Finally, however, Evans succeeded in convincing Barton that a show-down might avert disaster, and should be attempted at once. He therefore went to Communication Headquarters and began once more to “test a transmitter.”
Late that afternoon—the same day that Mortimer had received the message about Fraser and acted on it—Rand received this message:
Go to M. in person, put nothing on paper, ask him verbally to repeat back to me all messages received from me in this way in the last two days. If you cannot do so, let me know. Avoid head of division; danger. E.
Tompkins had just left the office for his rooms, whence he had gone on his long and uncomfortable motor ride. Whatever caution and watchfulness Rand possessed was now thoroughly aroused. He felt as if all the sentries, yeomen, and orderlies in the Bureau were watching him. Taking pains not to digress in any particular from his usual routine, he put on his hat and coat and started home. But when he had reached a corridor where he was unobserved, he took a roundabout way to the Secretary’s office, where he found Mortimer just getting ready to go home.
Mortimer frowned as Rand repeated his message to him.
“What’s troubling Jim now?” he said to himself. “Is he still having notions about Rich?”
Then he said aloud to Rand, “Was there nothing more?”
“No, sir.”
“Well,” said Mortimer, “the only message I’ve received from him for some time was as follows: ‘Recall Fraser to Washington at once. Urgent.’ You can repeat that back to him and tell him that is all.”
“When did that come?” said Rand.