LITMIR.BIZ

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door, you say: “I was to be sure that ​you got this, this time. It ’s a repeat.’ Step inside when you give him the message, so that he can’t shut the door. And then watch him, as I told you before.”

      He stopped. He eyed Barney skeptically. “You couldn’t possibly be as innocent as you look, could you? Because you ’ll have to do some quick lying, you know, if he suspects anything.”

      Barney looked sheepish.

      “Here,” Babbing said, suddenly. He took a letter from the table and gave it to the boy. “Go into the bathroom. No. The door opens in. I ’ll go in the bathroom, and you can come to the door and deliver this telegram. Let ’s see how you do it.” And he went into the bathroom and shut the door on himself.

      Barney turned the letter over in his hands. He frowned a moment at the door. Then he went up to it and rapped. There was no answer. He knocked more loudly. A voice, disconcertingly gruff, asked, “What is it?”

      “A telegram, sir,” Barney answered.

      ​“Put it under the door.”

      Barney smiled to himself—the cunning smile of a child in a game. “They said I was to see that you got it, this time. It ’s a repeat.”

      The door was opened a few grudging inches. “What ’s that?”

      “They said I was to see that Mr. Cooper got it, this time. It ’s a repeat.”

      “Well, I ’m Mr. Cooper. Give it here.” He put his hand out, still blocking the half-opened door. Barney gave him the letter. The door shut in his face.

      Barney blinked at the panels. Then he knocked again sharply. Babbing opened the door.

      “Well, what is it?”

      “They did n’t give me a receipt form,” Barney said. “Will you sign the envelope an’ give it back to me?”

      “Have you a pencil?”

      “No, sir,” Barney said.

      “Well, wait there till I find one.”

      ​Barney tried the door slyly. It opened. He edged in, over the threshold. “If you want to send an answer, sir,” he said, ”I can take it.”

      Babbing caught him by the ”cowlick” that adorned his ingenuous young forehead. “Get out of here,” he laughed, “or I ’ll have you arrested.” And Barney, as startled as if he had been wakened from a dream, grinned confusedly. “That ’s all right,” Babbing said. “If you do it as well as that.”

      “Was I all right?” Barney cried, exulting. “Was I?” He knew that he was; he could see it in Babbing’s face; but he wanted to hear it. And he spoke in the voice of a boy playing with a boy.

      Babbing changed his expression. “Yes, but this ‘Nick Carter’ stuff,” he said, pointing to Barney’s coat on a hook, “you must n’t destroy your mind with that sort of thing. That must stop with your cigarettes.”

      It returned Barney instantly to the hypocritical schoolroom manner of a pupil ​reproved by his teacher. “Yes, sir,” he promised.

      “Well, we ’ll see.” Babbing was non-committal and unenthusiastic. “You 've a lot to learn, yet.”

      Barney asked, shyly: “What ’s he been doin’?”

      “Who?”

      “Mr. Cooper.”

      Babbing turned back to the bedroom. “That ’s my business, not yours. You do what you ’re told—in my office—and don’t ask questions. And don’t discuss cases. That ’s another thing to learn. … Come in,” he called to Corcoran’s knock.

      The operative came in, taking a telegraph envelope from his pocket. He gave it to Babbing, cheerfully silent. The detective put on his glasses and scrutinized it. He took out the telegram and read it. He compared the “time received” with his watch. “That looks convincing,” he said. He moistened a finger tip and delicately wetted the gummed flap.

      ​“We can give it a couple of minutes to dry.” He handed it to Barney. He went through his pockets for silver. “These are tips you 've received. A dollar on account of salary. He may ask you for change. … Now don’t be over-anxious. If this does n’t work, we ’ll find some other way. If he gets suspicious and telephones to the desk—or anything of that sort—just get in here as quickly as you can, and we ’ll protect you. Sit down a minute.” He turned to the papers on his table. “Jim,” he said, “you remember the disappearance case we had in Dayton—the little girl.”

      “Yes?”

      “Our theory worked out all right. They ’ve got a confession from the nigger and found the body in the bushes where he buried it. Here ’s Wally’s report.”.

      Corcoran took the paper and sat down to read it. “I hope they’ll hang the black—” he said piously.

      Babbing consulted his watch. “Mr. Bellboy,” he said at last, “you have a telegram for ​Mr. Cooper in eight-eighteen. Go ahead and deliver it.”

      Barney had a sensation of peculiar heaviness in the knees as he walked stiffly to the door. (“They said I was to see that you got it, this time.”) Outside, he paused to close the door with unnecessary gentleness and make sure that the corridor was empty. (“It ’s a repeat.”) Where was 818? He saw 819 across the hall to his left. He put a finger down the back of his neck, and eased his collar. He cleared his throat of nervousness. He walked boldly to 818, raised his small knuckles to a panel, and knocked.

      There was no answer. He had put up his hand to knock again, when the door opened and a tall man in slippers and bathrobe asked, “Well?”

      “A telegram for Mr. Cooper,” Barney said steadily. “They tol’ me to see that he got it, this time. It ’s a repeat.”

      Cooper stood back. “Come in.” His voice was pitched low. “What did you say?”

      ​

      It’s a repeat,” Barney said, ‘‘an’ they told me to see that you got it, this time”

      ​Barney came across the threshold and Cooper closed the door on him. “It ’s a repeat,” Barney said, “an’ they told me to see that you got it, this time.” He held out the telegram.

      Cooper took it nervously. He was a gaunt-featured, long-nosed, lean man, with deep lines from his nostrils to the corners of his thin lips. There was a little patch of lather drying on one cheek-bone, and Barney understood that he had been shaving. He wiped his hand on his bathrobe before he took the telegram, and he fumbled over it. Barney found himself suddenly cool and confident. He noticed that Cooper’s hands were very thin and very hairy; and he looked at them and then slowly looked Cooper over with a curious feeling of contempt. It was the contempt that accounts for half the daring of spies and detectives. People are so easily deceived, so easily outwitted. Their attention is so easily caught with one hand while the other goes unwatched. Barney was learning his trade.

      ​“Why!” Cooper said. “I got this last night.”

      “May be you did n’ answer it,” Barney suggested. “It ’s a repeat.”

      He puzzled over it. “Well,” he said, “I—” His voice faded out in the tone of abstraction. He turned and shuffled across the room to his writing desk, his eyes on the telegram. Unconscious of Barney’s craning watchfulness, he took a small cloth-bound volume from an upper drawer of the little escritoire and turned the printed pages, comparing the words in the message with words in the book. The code book!

      “If you

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