“Anything you say is all right,” was the quick response.
“It won’t ball things up—holding your train a few minutes at Arroyo?”
“Connolly will see to that. It’s off time now and running on orders, anyway.”
“Then we can sit down quietly and wait to hear from the exceedingly capable-looking young man who has the honor to be your chief clerk,” said the Government man, and he calmly planted himself in the nearest chair.
“Calmaine will probably be abed and asleep in the Pullman,” Maxwell suggested. “I suppose your call is important enough to warrant his getting up and dressing?”
“It is—fully important enough; as I think you will be ready to admit when we hear from Arroyo.” Then he extended a handful of cigars. “Have a fresh smoke; oh, you needn’t look cross-eyed at them; they’re your own, you know. I swiped them out of your private box in the car when you weren’t looking.”
Maxwell took a cigar half-absently. His mind was dwelling upon the mystery surrounding the unexplainable hold-up, with the surface current of thought directed toward Connolly’s sounder, through which would presently come the expected message from Arroyo.
It was while he was holding the lighted match to the cigar that the sounder began to click. He translated for Sprague: “Train here. McCarty gone to wake Mr. Calmaine.” After that there was a trying wait of perhaps five minutes. Then the sounder began to chatter rapidly, and Maxwell bounded from his chair.
“Good God!” he ejaculated, “he says Calmaine isn’t on the train!”
“Ah!” breathed the big-bodied expert, rising and stretching his huge arms over his head. “Again we get the expected precipitation in the test-tube. Mr. Connolly, suppose you ask McCarty if Mr. Calmaine has been on the train at all.”