partly opened door. He saw the back of a man sitting at a telephone table. The prowler carefully pulled the door open and slipped into the room. Its occupant had the phone’s receiver to his ear.

“On your call to Mr. Thomas Brewster in Indianapolis, Indiana, sir,” the operator was saying, “they are ringing that number now.”

The prowler crept closer until he was within an arm’s length of the seated man.

“Yes,” the man said into the telephone. “I’ll hold the line.” With his free hand he pulled a well-used pipe from his jacket pocket and stuck it in his mouth. Then he patted the table for matches. He opened a drawer and felt in it.

The prowler watched his prey anxiously. He was an old man, with shaggy white hair hanging down almost to his collar.

Unable to find a match, the old man had just started to turn when the operator spoke again.

“This is Honolulu, Hawaii, calling Mr. Thomas Brewster,” she said. A few seconds passed. “Here’s your party, sir.”

The prowler stood there, arms raised, the fingers of his cupped hands spread like talons just over the old man’s shoulders.

CHAPTER II A Disturbing Call

CHAPTER II

“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”

It was the voice of eleven-year-old Monica Brewster.

“You always do,” grumbled her twin brother Ted. “I never do get to answer the telephone. Not when you’re in the house.”

Monica wasn’t listening. She was flying into the kitchen to answer the steady ring before her mother could lift the phone from its cradle. Mr. Brewster’s study was nearer, and there was a telephone in there, too. But Monica knew that her father was in the study, talking to her older brother Biff. She was sure the call was from her friend Betsy, because Betsy generally called her about five o’clock in the afternoon. Monica didn’t want her father interrupting her talk with Betts. Daddy didn’t approve of long phone gabs.

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