Only on the day of his departure did Warnebold, in young Arnold’s language, “loosen up” enough to tell Arnold and the colonel a vital incident. The night of the attack a telegram was sent to Warnebold in Keatcham’s confidential cipher, directing the campaign against Tracy to be pushed hard, ordering the dumping of some big blocks of stock on the market and arranging for their dummy purchasers. The naming of Atkins as the man in charge was plausible enough, presuming there had been no knowledge of the break in his relations with Keatcham. The message was couched in Keatcham’s characteristic crisp phraseology. But for the receiver’s knowledge of the break and but for the previous long-distance conversation, it had reached its mark. The associates of Keatcham were puzzled. The hands were the hands of Esau but the voice was the voice of Jacob. There had been a hurried consultation into which the second long-distance telephone from San Francisco broke like a thunderclap. It decided the hearers to keep to their instructions and disregard the cipher despatch.
“And didn’t you send any answer?” the colonel asked.
“Oh, certainly; we had an address given, The Palace Hotel, Mr. John G. Makers. We wired Mr. Makers—in cipher. ‘Despatch received. Will attend to it,’ I signed. And I wired to the manager of the hotel to notice the man who took the despatch. It wasn’t a man, it was a lady.”
“A lady?”
“Yes, she had an order for Mr. Makers’ telegrams. Mr. Makers gave the order. Mr. Makers himself only stopped one night and went away in the morning and nobody seemed to remember him particularly; he was a nondescript sort of party.”
“But the lady?” The colonel’s mouth felt dry.
“The lady? She was tall, fine figure, well dressed, dark hair, the telegraph girl thought, but she didn’t pay any special attention. She had a very pleasant, musical voice.”
“That doesn’t seem to be very definite,” remarked the colonel with a crooked smile.
It didn’t look like a clue to Warnebold, either; but he was convinced of one thing, namely, that it would pay to watch the ex-secretary.
“And,” chuckled he, “there’s a cheerful side to the affair. Atkins is loaded to the guards with short contracts; and the Midland is booming; if the rise continues, he can’t cover without losing about all he has. By the way, we got another wire later in the day demanding what we were about, what it all meant that we hadn’t obeyed instructions. Same address for answer. This time we thought we had laid a nice trap. But you can’t reckon on a hotel; somehow, before we got warning, Mr. Makers had telephoned for his despatch and got it.”