Maxwell Grant - The Shadow 195 by The Spy Ring

Author:The Spy Ring
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-15T00:49:59+00:00

LEAVING Armion, Kellington soon turned a corner of the corridor and hurried past a row of doors, to a large room where three draftsmen were at work. There, two men awaited him.

One was Philip Saybrook, a vice president of the Superior Engineering Corp.; the other was a swarthy individual whose name and occupation were known to Kellington. The swarthy man was Vic Marquette of the F.B.I.

Saybrook turned over an envelope of plans, and Kellington went to his drawing board. Scarcely noting Saybrook and Marquette, he glanced suspiciously at the other draftsmen, then swung his drawing board so that its tilted back was toward them.

That left Kellington a space beside the window, where he placed his stool and began to work.

From the corner of his eye, Kellington saw Saybrook and Marquette exchange approving glances as they departed. The envelope opened, Kellington was fixing sets of plans upon his drawing board with thumb tacks. All were penciled diagrams, that he was to connect in one large group.

Chosen because he was rapid, as well as accurate, Kellington came up to expectations. He handled ruling pens and compasses with a polished deftness, apparently to the envy of the other draftsmen, who kept stealing occasional glances from their boards. Kellington was too busy to notice such observation; otherwise, his nerves might have slipped.

These men were not new draftsmen hired for extra work, as Kellington supposed. They were Feds, specially deputed to make sure that Kellington neither stalled nor attempted to make notes of the plans in his possession.

Nor were they entirely baffled by the little game that he had staged for their benefit—that trick of turning his drawing board so they could not see it. They had caught a parting look from Marquette, quite different from the approving nod that he had let Kellington see. It was possible that Kellington's display of overzeal might be hiding some shady purpose.

At least, Kellington was consistent. He completed his rapid job in twenty minutes, work that would have taken an ordinary draftsman an hour. That fact seemed to indicate that his zeal was actual; that when Kellington leaned back and scanned the plans for half a minute, he was merely doing the normal thing checking to make sure that he had done the entire job.

His next move, too, was natural. After wiping his pens, Kellington glanced at his hands, saw that they were stained with ink. Quite nonchalantly, the pasty man left his stool, went across the room to a washstand and scrubbed his hands with soap and water. He kept darting looks across his shoulder, to make sure that no one went near his precious table.

It was then that Kellington staged the scheme suggested by Armion. Returning to the drawing board, he carried the towel with him. One hand dried, Kellington picked up the telephone, called Saybrook's office to tell him that the plans were ready. The ink was dry, so Kellington laid a large sheet of paper over the board and tacked it down.

His final moment had arrived.

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