This went to my breast like a knife. It was unquestionably Sadie's handwriting. The wild words were so unlike my clever self-contained girl it broke me all up. For a while I could not think, could not plan. I could only reproach myself for having put one so dear to me in danger.
Fortunately for humans, old habits of work reassert themselves automatically. My brain screwed itself down upon the hardest problem of my career. There was not the slightest use in flying up to the flat on One Hundredth street. There would be no one there. Neither could I call on the police for aid without precipitating the catastrophe. If Sadie was to be saved it must be by unaided wits.
I thought of Mr. Dunsany with hope and gratitude. In him I had a line on the gang they did not as yet suspect. I immediately called up Dunsany's and asked if I might speak to Mattingly in the jewel-setting department. It was a risky thing to do, but I had no choice. Knowing how the gang watched Dunsany's it would have been suicidal for me to have gone there to meet him.
I finally heard his voice at the other end of the wire. "This is Enderby," I said. "Do you get me?"
"Yes," he said, "what is it?"
I had to bear in mind the possibility of a curious switchboard operator in Dunsany's listening on the wire. "Are you going to meet your friends to-night?" I asked in ordinary tones.
"Yes," he said, "same as usual."
"Those fellows have played a trick on me," I said. "They have copped my girl."
"Not Sadie!" he said aghast.
"Yes," I said. "It's a deuce of a note, isn't it?"