"Then wait for half an hour," he answered, without arguing further. "You can do that without exciting suspicion. Go with her to her hotel and hand her over the money."
"All right—I'll do it," she agreed.
"What is the hotel?"
Craig wrote on a slip of paper what she told him—"Room 509, Hotel La
Coste."
"Good—I'm glad you called me. Count on me," he finished as he hung up the receiver.
Hastily he threw on his street coat. "Go into the back room and get me that brace and bit, Walter," he asked.
I did so. When I returned, I saw that he had placed the detectascope and some other stuff in a bag. He shoved in the brace and bit also.
"Come on—hurry!" he urged.
We must have made record time in getting to the Coste. It was an ornate place, where merely to breathe was expensive. We entered and by some excuse Kennedy contrived to get past the vigilant bellhops. We passed the telephone switchboard and entered the elevator, getting off at the fifth floor.
With a hasty glance up and down the corridor, to make sure no one was about, Kennedy came to room 509, then passed to the next, 511, opening the door with a skeleton key. We entered and Craig locked the door behind us. It was an ordinary hotel room, but well-furnished. Fortunately it was unoccupied.