“I’ll look around a bit, have some supper and then go to bed,” he decided. “Maybe my luck will change to-morrow.”
Ned after walking about the streets for awhile went back to the same restaurant where he had dined before, as he did not fancy the looks of his hotel well enough to eat there. He strolled about through the brilliantly lighted streets after supper pondering on his curious plight, and then went back to the Imperial.
As he approached the desk to get to the elevator he saw a stout man in close conversation with the clerk. He could hear the latter, in reply to some question, say:
“Guess we haven’t got anybody here you want, Jim. No new ones came except a kid. Queer thing about him, though, I believe he’s registered under the wrong name. Acts sort of funny.”
“What name did he give?” asked the stout man.
“‘Never’—‘ever’—no, that isn’t it but it’s something like that. ‘Seldom’—that’s it—no it isn’t either—‘Seldon,’ that’s it. ‘Thomas Seldon.’ I sized him up for a queer one.”
“I’ll have to get a look at him,” the stout man went on. “I don’t know as we have any call for him, but it’s best to be on the safe side.”
Ned felt his knees beginning to shake. He wondered who the big man might be. Just then the youthful porter sauntered toward him. Ned had come to a halt half way up the lobby of the hotel.
“Pipe off that guy?” asked the boy in a friendly whisper, with a nod at the stout man. Ned understood the question to mean “Do you know who that man is?” and he answered that he did not.
“One of the detectives from the Central Office. The sleuths come here same as at other hotels, every once in a while, to see if anybody they want might happen to be on hand. Guess he won’t land anybody this time, though, about a week ago—”