Then slowly the clicking ceased to be random.
It differed from the other little noises only to the practiced ears of
Brent himself. That was not because his ears were keener than the
other pairs, but because to others there was no comprehensible
connection between a faint tapping and the sequence of raps that spells
words in the Morse code.
It was strange that from rats at play should issue the coherent sense
of consecutive telegraphy.
Brent had been on the _qui-vive_, steadied against any self-betrayal,
yet now he struggled against the impulse to tremble with excitement.
His fingers gripping the chair arms threatened to betray him by their
tautness and he could feel cold perspiration dripping down his body.
He crossed his legs and slouched more indolently into his chair in the
attitude of a bored and vacant-minded man--but as he sat his brain was
focussed on the clicking.
"Am tied . . . up . . . here," spelled out the dots and dashes from the
baggage-room. "If you understand, scrape chair on floor." Brent
shifted his seat noisily.
"She .
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