“I’ll wear two, Nick, to make a dead-sure thing of it,” Chick said dryly.
It was seven o’clock when the two detectives arrived at the New Oriental, where they lost no time in getting in their work.
Nick confided in the chief clerk, from whom he learned that Chadwick had arrived that afternoon, that he was traveling alone, and had just gone in to dinner, also that he had a small suite on the third floor.
One directly opposite to it happened to be unoccupied, and no less than ten minutes after their arrival at the hotel both detectives were established in the vacant suite.
“Now, Chick, we’ll work lively,” Nick remarked, throwing off his coat and hat. “You keep an eye on the corridor. I’ll do the painting.”
“I’ve got you,” Chick nodded. “Lie low, if you hear me whistle.”
Nick stole out with the dictograph and wire, as well as the tools he required. He opened the opposite door with a picklock and entered the suite, which consisted of only a sitting room, bedroom, and bath. The Englishman had left the lights on, and his outside garments and luggage were in the bedroom.
A table stood in the middle of the sitting room. Near one of the walls, that adjoining the hall, was a desk supplied with writing materials. It was prevented from standing flush against the wall by a projection of the baseboard, and Nick quickly attached the dictograph to the back of the desk, well out of sight.
He then ran the fine wire downward to the floor, tucking it between the carpet and the baseboard, and conducting it to the door. Then he ran it over the threshold, close to the jamb on the hinge side, and then under the hall carpet and into the opposite room.
No warning whistle from Chick had delayed him, and the entire work had occupied less than fifteen minutes.