"Oh, sure," the girl said and smiled in a way that didn't in the least degree mar her expression of profound placidity. "Everyone follows him."
Fleetwood gaped. "Huh?" he said.
"Uh-huh," the girl said. "The Call...."
She broke off as an elderly man hailed her from the other end of the counter. "Hey, Kitty," he pleaded. "I haven't got all night, you know."
"Sure, Max," Kitty answered amiably, and departed.
"Wait!" Fleetwood said, but she didn't turn back.
Fleetwood furrowed his brow and pondered her last words. The call ... she had said. The call. The call of what? The call to what, for that matter. Then it struck him like a coarsely threaded bolt flung out of the blue.
The Call! Of course! The Saturday Morning Call! The very magazine which one of the girls, Clare or Connie, had bought and tucked so conspicuously under her arm on leaving the store. Fleetwood's mind raced. It was perfectly plain, cut and dried like an apricot in season. The Call was the signal, the emblem of some secret society or organization which, for their own sinister purposes, was keeping tabs on him. The members made themselves known and communicated with each other through displaying the Call under their arms. But why? It was absurd; by his very profession he was supposed to be a watcher, not a watchee.
As he pondered this latest and newest equation he turned his gaze automatically to the magazine racks and the several issues of the Call which were on display there. He looked, and fell back aghast, unable to believe his eyes But there it was nonetheless, in spite of his disbelief: