"What is she writing?"
"Search me. Won't let me come near her. Looks like a story or something."
"Get a glimpse of it if you can."
"No chance. She's got eyes all round her head."
"Can you work a typewriter?"
"A little bit."
"Well, when she goes out stick a piece of paper in the machine and strike every key once, see? I want an impression of every character."
"I get you."
After lunch Evan had to waste more precious hours walking around with the old man. When they returned Josefa reported that Mrs. Deaves had finished her typewriting about three, and had then done up the sheets in a large envelope, and after carefully destroying the spoiled sheets, had carried the envelope out, presumably to post it. Josefa gave Evan the paper he had asked for, with a print of each character of the typewriter.
It was then five o'clock. City letters require two hours or more for delivery, and supposing this package of Mrs. Deaves' to be an answer to "Mr. Frelinghuysen's" note, it would soon be due at the Hotel Madagascar. Evan determined to go and ask for it himself. He did not suppose that Mr. Frelinghuysen was stopping at the Madagascar. That would be too simple. He knew, as everybody knows, what an easy means the "call" letters at a great hotel offers for the exchange of illicit correspondence.