“What salary do checkers receive, Rentland?” he asked, in a low tone.
“One hundred and twenty-five dollars a month.”
“And her father, the dock superintendent—how much?” Trant’s expressive glance now jumping about from one gaudy, extravagant trifle in the room to another, caught a glimpse again of the electric coupé standing in the street, then returned to the tiny bit of wire in his hand.
“Three thousand a year,” Rentland replied.
“Tell me, Miss Rowan,” said Trant, “this implement—have you by any chance mentioned it to President Welter?”
“Why, no, Mr. Trant.”
“You are sure of that? Excellent! Excellent! Now the queer, quiet little man with the scar on his cheek who came to see Morse; no one could tell you anything about him?”
“No one, Mr. Trant; but yesterday Will’s landlady told me that a man has come to ask for Will every forenoon since he disappeared, and she thinks this may be the man with the scar, though she can’t be sure, for he kept the collar of his overcoat up about his face. She was to telephone me if he came again.”
“If he comes this morning,” Trant glanced quickly at his watch, “you and I, Rentland, might much better be waiting for him over there.”
The psychologist rose, putting the bent, twine-wound bit of wire carefully into his pocket; and a minute later the two men crossed the street to the house, already known to Rentland, where Morse had boarded. The landlady not only allowed them to wait in her little parlor, but waited with them until at the end of an hour she pointed with an eager gesture to a short man in a big ulster who turned sharply up the front steps.