Dick stood with the letter in his hand, staring at it. Who was Bassett?

Who was "G"? What had the departure of whoever Bassett might be for

Norada to do with David? And who was the person who was to be got out of

town?

He did not go upstairs. He took the letter into his private office,

closed the door, and sitting down at his desk turned his reading lamp on

it, as though that physical act might bring some mental light.

Reread, the cryptic sentences began to take on meaning. An unknown named

Bassett, whoever he might be, was going to Norada bent on "mischief,"

and another unknown who signed himself "G" was warning David of that

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fact. But the mischief was designed, not against David, but against a

third unknown, some one who was to be got out of town.

David had been trying to get him out of town.--The warning referred to

himself.

His first impulse was to go to David, and months later he was to wonder

what would have happened had he done so. How far could Bassett have

gone? What would have been his own decision when he learned the truth?

For a little while, then, the shuttle was in Dick's own hand. He went up

to David's room, and with his hand on the letter in his pocket, carried

on behind his casual talk the debate that was so vital. But David had

a headache and a slightly faster pulse, and that portion of the pattern

was never woven.

The association between anxiety and David's illness had always been

apparent in Dick's mind, but now he began to surmise a concrete shock, a

person, a telegram, or a telephone call. And after dinner that night he

went back to the kitchen.

"Minnie," he inquired, "do you remember the afternoon Doctor David was

taken sick?"

"I'll never forget it."

"Did he receive a telegram that day?"

"Not that I know of. He often answers the bell himself."

"Do you know whether he had a visitor, just before you heard him fall?"

"He had a patient, yes. A man."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know. He was a stranger to me."

"Do you remember what he looked like?"

Minnie reflected.

"He was a smallish man, maybe thirty-five or so," she said. "I think he

had gaiters over his shoes, or maybe light tops. He was a nice appearing

person."

"How soon after that did you hear Doctor David fall?"




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