“My predicament,” said the girl, “is complicated by the question whether the bill does actually carry definite directions.”
“It carries something—a set of abbreviations,” said Orme. “But I could not make them out. Let us hope that the Japanese can’t. The best course for us to take is to go at once to see Walsh, the burglar.”
He assumed that she would accept his aid.
“That is good of you,” she said. “But it seems a little hopeless, doesn’t it?”
“Why? What else can we do? I suppose you saw to it that no one else should have access to Walsh.”
“Yes, father arranged that by telephone. The man is in solitary confinement. Several persons tried to see him to-day, on the plea of being relatives. None of them was admitted.”
What money-king was this girl’s father, that he could thus regulate the treatment of prisoners?
“So there were abbreviations on the bill?” she asked.
“Yes. They weren’t very elaborate, and I puzzled over them for some time. The curious fact is that, for all my study of them, I can’t remember much of anything about them. What I have since been through, apparently, has driven the letters out of my head.”
“Oh, do try to remember,” she implored. “Even if you recall only one or two bits of it, they may help me.”