Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/194

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184
THE GRAY MASK

her into my confidence. She kept me posted. At every chance I went there and was apparently ill myself of the same dreadful illness as the patient in the next cot. About two weeks ago the head nurse telephoned me a case had come in which looked promising. I've been there since. I'll confess, the best I hoped for was the number of the house, but this girl grew confidential finally. She had actually worked there. When she found she couldn't go back for a long time, and learned that I was about to be discharged as cured, she whispered a telephone number and a name. She said they would want somebody and it was hard to get just the right kind. I called up last night and told them about her and my anxiety for the place. A meeting was arranged with Smith in a café. He wouldn't give me the address, but he agreed to take me there this afternoon. You see he wouldn't have let me out again until he was sure of me—no afternoons off there."

"Clever, Nora," the inspector muttered.

She shook her head.

"Only choosing the best chance. I knew I couldn't trace them in any obvious fashion. They were too careful. Few customers had the run of the place. The stuff was taken to the rest. The way they had Black followed last night to make sure he left no trail shows how they accounted for everything. He had evidently been seen answering to that generous symptom of his before."

Garth noticed that she did not speak to him di-