Doc Spot Phone Lines

The court resembled little else than a brick-walled pit. At the Riverside Drive end, the rear wall of a great apartment house towered many stories. At the opposite end was a lesser building. And on either side, the shabby sterns of old tenements buttressed each other solidly.

Evening was near. The hulking buildings threw shadows into the pit of a court.

Doc moved along the court, toward Riverside Drive. His sharp eyes soon located the secret phone wires. These followed the chinks between bricks for the most part. They had been coated with a paint the exact color of the brickwork.

They reached the wall of the immensely larger building which fronted Riverside Drive. Turning here, the thin, hardly visible strands traced along the rear of the structure.

At one point, a loop abruptly dangled out--a very small loop.

Doc pointed at this. "Notice anything peculiar about that?"

Long Tom stared.

"The insulation is gone at that point!" he ejaculated. "The naked copper of the wires shows!"

"Exactly. Note also that there are many windows directly above the spot."

"You mean Kar tapped them there and--"

"By reaching down and clipping the ends of other wires to them," Doc replied. "That means he did it from the window immediately above! Those loops are too small to be fished for from a greater distance."

- The Land of Terror (1933) Chapter 10