"What's the trouble?" instantly alert.
"Florence has the smallpox!"
"Impossible! Come with me."
But the porter having had the strictest orders from the manager, refused to let them into Florence's room.
"Never mind, Susan. Come along." Out of earshot of the porter, he said: "My room is directly above Florence's. We'll see what can be done. This smells of the Black Hundred a mile off. Smallpox! Only yesterday she wrote me that she never felt better. Have you wired Jones?"
"I never thought to!"
"Then I shall. Our old friends are at work again."
"But it's the same doctor who sent me down here."
Norton frowned.
What followed all appeared in the reporter's story, as written three months later. He and Susan went up to his room, raised the flooring, cut through the ceiling, and with the fire-escape rope dropped below. One glance at Florence's tear-stained face was enough for him. Norton's subsequent battle with the doctor and his accomplices made very interesting reading. Their escape from the hotel, their flight, their encounter with one of the gang in the road, and Florence's blunder into the bed of quicksand, gave a succession of thrills to the readers of the Blade.