“I must go down to the city to get some money,” I replied.
“I think I’ll do the same,” remarked Tom.
“We’ll all go together, then,” said Dorothy.
As we passed out into the courtyard, I raised my stick for a cab, but Dorothy stopped me. “Let’s go down on top of a bus. I haven’t been on one since I landed, and we’re in no hurry.”
Up the winding stair we climbed, and Tom and Dorothy found a seat beside the driver, while I was just behind. Down the Strand into Fleet Street we passed, through the crowds before the bulletins, watching anxiously for the message which should spell “War.” At the top of Ludgate Hill, just by St. Paul’s, came a block, one of those hopeless tangles which so completely ties up London traffic. Another bus stood just ahead, and I read off the big advertisements which lined its top. “Alhambra Radium Ballet,” I read. “There’s a scientific scheme for you people. What is a radium ballet, anyway?”
“Oh, they cover the girls’ dresses with phosphorescent paint, and turn out the lights,” said Tom. “It’s an old idea. They had them ten years ago.”
Dorothy turned suddenly. “That’s what we want. It’s the very thing we’ve been hunting for, the new clue. We’ve never run that down, at all.”
Tom and I followed slowly her quick intuition. “What new clue?” I asked.
“The phosphorescent paint clue,” answered Dorothy energetically. “‘The man’ wrote his first message with a peculiar type of phosphorescent ink. He must have been working with it for some time. If we can only find anybody that knows about that kind of paint, we might find out something more definite about him. It’s the best clue we have, anyway.”