“Tell me—” began the professor, but Frank took his arm and moved along in the direction pursued by the two men in advance of them.
“I will explain all this to you later,” he told his companion rapidly. “I want to see where those men are bound. They must have just arrived in the city. I suspect where they are headed. Yes,” added Frank, “I thought so.”
“Thought what, Durham?” inquired the professor.
“They have turned towards our hotel. They must guess or know that you would put up there. They have gone inside. We will go in too, Professor Barrington, but please keep in the background as much as possible while I try to find out what they are up to.”
Without making himself at all conspicuous Frank soon found out what the precious pair were doing. He saw them go to the clerk’s desk. One of them looked over the register. He seemed to find what he was looking for in the list of guests and pointed it out to his companion. Then they left the hotel.
“We had better get up to our room, Professor,” suggested Frank, rejoining his friend. “There is a good deal to talk about.”
“I should say there was,” replied Professor Barrington, quite disturbed. “About that man who told me his name was Taylor—I want you to explain, Durham. Dear! Dear! The pitfalls of business that yawn for an innocent old fossil like myself!”
“His real name is Slavin,” explained Frank, as they seated themselves in their room. “He is a man who has been a sort of brigand and pest in the movies line for two years. The fellow has no standing with the good film exchanges and I fancied he had been forced out of the field months ago.”
“He fooled me completely,” declared the professor. “From what he told me I thought he was hand in glove with all the big movies men.”
“You were lucky to get out of his clutches as easily as you have,” said Frank, “for he is a crafty swindler. I knew him when we first started the Airdrome at Riverside Grove. He had a hold on a poor lad named Dave Sawyer, whom we rescued from his clutches and who is now looking after the Airdrome. Slavin got mad because we were first in securing a lease he was after. He annoyed us in a dozen mean ways, shunting a searchlight down into the Airdrome while an entertainment was going on, and finally trying to blow us up with dynamite. When we got the proofs of that he disappeared, leaving all kinds of unpaid bills behind him.”