Blaine handed the pad across to Morrow, who read eagerly:

_Dear Old Boy._

_B-- -o-ey -o---- -o yo- -ro- old --ore le-- ---a-d --a- ---y --are -or -olle----- -or yo--o r--- --ll -all o- yo- ---r-day a- -o-r -e-._

The operative started to speak, but checked himself, and listened while Henry Blaine went on slowly but steadily.

"Each letter gained helps us to others, you see, Guy. For instance _-o-ey_ must be _money_; the character following _yo_ three times in different places must be _u_; the word _---r-day_ can only be _Thursday_; _-all_ is _call_; _a-_ is _at_; and _-o-r_ is _four_. That gives us eight more letters, and makes the message read like this."

Blaine wrote it down and handed the result to Morrow, who read:

_Dear Old Boy._

_B-- money com-n- to you from old score left un-a-d -hat -s my share for collect-n- for you? No ris- --ll call on you Thursday at four. -en._

"It looks easy, now," admitted Morrow. "But I never should have thought of going about it that way. I suppose the sixth word is _coming_. That gives us _i_ and _g_."

"Right you are," Blaine chuckled. "Knowing, too, that the message came from Walter Pennold, we can safely a.s.sume that _-en_ is _Pen_. Use your common sense alone, now, and you will find that the message reads: 'Dear old boy. Big money coming to you from old score left unpaid. What is my share for collecting for you? No risk. Will call on you Thursday at four. Pen.'

"The word _risk_ was misspelled _risl_. Evidently Pennold was a little bit rusty in the use of the old code. Our bait landed the fish all right, Guy. The money we planted in the bank of Brooklyn and Queens certainly brought results. No wonder poor old Jimmy Brunell was all broken up when he received such a message. More crafty than Pennold, he realized that it was a trap, and we were on his trail at last.

We've got him cinched now, but he's only a tool, possibly a helpless one, in the hands of the master workmen. We'll go after them, tooth and nail, for the happiness and stainless name of two innocent young girls, who trust in us, and we'll get them, Guy, we'll get them if there is any justice and honor and truth left in the world!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE EMPTY HOUSE

"Don't spare them now. Get the truth at all costs."

With the last instructions of his chief ringing in his ears, the following morning Guy Morrow set out for Brooklyn, to interview his erstwhile friends, the Pennolds, in his true colors.

Mame Pennold, who was cleaning the dingy front room, heard the click of the gate, and peered with habitual caution from behind the frayed curtains of the window. The unexpected reappearance of their young banking acquaintance sent her scurrying as fast as her palsied legs could carry her back to the kitchen, where her husband sat luxuriously smoking and toasting his feet at the roaring little stove.

"Wally, who d'you think's comin' up the walk? That young feller, Alfred Hicks, who skipped from the Brooklyn and Queens Bank!"

"Good Lord!" Walter Pennold took his pipe from his lips and stared at her. "What d'you s'pose brought him back? Think he's broke, an' wants a touch?"

"No-o," his wife responded, somewhat doubtfully. "He looked prosperous, all right, by the flash I got at him, an' he's walkin'

real brisk and businesslike. Maybe he's back on the job."

"'Tain't likely, not after the way he left his boarding place, if that Lindsay woman didn't lie." Pennold laid aside his pipe and frowned thoughtfully, as steps echoed from the rickety porch and a knock sounded upon the door. "He's a lightweight, every way you take him--he'd never stick anywhere."

"Maybe he's come to try an' get you into somethin'," Mame suggested.

"Don't you go takin' up with a bad penny at your time o' life, Wally.

He might know somethin' an' try blackmail, if he's real up against it."

"Well, go ahead an' open the door!" ordered Walter impatiently. "We're straight with the bank. If he's workin' there again we ain't got nothin' to worry about, an' if he ain't, we got nothin' against him.

Let him in."

With obvious reluctance, Mame shuffled through the hall and obeyed.

"h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Pennold!" Guy greeted her heartily, but without offering his hand. He brushed past her half-defensive figure with scant ceremony, and entered the kitchen. "h.e.l.lo, Pennold. Thought I might find you home this cold morning. How goes it?"

"Same as usual." Pennold rose slowly and looked at his visitor with swiftly narrowed eyes. There was a new note in the young man's voice which the other vaguely recognized; it was as if a lantern had suddenly flashed into his face from the darkness, or an authoritative hand been laid upon his shoulder. He motioned mechanically toward a chair on the other side of the stove, and added slowly: "S'prised to see you, Al. Didn't expect you'd be around here again after your get-away. Workin' once more?"

"Oh, I'm right on the job!" responded Guy briskly. He drew the chair close to the square deal table, so close that he could have reached out, had he pleased, and touched his host's sleeve. Pennold seated himself again in his old position, significantly half-turned, so that when he glanced slyly at his visitor it was over his shoulder, in the furtive fashion of one on guard.

"Ain't back with the Brooklyn and Queens, are you?" he asked.

"No. It got too slow for me there. I found something bigger to do."

Mame Pennold, who had been hovering in the background, came forward now and faced him across the table, her shrewd eyes fastened upon him.

"Must have easy hours, when you can get off in the morning like this?"

she observed. "Didn't forget your old friends, did you?"

"No, of course not. I hadn't anything more important to do this morning, so I thought I'd drop in and see you both."

His hand traveled to his breast pocket, and at the gesture, Mame's gaunt body stiffened suddenly.

"Didn't come to inquire about our health, did you?" she shot at him, acrimoniously.

"I came to see you about another matter--"

"Not on the trail of old Jimmy Brunell still, on that business of the bonds found at the bank?" Walter's voice was suddenly shrill with simulated mirth. "Nothin' in that for you, Al; not a nickel, if that's what you're here for."

"I'm not on Brunell's trail. I've found him," Morrow returned quietly; and in the tense pause which ensued he added dryly: "You led me to him."

"So that's what it was, a plant!" Walter started from his chair, but Mame laid a trembling, sinewy hand upon his shoulder and forced him back.

"What d'you mean, young man?" she demanded. "What do we know about old Brunell?"

"You wrote him a letter--you knew where to find him."

"I only wish we did!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "We didn't write him! You must be crazy!"

"'Big money coming to you from old score left unpaid. What is my share for collecting for you?'" quoted Morrow, adding: "I have a friend who is very much interested in ciphers, and he wanted me to ask you about the one you use, Pennold. His name is Blaine. Ever hear of him?"

"Blaine!" Mame's voice shrank to a mere whisper, and her sallow face whitened.

"Blaine! Henry Blaine? The guy they call the Master Mind?" Pennold's shaking voice rose to a breaking cry, but again his wife silenced him.

"Suppose we did write such a letter--an' we ain't admittin' we did, for a minute--what's Blaine got on us?" demanded Mame, coolly. "It's no crime, as I ever heard, to write a letter any way you want to. Who are you, young man? You're no bank clerk!"

"He's a 'tec, of course! Shut up your fool mouth, Mame. An' as for you, d--n you, get out of this house, an' get out quick, or I'll call the police myself! We've been leadin' straight, clean, respectable lives for years, Mame an' me, an' n.o.body's got nothin' on us! I ain't goin' to have no private 'tecs snoopin' in an' tryin' to put me through the third degree. Beat it, now!"

He rose bl.u.s.teringly and advanced toward Morrow with upraised fist, but the other, with the table between them, drew from his pocket a folded paper.