The bell rang again. This time it was Chalmers.
“Say, Chalmers,” said Bobby, “I want you to get me some sort of a legal document that will allow me to take possession of and examine all the books, papers and drawings of the city engineer’s department, including the waterworks engineer’s office…. Yes, you can, Chalmers,” he insisted, against an obvious protest. “There is some legal machinery you can put in motion to get it, and I want it right away. Moreover, I want you to secure me somebody to serve the writ and to keep it quiet.”
Then he explained briefly what had been partly discovered and partly surmised. Next Bobby sent for Jolter and laid the facts before him, to the great joy of that aggressive gentleman. Then he called up Biff Bates, and made an appointment with him to meet him at Jimmy Platt’s office in half an hour. He would have telephoned Platt, but the engineer had no telephone.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BIFF RENEWS A PLEASANT ACQUAINTANCE AND BOBBY INAUGURATES A TRAGEDY
“Is Mr. Platt in?”
Biff stood hesitantly in the door when he found the place occupied only by a brown-haired girl, who was engaged in the quiet, unprofessional occupation of embroidering a shirtwaist pattern.
The girl looked up with a smile at the young man’s awkwardness, and felt impelled to put him at his ease.
“He’s not in just now, but I expect him within ten or fifteen minutes at the outside. Won’t you sit down, Mr. Bates?”
He looked at her much mystified at this calling of his name, but he mumbled his thanks for the chair which she put forward for him, and, sitting with his hat upon his knees, contemplated her furtively.