He arranged the scattered letters into words, and the words into sentences:
“Number Three and Seven Isaac Kir-schell('.s cash box to-night as planned. Calhoun to report all line splices his own. Number One says Hawk slender white hands, manicured, medium height, eyes and hair black, expensive tailored clothes. Two thousand dollars out of reserve fund to Number that puts a bullet in him.”
The Hawk inspected his hands, and smiled whimsically. Number One was the Butcher. He had not given the Butcher credit for being so observant! Presently he stared out of the window.
“Wonder how much of a haul I can make tonight?” he murmured. “Regular El Dorado—having 'em work it all up and handing it to you on a gold platter. Pretty soft! Hope they won't get discouraged and quit picking the chestnuts out of the fire for me—while there's any chestnuts left!”
And then the Hawk frowned suddenly. The chestnuts appeared to be only partially picked for him to-night. What was the game—as planned? There must have been a previous message that had got by him. His frown deepened. There was no way of remedying that. To hope to intercept them all was to expect too much. There was no way whereby he could spend twenty-four hours out of twenty-four in touch with a sounder. He shrugged his shoulders philosophically after a moment. Perhaps it was just as well. They credited him with playing a lone hand, believing that his and their depredations were clashing with one another simply by virtue of the fact that their mutual pursuits were of a competitive criminal nature, that was all. If it happened with too much regularity, they might begin to suspect that he had the key to their cipher, and then—the Hawk did not care to contemplate that eventuality. There would be no more chestnuts!
The Hawk read the first part of the message over again. Who was Isaac Kirschell? The name seemed to be familiar. The Hawk studied the toe of a neatly-fitting and carefully polished shoe thoughtfully. When he looked up again, he nodded. He remembered now. He had lunched the day before in a restaurant that occupied a portion of the ground floor of an office building, the corridor of which ran through from street to street. In going out, he had passed along the corridor and had seen the name on the door panels of two of the offices.
He resumed the study of his boot toe. It was not a very vital matter. A moment spent in consulting the city directory would have supplied the information in any case. He nodded again. MacVightie was unquestionably right. Some one on the inside, some railroader, and probably more than one, was in on the game with the Wire Devils—and it was perhaps as well for this Calhoun that MacVightie, already suspicious, was not likewise possessed of the key to the cipher! Also, Lanson had been right. It was no easy task to locate a new splice on a wire that was already scarred with countless repairs. Still, if Lanson's men went at it systematically and narrowed down the radius of operations, it was not impossible that they might stumble upon a clue—if Calhoun did not placidly inform them that it was but another of his own making! But even then, granted that the wire was found to have been tapped in a certain place one night, that was no reason why it should not, as Mr. MacVightie had already suggested, be tapped fifty miles away the next! The Hawk grinned. Mr. Lanson and his associates, backed even by Mr. MacVightie, were confronted with a problem of considerable difficulty!
“I wonder,” communed the Hawk with himself, “who's the spider that spun the web; and I wonder how many little spiders he's got running around on it?”