"
"You think the thief is still in the hotel?" cried Mrs. Hale.
"Hardly. But I think I see smoke from your blue fires. To make out
the figure through the smoke is not--" Average Jones broke off,
shaking his head. He was still shaking his head when he left the
hotel.
It took three days for the milk-journal advertisement to work. On
the afternoon of August tenth, a lank, husky-voiced teamster called
at the office of the Ad-Visor and was passed in ahead of the waiting
line.
"I'm after that twenty," he declared.
"Earn it," said Average Jones with equal brevity.
"Hotel Denton. Guy on the third floor balcony--"
"Right so far."
"Leanin' on the rail as if he was sick. I give him a hello.
'Takin' a nip of night air, Bill?' I says. He didn't say nothin'."
"Did he do anything?"
"Kinder fanned himself an' jerked his head back over his shoulder.
Meanin' it was too hot to sleep inside, I reckon. It sure was hot!"
"Fanned himself? How?"
"Like this." The visitor raised his hands awkwardly, cupped them,
and drew them toward his face.
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