“But he could not well have foreseen this raid this morning,” temporized Kennedy.
“True, no doubt. But it does not protect us. For example, where is your authority, something, anything, that may be binding on him for this new order of ten thousand shares?”
There was an air of triumph about the way he said the words. It was evidently intended to be a poser, to leave Kennedy floored and flat.
“Authority?” repeated Craig, quietly, looking about. “I wonder whether you have one of those dictating machines, a dictaphone, in the office? Perhaps some one in the building has one.”
“We have one,” returned Dexter, still coldly. “I do not see how anything you might dictate to it and which a stenographer might transcribe would have any bearing on the question.”
“It would not,” agreed Kennedy, blithely. “That was not what I intended to do. There is another use I wished to put it to. Ah—I see. May I use this transcribing apparatus? Or better yet, would you gentlemen be so kind as to listen to what I have here?”
He deliberately drew from his pocket the cylinder I had seen him detach from the instrument up-stairs and slid it on in the proper place in the new machine.
As it began to revolve I studied the faces about me, intent on listening to what would be said.
“Is that good enough?” queried Kennedy. “It is a record on an instrument devised for just this purpose with you brokers who wish to hold your customers to an agreement over the telephone.”
The needle of the machine sputtered a bit as Craig added, “It is the telescribe—a recent invention of Edison which records on a specially prepared phonograph cylinder all that is said—both ways—over a telephone wire. As nearly as I can make out some one—unknown—has been playing animated telescribe in this case. Let us see now whether your utmost demands for safety and security cannot be satisfied in this modern way.”