Ned drew a chair to the side of the couch and sat down. Even if he should at that time succeed in attracting the attention of the man, the fellow was in no condition to answer the important questions he was there to ask.
Presently the Jap, or some one else, came and rapped lightly on the door, and Ned opened it a trifle and looked out.
“No savvy!” cried the Jap, repeating the words like a parrot, standing in the hall with many signs of fright on his yellow face.
“All right!” Ned said, shutting the door in his face, “you don’t have to.”
“I can’t blame him for thinking this a cheeky invasion,” Ned smiled, as he returned to his chair at the side of the couch. “It isn’t exactly the thing to walk into a man’s private room in this manner.”
Ned had decided to sit by the side of the half conscious man until he returned to his full mentality. Questions now might produce only pipe dreams, for the imagination is rather too active under such circumstances.
Five days before Ned had left the boys in a cup on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, not far from the summit, after explaining to them that he was going to the city to investigate a clue connected with the murder of the man who had been found in the cavern. Leaving the aeroplane safely hidden at Missoula, he had traveled by rail to San Francisco.
In his handbag on this trip were two seemingly unimportant articles—a piece of tape cut from the inner side of the collar of the dead man’s coat, and a small, odd-shaped key with the stem broken off so that it was only about an inch in length. The key had been the only article found in the dead man’s pockets. The strip of tape bore the name of a San Francisco tailor.
The directory had assisted him in finding the tailor, and the tailor had informed him that the coat had been made for one Albert Lemon, whose address he gave. So here he was, in Lemon’s apartment, seeking information concerning the dead man, while Lemon, supposedly Lemon, lay in an opium daze on the couch.
But Ned’s time, waiting for the man to come back to consciousness, was not all wasted. Moving carefully about the room, he found that the broken key fitted a writing desk which stood between two windows. The lock which it fitted, however, was not in good condition, for the bolt had been pried back, damaging the polished edge of the casing which held the socket. The desk contained nothing of importance, and Ned left it as he found it.