Still keeping her attention riveted on him, she picked up a book to mask her occupation and pretended to be turning its pages.  She was glad she had done so, for a minute later old Hoff wheeled suddenly and looked sharply about him.  Apparently having his suspicions disarmed by seeing only herself and the clerk there, he turned again to the bookshelves.  Jane this time saw him thrust his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and withdraw therefrom,—­she was almost certain of it,—­a little slip of paper.  She saw him remove from the second row of books the fifth from the end, open it quickly and close it again and then restore it to its place.  As he did so he turned to leave the store.

“Didn’t you find anything to read to-day, Mr. Hoff?” the clerk asked.

“Nodding,” he answered.  “You keep novels, trash, nodding worth while.”

Her nerves aquiver, Jane waited until he was out of the store and then stepped briskly to the place where he had stood.  Hastily she pulled forth the fifth book from the end in the second row.  Turning its pages she came upon what she had anticipated,—­a strip of yellow manila paper,—­the paper she was sure she had seen him take from his pocket.  Hastily she examined it, expecting to find some message written there.  To her chagrin it was just a meaningless jumble of figures in three columns.

534 5 2 331 54 6 644 76 3 49 12 9 540 30 12 390 3 2 519 3 6 327 20 2

97

Her first thought was to thrust the little scrap of paper in her purse and start again in pursuit of old Hoff, but a sudden light began to dawn on her.  This was a cipher message, of course.  The old man had left it here for some one to come and get.  If she followed Hoff, how was she to discover who the message was for?  Puzzled as to what she should do, she borrowed a pencil from the clerk on the pretense of writing a postal and hastily copied the figures, after which she restored the slip to the book in which she had found it.

Glancing about undecidedly, wondering if it would do to take the clerk into her confidence, wishing she had some means of reaching Mr. Fleck and asking his advice, she spied in a drug-store just across the street a telephone booth.  She could telephone from there and at the same time keep her eye on the store.  Quickly she did so, twisting her head around all the time she was ’phoning to make sure that no one entered opposite.

“Is this Mr. Fleck?” she asked.  “This is Miss Jones.”

“So soon?” came back his voice.  “What has happened?  What is the matter?  Have you changed your mind?”

“Not at all,” she answered indignantly.  “I’ve discovered something already—­a cipher message.”

“What’s that?”

Even over the wire she could sense the eagerness in Mr. Fleck’s tone, and a sense of achievement brought a radiant glow to her cheek.

“I ran into that man—­you know whom—­”