Fay lay flat on the grass matting. He saw, through the circular opening, the board-room, the grill and ground-glass partitions and the thick purple neck and bald head of “The Black Cougar.” The bucket-shop operator was doing nothing more interesting than winding wire from one spool to another. He stopped now and then to examine a tape which came out of the box on his desk. He reached suddenly. He tore off this tape, pulled down the cover of his desk, sprang from his swivel-chair and went to a window which opened into the compartment occupied by a score of stenographers.
“Petroleum, preferred,” he snarled as a timid girl took the tape. “Send them Red Letter No 10. Follow up, one day week. Quote 6574 asked. Get me?”
The girl whispered her answer. She disappeared beyond Fay’s range of vision. He waited and watched “The Black Cougar” unwind the wire, tuck the spool under his thick arm and hurry into the vault. An inner door slammed. The bucket-shop operator came out, closed the outer door, twirled the combinations and started pacing the thick Turkish rug.
“That’s a new one,” said Fay to Saidee Isaacs. “We’ll have to open that vault to find out what that spool of wire is for!”
“Could it have been an electrical connection to the little box on his desk?”
“No! It was not insulated wire. It looked to me like fine steel or iron wire—perhaps finer than the wire used in the smallest size hairpin.”
“The spool was big enough.”
“There was all of a thousand feet of wire on it, Saidee.”
“It’s some trick.”
Fay nodded. He got down on his knees and watched “The Black Cougar.” He rose and covered up the hole in the floor. Before going out he said to the girl: