"True—bah!" The vehemence of his tone quite startled her. "True! When all you had to do to reach the first floor—had access to the street been your object—was to let down the folding flight to the ground."
Betty's jaw dropped. She and Bob looked at each other helplessly.
"We—we never thought of that!" she faltered.
It was true. In her excitement she had not noticed the folding flight of steps that let down to the ground in an emergency, and for protection against sneak thieves was always drawn up except during fire drills. Bob had been equally careless. As for the Littell girls, like docile sheep, they had never thought to question their leaders.
Still keeping the revolver pointed at them, the little man took down the telephone receiver.
"Bob!" whispered Betty. "Oh, Bob, this is dreadful! What will Mrs. Littell say? And those reporters! If they get hold of this, the elevator story will be nothing."
Bobby and Louise and Esther and Libbie stood in a forlorn group, their gaze fixed trustingly on Bob and Betty, whom they trusted to get them out of this scrape somehow.
As for Bob, he was handicapped by numbers. He could easily have planned a way to get himself and one girl out of the room, but to hope to spirit away five substantial maidens under the black eyes fastened unwaveringly upon him, was too great a problem for quick solution. He did not fear trouble in establishing their innocence, but the notoriety accompanying such an episode could not be otherwise than distinctly unpleasant.
"I suppose that's gold dust in the tray," thought Bob wretchedly. "Of all the poor luck, to pick out an office with gold dust floating around as free as air! Why didn't the dub lock it up in his safe?"
The little man was having trouble to get "Central." He jiggled the hook frantically in flat defiance of all telephone rules, and he shouted loudly into the transmitter, as though enough noise could rouse the number he sought.