“Suppose you called up the Secret Service men, Mr. Temple,” suggested Jack, “and asked one of
them to call on you here at the hotel? Wouldn’t that be better than to go to them?”
“Very good, Jack,” approved the older man. “A government agent could make his way direct to our suite without arousing suspicion if he takes precautions, while, if Frank is correct and we are being shadowed, we could not stir out of the hotel without being followed. Do you boys stay here and keep your eyes open, while I go to our rooms and telephone. If you see any more of this fellow, call me. If not, come up in half an hour. By then probably a government man will have arrived.”
The half-hour passed quickly for the boys who sat in the lobby, intensely interested in the life of the big hotel going on around them, and especially in the Oriental men-servants in their gorgeous native costumes flitting in and out on noiseless soft-soled slippers. They saw no sign of the man Frank believed was shadowing them and, at the end of the allotted period of time, took the elevator to their third-floor suite overlooking Market Street.
Barely had they entered the sitting room than there came a low knock on the door, repeated three times, and Mr. Temple sprang to open it.
“There’s the government agent,” he said. “That’s the signal he said he would give.”
As he opened the door, an alert, slim man of 30
stepped inside and closed the door quickly behind him.
“Pardon my abruptness,” he said, in a low voice. “Are you Mr. Temple?”
“I am.”