From a safe distance Clement saw the captain of the waiters lead them to a table, noticed that the room was not full, and that there were plenty of places at the end. Satisfied about this, he went downstairs.
In the lobby he selected a form, wrote on it, tore it up. Wrote on another, and then, apparently, thought better of it. But whereas he threw the first into the waste basket, the second he folded rather cleverly under cover of that action, and kept it in his hand. Then having convinced all about him that he wasn’t sending a message, he waited until he saw a page go upstairs with a caller’s form, went up himself, and waited at the turn of the stairs for the boy’s return.
The boy returned alone, fortunately. Clement snapped him up.
“Want to earn a dollar?” he asked.
“Bettcher life,” said young Canada.
“Take this call form to Miss Méduse Smythe. She and another lady are sitting at the fifth table for two on the window side. Call her name, please, but that’s where she is. Give the form to her, and come away quick.”
“Yep,” said the page, grinning.
“And you don’t know where it came from to anybody—even the lady herself.”
“I gottcher,” said the page, grinning more expansively. He took the dollar and the call form. He went upstairs. Clement went after him. The page went into the dining room. Clement stepped back quietly and swiftly into a deep passage where the male diners deposited their coats. He heard the boy calling out, “Miss Smidt—Miss Medoose Smidt.”
In seventy-five seconds Miss Méduse Smythe came by the end of the coat passage at a great pace. Clement had thought she would be swift. What he had written on the call form, in anybody’s handwriting, was: