Curlie Carson Listens In | Page 7

the time his ears were strained to catch
the whisper.
"I have seen you," it went on, "and I like your looks. That's why I'm
talking now."
For a second the whisper ceased. There was something awe-inspiring
about that whisper. As he sat in his secret chamber away up there
against the sky, Curlie felt as if some spirit-being was floating about
out there in the sky on a fleecy cloud and pausing now and then to
whisper to him.
"I saw you," the whisper repeated. "You are in very grave danger. He is
a bold and treacherous man. It's big, Curlie, big!" The whisper rose
shrilly. "But you must be careful. You must not let him know the place
where you listen in. I don't know where it is. But I do know you listen
in. Be careful--careful--careful, c-a-r-e-f-u-l-" The whisper trailed off
into space, to be lost in thin air.
Wiping the beads of perspiration from his face, Curlie sat up. "Well,
now," he whispered softly to himself, "what do you know about that?
"One thing I do know," he told himself. "I'd swear it was a girl's
whisper, though how you can tell a girl's whisper is more than I know.
Question is: Which one is it--hotel station or the one that moves?"
For a moment his brow wrinkled in thought. Then with an exclamation
of disgust he exclaimed:
"That's easy! I've got their location!"
He figured for a few seconds, then put a pencil point on a certain spot
on his map.
"There!" he muttered. "It's the hotel, the exact spot."

Suddenly he started. There came the rattle of a key in the door.
"Oh!" he exclaimed as Coles Masters shoved the door open, "it's you.
I'm glad you're here. Got something I want to look into. Want to bad.
Mind if I take an extra hour?"
"Nope."
"All right. See you later." With a bound he was out of the door and
down the stairs.
"That boy," muttered Coles Masters, with a grin, "will either die young
or become famous. Only Providence knows which it will be."
Curlie did not leave the elevator at the first floor. Dropping down to the
sub-basement, he wound his way in and out through a labyrinth of
dimly lighted halls, at last to climb a stair to the first basement. Then,
having passed into his accustomed eating place, he paused long enough
to purchase a Swiss cheese sandwich, after which, with cap pulled well
down over his eyes, he made his way up a second flight of stairs into
the outer air.
He shivered as he emerged into the open street. Whether this chill came
from the damp cool of the night or from nervous excitement, he could
not tell. The memory of the whispered warning bore heavily upon his
mind.
Turning his face resolutely in the direction of the hotel, he walked three
blocks, then hailed a passing taxi. When the taxi dropped him, a few
minutes later, he was still four blocks from the point of his destination.
Covering this distance with rapid strides, he came to the rear of the
hotel. There, dodging past a line of waiting taxis, he came at length to a
dark corner where a stone bench made an angle with the wall of a
building directly behind the hotel.
Crouching in this corner, he glanced rapidly from right to left to learn
whether or not his arrival had been detected. Satisfied that for the
moment he was safe, he cast a glance upward to where the aerials of the

radiophone glistened in the moonlight. From that point he allowed his
gaze to drop steadily downward until it reached the windows of the
sixteenth floor. There it remained fixed for a full moment.
There came from between his teeth a sudden intake of breath.
Had he seen some movement at the window to the right of the wires
that led to the aerials? He must see, no matter how great the risk.
Drawing a small pair of binoculars from his pocket, he fixed them on
the spot. He then turned a screw at the side of the binocular and
suddenly there appeared upon the wall of the building a round spot of
brilliant light. The size of a plate, this mysterious spot moved rapidly
backward and forward until it at last rested upon the wires by the
window.
"Ah!" came in an involuntary whisper from the boy's lips.
A hand, the slender, graceful hand of a girl had been clearly outlined
against the wall. Quickly as it had been withdrawn, Curlie had seen that
between the thumb and finger of that hand was the end of a wire.
"Been tapping the aerial. A girl!" he muttered incredulously. "And it
was she who whispered to