The crimson blotter Author:Isabel Ostrander Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III AMONG WHISPERING TREES TV TcNULTY surveyed his friend with mingled emo- AVA- tions across the dingy little table and finally a grin broke over ... more »his lantern-jawed countenance. "I've got to admire your nerve, anyway, Pete!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get that note you gave the coachman? You don't mean to say you interviewed Seward Moberley in his office ?" "Just that!" The other grinned in response. "He never refuses to see an applicant, you know, nor turns a deserving man down. You couldn't get a job from him that would let you inside his grounds for he knows you are a dick and he has refused police protection; you told me that yourself. On the contrary, I'm an honest man out of work and with a sick child on my hands, and it was almost too easy! Moreover, I smoked out your secretary and the blonde stenographer. The girl stumps me, but your hunch about the secretary was right. He's using his real name, Talbot Quinn, so that looks as if he were running straight if he ever was guilty. Do you remember his case ?" McNulty shook his head and Pete went on: "Oh, I forgot! You were out West then after the driver of the Hale death car. Quinn was the cashier who was supposed to have wrecked the Alien Investors' Bank, but there was such popular doubt of his guilt that he was given an indeterminate sentence and pardoned a short time after. Moberley took him on to give him a f resl start, I guess. He's a fine old chap, my new boss, and if that letter wasn't a hoax you'll find a homicidal maniac on your hands to-night or I'll never make another, prediction!" "You are wasting your time, Pete!" "Not I!" his companion retorted. "I'll be in at the death, if there is any, to-night! Don't forget that!— Girlie, bring me a cup of coffee and any dish you've got that's ...« less