CHAPTER VI
THE RED ROVER GETS THE BREAKS
Drew Lane entered his room at three o’clock that morning. He and Tom Howe occupied a room together in the Hotel Starling. It was a very large place. Their room was on the top floor.
Throwing his coat over a chair he sank into a place by a table in the corner and allowing his head to drop on his arm tried to collect his thoughts. He had been following clues. A reporter from the News had given him a “hot tip” that grew cold almost at once. Casey from the State Street Police Station had given him another. It had led to nothing. After that he had begun setting traps. Calling in three trusted stool-pigeons, he had laid out their tasks for them. Having consulted his chief, he had begun laying plans for raiding all known hang-outs for kidnaping gangs. After that he had picked up a copy of the city’s pink sheet and had read in glaring headlines:
GHOST NO LONGER WALKS. HE GALLOPS.
He had read with some surprise the story of the Galloping Ghost.
“Rotten bit of sensation,” he muttered. “I saw no ghost. Don’t believe Howe did either. But that shot? Who fired it?”
He glanced at Howe’s bed in the corner. Howe lay across it fully clad, sound asleep.
“Like to ask him,” Drew muttered. “Like—”
He made a sudden move with his arm. Some unusually hard object rested beneath it.
To his surprise he found on the table a coarse brown envelope. On the face of it was scrawled: