“I’ll not. I suppose it’s safe to talk over the ’phone this way.”
“Of course. That’s why I selected this time. There’s no one here, and that central girl is off duty at night. Well, I guess——”
At that instant Tom’s elbow accidentally touched the receiver hook, and depressed it sufficiently to produce a loud click in the instrument.
“What’s that?” asked Barton Sandow, suddenly. “Is some one listening on this telephone?”
“No; I guess not,” answered the lawyer. “It was only a click on the wire.”
Tom smiled to himself, as he thought of how the click had been produced.
“Well, I’ll have to go now,” went on the lawyer. “I guess we’ve arranged everything. Don’t forget the papers.”
Then came another click, which told that Sandow had hung up his receiver. A little later Tom heard the office door close behind Cutler.
“He’s gone,” the boy thought, “but I guess I heard enough. This settles the case. I wish it was morning, so I could tell Mr. Boise. I wonder what he’ll do?”
In accordance with the plan, made the night before, the senior partner of the law firm came to his office very early the next morning. Tom was there waiting for him, and none of the clerks, nor the other two partners, had arrived.