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“What could be dangerous?”

“When Krieg Rüstungswerk Gerous”

Threatening Arthur Curtis was a surefire way to get his dander up “Is that so?”

“That is so, Herr Private Detective,” said the Ger on the telephone Good day, sir”

Arthur Curtis returned the earpiece to his telephone, took out his favorite pistol, a finely crafted lightweight Browning 1899 that fit his small hand, and broke it down and cleaned it to clear his mind A sharp knock at the door alerted him to trouble

“I told you,” he said, without looking up as the door opened, “go away”

“I a in uninvited and draping the coat and hat she had already taken off on the clothes tree “You need me”

Art Curtis ground his teeth He had coue

“For the last tiirl in this office Even if I did, which I don’t, I would not need a girl who is only seventeen years old and is probably lying about her actual age which is plausibly sixteen or less”

“Every great detective needs an apprentice”

Curtis looked up, wearily This had been going on for weeks She was standing there with that same hopeful smile on her freckled face, a skinny little Gerht blue eyes, and the hter

“I’uises with the best of thehhewn Westerner “I’ about I’ stiff That lets me off the hook”

“It is your duty to society to take an apprentice How else will the young learn?”

“I don’t believe in girl detectives And I’ a charity for society Go away”

She had alreadyover his shoulder at the papers on his desk Lots of luck reading Van Dorn cipher, he thought