The Monticellonian., 1915-06-10

l TGduA w OilS t1ti IehN 1'N'A tion. just to be handy. There ne hau been with his servant. playing With his two trained white rats.
 Wong placed them up his eapaclous sleeves and carefully opened the door to look out. Unfortunately he was just in time to see the door Of 5o9 open and disclose us
 We hurried into 51t and shut the | door
 Kennedy mounted a chair and ap- piled his eye to the deteetascope. Just then Mary and Elaine entered the next room. Mary opening the door with regular key.
 Wont you step in?' she asked.
 Elaine did so and Mary hesitated in the hall. Wong Sin had slipped out. on noiseless feet and taken ref uge behind some curtains. As he saw her alone. he beckoned. to. Mary
 There's a stranger in the next room" he whispered T don't like him. Take the money and as quickly as possible get out and go to my | apartment"
 At the news that there was a sus- picious stranger about Mary showed great alarm. Everything was so rap i'd now that the slightest hesitation meant disaster. Perhaps by quick ness even a suspicious stranger could be fooled, she reasoned. At any rate Wong Sin was resourceful. She had better trust him.
 Mary followed Elaine into the room, where she had seated herself already, and locked the door.
 Have you the money there?s she asked.
 Yes" nodded Elaine. taking out the package of bills which she had got from the bank during the half-hour delay
 All this we could see by gazing al ternately through the detectascope
 Elaine handed Mary the money Mary counted 1t slowly At last she looked up.
 Its all right" she said Now. III take this to that tong leader He's in room only just across the hall"
 She went out.
 Mary had just succeeded in getting on the elevator as Kennedy hurried down the hall. The door was closed and the ear descended He rang the push bell furiously, but there was no answer
 He dashed back to the room with us and ierked the telephone receiver.
 "Hello-hello-hell he called
 There seemed to be no way to get connection What was the mat ter?
 He hurried down the hall again.
 Down in the hotel lobby. with his follower, the Chinaman paused before the telephone switchboard, where two girls were at work.
 You may go" ordered Wong, and. as his man left, he moved over close to the switchboard
 Just as call from 509 flashed up, Wong slipped the rings eff his little fingers and loosened the white rats on the telephone switchboard itself
 With a shriek the telephone system of the Coste went temporarily out of business.
 
 Kennedy had succeeded in finding the alcove of the floor clerk in charge of the fifth floor There on his desk was an instrument having a stylus on the end of two arms, connected to a system of magnets. It was telauto- graph.
 Unceremoniously Craig pushed the clerk out of his seat and sat down himself. It was a last chance. now that the telephone was out of com mission
 Downstairs in the hotel office, where the excitement had not spread to ev- cry one, was the other end of the cleo tric long-distance writer.
 It started to write, as Kennedy wrote, upstairs:
 "House Detective-quick-h wom- an with blue chatelane bag, getting out of elevator"
 The clerks downstairs saw it and shouted above the din of the rat-bait- ing:
 "McCann-McCann."
 The clerk had torn off the message from the telautograph register and handed it to the house man, who pushed his way to the desk.
 Quickly the detective called to the bell-hops. Together they hurried af- ter the well-dressed woman who had just swept out of the elevator Mary had already passed through the ex- cited lobby and out and was about to cross the street-safe.
 McCann and the bell-hops were now in full cry after her. Flight was use less She took refuge in indignation and threats. But McGann was obdurate. She passed quickly to tears and pleadings. It had no effect. They insisted on leading her back The game was up. Here cried Kennedy, take her up in the elevator. I'll prove the case"
 
 "Now-not a word of who she is in the papers, McCann," Kennedy con- cluded referring to Elaine You know, it wouldn't sound we'll for the La Coste. As for that woman-well, I've got the money back. You can take her off-make the charge
 As the house man left with Mary I handed Craig his bag. We moved to- ward the door, and as we stood there a moment with Elaine, he quietly hand ed over to her the big roll of money.
 If he had been less of a scientist, he might have understood the look on her face, but. with nod to me, he