There was a news-agent and cigar man--you know that kind of
joint, where they sell paper novels and magazines and tobacco and
such--getting Saunders' messages. Jim Wakely is his name. He
told the operator that he and Saunders were just practicing; they
were going to be detectives, he said, and rigged up a cipher that
they were learning together so they wouldn't need any codebook.
Pretty thin that--but you can't prove it wasn't the truth. I
managed to find out that Baumberger buys cigars and papers of Jim
Wakely sometimes; not always, though."
Miss Georgie laughed ruefully, and patted her pompadour
absent-mindedly.
"So all I got out of that," she finished, "was a correspondence I
could very well do without. I've been trying to quarrel with
that operator ever since, but he's so darned easy-tempered!" She
went and looked out of the window again uneasily.
"He's guzzling beer over there, and from the look of him he's had
a good deal more than he needs already," she informed Peaceful.
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