406
THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES
"Do please let me see that paper you picked up in the elevator. I think I see where you got your first clue, now. Dennis, the elevator boy, had stepped on it, hadn't he?"
Astro took the paper from his pocketbook and handed it to his assistant. Faintly indented on its surface was a small spiral.
"Yes, I'll have to confess, Valeska," he said, "that, if it hadn't been for that small scrap of paper, McGraw would have had three prisoners instead of one in custody to-night!"