The janitor was scratching his head as he stared at the cigarette boxes as though their very existence was beyond him. The man’s perplexity caused Cardona to chuckle.
“Trying to figure them out, eh, Fritz?” he asked. “Well, old boy, I’ve got nothing on you. I’ll let you have them, later on — in the wastebasket.
“In the meantime, I’m keeping them, even though they don’t seem to mean anything.”
To Cardona, Fritz’s head-scratching showed the man’s dumbness. He did not divine the real purpose of the action.
With his hand at the side of his head, Fritz concealed the fact that he was actually studying the cigarette boxes with keen scrutiny.
Cardona would have been amazed had he seen the sparkle in those eyes.
When Fritz turned away to resume his mopping, his expression was as listless as before. But in that brief inspection, the man had observed something which Cardona had not noticed.
One cigarette box differed slightly from the other.
Cardona spread out four envelopes. Beside each was the message which it had contained. He studied these. They were the messages which had come from the unknown killer.
THE telephone rang. While the detective turned to answer it, Fritz shambled close to the desk. His eyes noted each envelope, while his ears took in what Cardona was saying.