Kent stepped quickly to the receiver’s window.  The only expedient he could think of was open to reproach, but it was no time to be over-scrupulous.

“Pardon me,” he began, “but didn’t the gentleman who was just here forget to sign his message?”

The little hook caught its minnow.  The receiving clerk was folding Hawk’s message to place it in the leather carrier of the pneumatic tube, but he opened and examined it.

“No,” he said; “it’s signed all right:  ‘J.B.  Halkett, G.S.’”

“Ah!” said Kent.  “That’s a little odd.  Mr. Halkett is out of town, and this gentleman, Mr. Hawk, is not in his department.  I believe I should investigate a little before sending that, if I were you.”

Having thus sown the small seed of suspicion, which, by the by, fell on barren soil, Kent lost no time in calling up M’Tosh over the nearest telephone.

“Do our agents on the Western Division handle Western Union business?” he asked.

The reply came promptly.

“Yes; locally.  The W-U. has an independent line to Breezeland Inn and points beyond.”

“Well, our right-of-way man has just sent a telegram to all agents, signing Halkett’s name.  I don’t know what he said in it, but you can figure that out for yourself.”

“You bet I can!” was the emphatic rejoinder.  And then:  “Where are you now?”

“I’m at the Clarendon public ’phone, but I am going over to the Argus office.  I’ll let you know when I leave there.  Good-by.”

When Kent reached the night editor’s den on the third floor of the Argus building he found Hildreth immersed chin-deep in a sea of work.  But he quickly extricated himself and cleared a chair for his visitor.

“Praise be!” he ejaculated.  “I was beginning to get anxious.  Large things are happening, and you didn’t turn up.  I’ve had Manville wiring all over town for you.”

“What are some of the large things?” asked Kent, lighting his first cigar since dinner.

“Well, for one:  do you know that your people are on the verge of the much-talked-of strike?”

“Yes; I knew it this morning.  That was what I wanted you to suppress in the evening edition.”

“I suppressed it all right; I didn’t know it—­day and date, I mean.  They kept it beautifully quiet.  But that isn’t all.  Something is happening at the capitol.  I was over at the club a little while ago, and Hendricks was there.  Somebody sent in a note, and he positively ran to get out.  When I came back, I sent Rogers over to Cassatti’s to see if he could find you.  There was a junto dinner confab on; Meigs, Senator Crowley, three or four of the ring aldermen and half a dozen wa-ward politicians.  Rogers has a nose for news, and when he had ’phoned me you weren’t there, he hung around on the edges.”

“Good men you have, Hildreth.  What did the unimpeachable Rogers see?”

“He saw on a large scale just what I had seen on a small one:  somebody pup-passed a note in, and when it had gone the round of the dinner-table those fellows tumbled over each other trying to get away.”