“Hello, coroner!” repeated Feeney. “I say, Jack! Hello! Hello! Hello, there! Hello! Hello!” Then Feeney pounded the mouthpiece, jerked the receiver hook up and down, yelled at exchange, and worked himself into a vast fever.
“What’s the matter with this thing, anyhow, Dill?” he finally demanded.
“Exchange probably went to sleep on you,” said Dillingham.
Easily he was now opening one by one the immense flat drawers of a drawing-case, and with much interest delving into the huge drawings that it contained.
“Come here, Mr. Platt,” Dillingham went on. “You cast your eagle eye over these drawings while I do a little job of interviewing,” and he walked over to the employees of the office, who, since they had been roughly warned by Feeney not to go near “that body,” had huddled, scared and limp, in the far corner of the room.
Perspiring and angry, Feeney tried for five solid minutes to obtain some response from the dead telephone, then he gave it up.
“I’ve got to go out and hunt up another ’phone,” he declared. “Biff, I’ll appoint you my deputy. Don’t let anybody touch the corpse till the coroner comes.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Bobby hastily, very glad to leave the room, and both he and Mr. Ferris accompanied Feeney. No sooner was Feeney out of the place than Dillingham reconnected the telephone and went back to his investigations. He was thoroughly satisfied, after a few questions, that the present employees knew nothing whatever, and Platt reported to him that every general drawing he could find was marked three-tenths inch to the foot, none being marked one-fourth.
“That doesn’t matter so much,” mused Dillingham. “It will be easy enough to prove that these are the same drawings that were provided the contestants, and six firms will swear that they were marked one-fourth of an inch to the foot. What we have to do is to prove that the drawings the Middle West Company used as the basis of their bid were marked one-fourth inch to the foot.”
The telephone bell rang violently while Dillingham was puzzling over this matter, and one of the employees started to answer it.