For a mere instant he glanced at them, then his lips began to move.  “Beaton—­Ned—­Ned Beaton—­Ned Beaton,” he mused, and then sat bolt upright in his chair, while he banged the desk with a round, hard fist.  “Hell’s bells!” he ejaculated.  “You’ve run across something.  I know that name.  I know the man.  Ned Beaton is a ‘gun,’ and he pulled his first job when I was doing ‘police’ in Philadelphia for the Record.  Well, well, my children, this is splendid!  And what next?”

“But, Mr. Farriss, where is he?” put in Stella Donovan.  “Where was the message sent from?  Colorado, yes, but where in Colorado?  That’s the thing to find out.”

“I thought it might be the last word in the message—­Haskell,” ventured Willis.

Mr. Farriss paused a moment, then,

“Boy!” he yelled through the open door.

“Boy, get me an atlas here quick, or I’ll hang your hair on a proof-hook!”

A young hopeful, frightened into frenzy, obeyed with alacrity, and Farriss, seizing the atlas from his hand, thumbed it until he found a map of Colorado.  Together the three pored over it.

“There it is!” Stella Donovan cried suddenly.  “Down toward the bottom.  Looks like desert country.”

“Pretty dry place for Celeste,” laughed Willis.  “I might call her up and kid her about it if——­”

Farriss looked at him sourly.  “You might get a raise in salary,” he snapped sharply, “if you’d keep your mind on the job.  What you can do is call up, say you’re the detective bureau, and ask carelessly about Beaton.  That’ll throw a scare into her.  You’ve got her number?”

“Riverside 7683,” Willis said in a businesslike voice.  “The Beecher apartments.  I’ll try it.”

He disappeared into the clattering local room, to return a moment later, white of face, bright of eye, and with lips parted.

“What’s the dope?” Farriss shot at him.

“Nothing!” cried the excited young man.  “Nothing except that fifteen minutes ago Celeste La Rue kissed the Beecher apartments good-bye and, with trunk, puff, and toothbrush, beat it.”

“To Haskell,” added the city editor, “or my hair is pink.  And by God, I believe there’s a story there.  What’s more, I believe we can get it.  It’s blind chance, but we’ll take it.”

“Let Mr. Willis——­” began Miss Donovan.

“Mind your own business, Stella,” commanded Farriss, “and see that your hat’s on straight.  Because within half an hour you’re going to draw on the night cashier for five hundred dollars and pack your little portmanteau for Haskell.”

Willis’s face fell.  “Can’t I go, too?” he began, but Farriss silenced him on the instant.

“Kid,” he said sharply but kindly, “you’re too good a hound for the desert.  The city needs you here—­and, dammit, you keep on sniffing.”

Turning to the unsettled girl beside him, he went on briskly: 

“Work guardedly; query us when you have to; be sure of your facts, and consign your soul to God.  Do I see you moving?”