Without another word Shindle pulled his fur cap forward, turned and walked out. He closed the door with a slam that shook the building. Billy Wingo opened the note.
DEAR BILLY:
Please come out here as soon as you can. Come to-night without fail. I need you.
It was signed with Hazel Walton's full name.
Billy folded the note carefully. He did not look directly at the judge. He looked at him by way of the mirror. He was not unduly astonished to perceive that the judge was watching him like the proverbial hawk.
Billy unfolded the note, read it again, then refolded it. He started to put it into a vest pocket, though better of it, balled it into a crumple and tossed it into the cardboard box that served for a waste-paper basket.
He got to his feet, pulled out his watch and glanced at the time.
"Four-thirty-two," he muttered, apparently oblivious to the judge's presence. "I'll have to hurry."
He crossed the room to an open door giving into one of the inner rooms. Passing through the doorway, he pushed the door partly to behind him. Turning sharply to the left he sat down on a cot that creaked. The foot of the cot butted against the jamb on which the door was hung. Billy threw himself sidewise and applied his eye to the crack between the door and the jamb. His feet at the end of the cot were busy the while, gently kicking the wall and iron-work of the cot. Any one hearing the noise would have been reasonably assured that Billy Wingo was employed in God knows what, at a distance from the door of at least a cot length. What he might be doing did not matter. The point was to give the judge the impression that he was not close to the doorway.
Evidently the judge was thus impressed. Billy saw him lean forward, pluck the wadded-up note from the wastebasket and dive noiselessly across the room to the stove. Without a sound the judge opened the stove door and dropped the letter on the top of the blazing wood. Closing the door as noiselessly as he had opened it, the judge returned to his chair, sat down and crossed one knee over the other. His expression was that of the cat that has just eaten the canary. Billy could almost see him licking his demure chops.