“Are you Miss Strong?” asked the boy abruptly, “because if you are, he’s expecting you.”
She nodded, and the boy, jumping up, escorted her into an inner room. As she entered nervously an alert-looking man, with graying hair and mustache, rose courteously to greet her. In the quick glance she gave at her surroundings she was conscious only of the great mahogany desk at which he sat and behind it some filing cabinets and a huge safe, the outer doors of which stood open.
“Sit down, won’t you, Miss Strong,” he said, placing a chair for her.
His manner and his cultured tone, everything about him, reassured her at once. They conveyed to her that he was what she would have termed “a gentleman,” and with a little sigh of relief she seated herself.
“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Fleck, smiling, “that Carter’s method of approaching you must have alarmed you.”
“Carter—Oh, the black-mustached man.”
“Yes, that describes him. You see, he did not wish to act definitely without consulting his chief, yet the unexpected opportunity seemed far too vital not to be utilized. He did not explain, did he, what it was we wanted of you?”
“Indeed he didn’t,” said Jane, now wholly herself. “He was most mysterious about it.”
Mr. Fleck smiled amusedly.
“Carter has been an agent so long that being mysterious is second nature to him.”