Behind the Green Door

  CHAPTER 18 _QUESTIONS AND CLUES_

  "Good morning," stammered Penny, backing from the door. "Were you wantingto get into this room?"

  "No, I never clean in there," answered the maid, still watching the girlwith suspicion. "You're looking for someone?"

  Penny knew that she had been observed listening at the door. It would befoolish to pretend otherwise.

  She answered frankly: "No, I was passing through the corridor when Iheard a strange sound in this room. Do you hear it?"

  The maid nodded and her distrustful attitude changed to one ofindifference.

  "It's a machine of some sort," she answered. "I hear it running everyonce in a while."

  Penny was afraid to loiter by the door any longer lest her own voicebring Ralph Fergus to investigate. As the cleaning woman picked up hermop and started on down the hall, she fell into step with her.

  "Who occupies Room 27?" she inquired casually.

  "No one," said the maid. "The hotel uses it."

  "What goes on in there anyway? I thought I heard teletype machines."

  The maid was unfamiliar with the technical name Penny had used. "It'sjust a contraption that prints letters and figures," she informed. "WhenI first came to work at the hotel I made a mistake and went in there todo some cleaning. Mr. Fergus, he didn't like it and said I wasn't tobother to dust up there again."

  "Doesn't anyone go into the room except Mr. Fergus?"

  "Just him and George Jewitt."

  "And who is he? One of the owners of the hotel?"

  "Oh, no. George Jewitt works for Mr. Fergus. He takes care of themachines, I guess."

  "You were saying that the machine prints letters and figures," promptedPenny. "Do you mean messages one can read?"

  "It was writing crazy-like when I watched it. The letters didn't makesense nohow. Mr. Fergus he told me the machines were being used in someexperiment the hotel was carrying on."

  "Who occupies the nearby rooms?" Penny questioned. "I should think theywould be disturbed by the machines."

  "Rooms on this corridor are never assigned unless everything else is fullup," the maid explained.

  Pausing at a door, the cleaning woman fitted a master key into the lock.

  "There's one thing more I'm rather curious about," said Penny quickly."It's this Green Room I hear folks mentioning."

  The maid gazed at her suspiciously again. "I don't know anything aboutany Green Room," she replied.

  Entering the bedroom with her cleaning paraphernalia, she closed the doorbehind her.

  "Went a bit too far that time," thought Penny, "but at least I learned afew facts of interest."

  Turning, she retraced her steps to Room 27, but she was afraid to lingerthere lest Ralph Fergus should discover her loitering in the hall. MissMiller had not put in an appearance when she returned to the elevators.She decided not to wait.

  Scribbling a brief note of explanation, Penny left the paper in a cornerof the sofa and hobbled down the stairway to the first floor. She letherself out the back way without attracting undue attention. Safely inthe open once more she retreated to her bench under the ice-coated trees.

  "I need to give this whole problem a good think," she told herself. "HereI have a number of perfectly good clues but they don't fit together. I'malmost as far from getting evidence against Fergus and Maxwell as I wasat the start."

  Penny could not understand why the hotel would have need for teletypemachine service. Such machines were used in newspaper offices, forrailroad communication, brokerage service, and occasionally in very largeplants with widely separated branch offices. Suddenly she recalled thather father had once told her Mr. Maxwell kept in touch with his chain ofhotels by means of such a wire service. Surely it was an expensive andunnecessary means of communication.

  The cleaning woman's information that messages came through inunintelligible form convinced Penny a code was being used--a code towhich she had the key. But why did Maxwell and Fergus find it necessaryto employ one? If their messages concerned only the routine operation ofthe various hotels in the chain, there would be no need for secrecy.

  The one message she had interpreted--"No Train Tomorrow"--undoubtedly hadbeen received by teletype transmission. But Penny could not hazard aguess as to its true meaning. She feared it might be in double code, andthat the words did not have the significance usually attributed to them.

  "If only I could get into Room 27 and get my hands on additional codemessages I might be able to make something out of it," she mused. "Theproblem is how to do it without being caught."

  Penny had not lost interest in the Green Room. She was inclined tobelieve that its mystery was closely associated with the communicationsystem of the hotel. But since, for the time being at least, the problemof penetrating beyond the guarded Green Door seemed unsolvable, shethought it wiser to center her sleuthing attack elsewhere.

  "All I can do for the next day or so is to keep an eye on Ralph Fergusand Harvey Maxwell," she told herself. "If I see a chance to get insideRoom 27 I'll take it."

  Penny arose with a sigh. She would not be likely to have such a chanceunless she made it for herself. And in her present battered state, hermind somehow refused to invent clever schemes.

  The walk back up the mountain road was a long and tiring one. Finallyreaching the lodge after many pauses for rest, Penny stood for a timewatching the skiers, and then entered the house.

  Mrs. Downey was not in the kitchen. Hearing voices from the living room,Penny went to the doorway and paused there. The hotel woman was talkingwith a visitor, old Peter Jasko.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," Penny apologized for her intrusion. She started toretreat.

  Peter Jasko saw her and the muscles of his leathery face tightened.Pushing back his chair he got quickly to his feet.

  "You're the one who has been trespassing on my land!" he accused, hisvoice unsteady from anger. "You've been helping my granddaughter disobeymy orders!"

  Taken by surprise, Penny could think of nothing to say in her owndefense.

  After his first outburst, Peter Jasko ignored the girl. Turning once moreto Mrs. Downey he said in a rasping voice:

  "You have my final decision, Ma'am. I shall not renew the lease."

  "Please, Mr. Jasko," Mrs. Downey argued quietly. "Think what this meansto me! If I lose the ski slopes I shall be compelled to give up thelodge. I've already offered you more than I can afford to pay."

  "Money ain't no object," the old man retorted. "I'm against the wholeproposition."

  "Nothing I can say will make you reconsider?"

  "Nothing, Ma'am."

  Picking up his cap, a ridiculous looking affair with ear muffs, PeterJasko brushed past Penny and went out the door.