“That’s to pay for a telephone call; just keep the change,” he said rapidly.  “You’re to do all the talking, and say just what I tell you.”

“I got you, general,” said the girl, emerging with alacrity from romance to reality.  “Shoot.”

“Call up the Hotel Grantham—­say you’re a florist with an order to deliver some flowers direct to Miss Margaret Cameron—­and ask for the number of her suite—­and keep the wire open.”

The girl obeyed promptly.  In less than a minute she was reporting to Larry: 

“They say 1141-1142-1143.”

“Ask if she’s in.  If she is, get her on the ’phone, tell her long distance is calling, but doesn’t want to speak to her unless she is alone.  You get it?”

“Sure, brother.  This ain’t the first time I helped a party out.”

There was more jabbing with the switch-board plug, evident switching at the other end, several questions, and then the girl asked:  “Is this Miss Margaret Cameron?  Miss Cameron—­” and so on as per Larry’s instructions.

The operator turned to Larry:  “She says she’s alone.”

“Tell her to hold the wire till you get better connections—­the storm has messed up connections terribly—­and keep your own wire open and make her hold her end.”

As Larry went out he heard his instructions being executed while an adept hand safely banked the bill inside her shirt-waist.  Within two minutes his taxi set him down at the Grantham; and knowing that whatever risks he ran would be lessened by his acting swiftly and without any suspicious hesitation, he walked straight in and to the elevators, in the manner of one having business there, his collar again pulled up, his cap pulled down, and his face just then covered with a handkerchief which was caring for a sniffling nose in a highly natural manner.

With his heart pounding he got without mishap to the doors numbered 1141, 1142, and 1143.  Instinctively he knew in a general way what the apartment was like:  a set of rooms of various character which the hotel could rent singly or throw together and rent en suite.  But which of the three was the main entrance?  He dared not hesitate, for the slightest queer action might get the attention of the floor clerk down the corridor.  So Larry chose the happy medium and pressed the mother-of-pearl button of 1142.

The door opened, and before Larry stood a large, elderly, imposing woman in a rigidly formal evening gown—­a gown which, by the way, had been part of Miss Grierson’s equipment for many a year for helping raw young things master the art of being ladies.  Larry surmised at once that this was the “hired companion” his grandmother had spoken of.  In other days Larry had had experience with this type and before Miss Grierson could bar him out or ask a question, Larry was in the room and the door closed behind him—­and he had entered with the easiest, most natural, most polite manner imaginable.