Part 8

"Don't apologize. It's the penalty of being called Robinson. Still there's a bright side to every cloud. It might have been Smith, you know."

It wasn't Robinson. He talked with a dialect that sounded like Jasper's, English, I guess.

Dunham was very smooth and awful hard to get rid of. He kept on asking questions and I had to think quick and speak unnaturally intelligent. In the middle of it--I'd got what I wanted--I said it was too complicated to tell over the phone and I'd be in to-morrow at two and my name was Mrs. Pendleton.

It wasn't Dunham.

When I tackled Cokesbury I ran into the first snag. I tried his office and a real pleasant young man (you get to know a young voice from an old one) asked me what I wanted. I said business, and he answered:

"What is the nature of your business, Madam?"

"I'd rather tell that to Mr. Cokesbury," I said.

"Mr. Cokesbury doesn't like to be interrupted in the office. If you'll tell me what you want to see him about----"

"Say, young feller," said I, in a cool, classy way, "suppose we stop this pleasant little talk, and you trot into Mr. Cokesbury and say a lady's waiting on the wire."

"Very well," he answered, calm and cheerful, "I'll do just as you say."

There was a wait and then he was back.

"Mr. Cokesbury says it's impossible for him to come to the phone and will you kindly tell me what your business is."

"I guess I'll have to wait till he's not so busy," I answered, languid, like I've heard ladies when they're mad and don't want to show it, and I hung up.

Afterward I saw I'd made a mistake, for, when I called up two hours later that polite guy was still on the job and handed me the same line of talk.

I went into a drugstore and looked up Cokesbury--Edward L., residence. It was in the East Fifties and at six I tried him there.

I drew a man that I guess was a servant:

"Is Mr. Cokesbury home?"

"Who is it?"

"That doesn't matter. I want to know if he's home."

"I don't know, ma'am. Will you please give me your name?"

"Say, you're not taking the census or compiling a new directory, you're answering the phone. Tell Mr. Cokesbury a party wants to see him on business."

"I have orders, ma'am, not to bother Mr. Cokesbury with messages unless I know who they're from," said the voice, and then I knew he _was_ there.

"I'm sure he'll come if you say it's a _lady_," I said, sort of coaxing and sweet.

"I'll try, ma'am," said the voice, and I could hear the echo of his feet as he walked off.

Presently he was back.

"Beg pardon, ma'am, but Mr. Cokesbury says he can't possibly come and please to give me the message."

By that time I was getting mad.

"You ought to get double pay, for you seem to be a District Messenger boy as well as a butler. If it's not too much trouble would you mind telling me what Mr. Cokesbury's friends do when they want a word with him over the phone?"

"They tell the butler who they are and what they want, ma'am. That's the orders in this house. Good-bye."

When Babbitts and I were sitting at a table in a little dago joint near Broadway, I couldn't help but tell him what I'd been doing.

He looked at me with his eyes as big as half-dollars and then began to laugh.

"Well, what do you make of that? Spending your holiday and your nickels rounding up a lot of men that rounded themselves up weeks ago."

"I want to get that voice."

"But everyone of them have proved that voice couldn't be theirs."

"Maybe they did," said I, "but I want to know it myself."

"Listen to her," he said, looking round the table as if a crowd was collected, "calmly brushing aside the police, the detectives, the might of the law and the strong arm of the press."

"And anything else that stands round trying to discourage me."

"Far be it from me to discourage you in any eccentricity that may develop. But there's no need in following up Cokesbury, for we know that he was marooned in Cokesbury Lodge."

"I don't care what we know. The only things I believe are the things I see myself."

"Thomas!" he said, laughing, and I didn't see any sense in his calling me that, but he often said things I wasn't on to. "Do you intend to camp on his trail all night?"

"I do," I answered. "As soon as you get through lapping up that red ink I'm going to go to the nearest pay station and ring up Edward L., residence."

"I'll toddle along," he said. "Anything goes with me that adds to the entertainment of Mary McKenna Morganthau."

He held up his glass as if he was drinking a toast, and something about the look of him--I don't know what--made me get all embarrassed. It never happened before and it took me so by surprise I blushed and was glad I'd dropped my gloves on the floor so I could bend down and hide how red my face was.

I tried Edward L., residence, at a drug store on Broadway and again I drew that butler gink, who was sort of sassy and hung up quick. Then we walked along and I could see that Babbitts was getting interested.

"Tell you what," he said, "that servant knows you. I'll make the connection, say I want to see Cokesbury on business, and if I get him, hand on the receiver to you."

We fixed it that way, went into a hotel, and I stood at the door of the booth while Babbitts got the house. Standing at his elbow I could see he was up against the same proposition as I had been. He finally had to say he wanted to see Mr. Cokesbury about renting Cokesbury Lodge.

He turned to me with his hand over the mouthpiece and said:

"He's there and he won't come."

"Has the servant gone to get him?"

"Yes. He wouldn't say whether his boss was home or not, but his willingness to take the message gave him away. Now stand close and if it's a new voice I won't say a word, just get up and let you slide into my place." He started and turned back to the instrument. "Yes. What?" I could see a look of surprise come over his face. "Soon? You don't know--in a few days. Hasn't any idea of renting. Thanks. That's all--good-bye."

He hung up and turned to me:

"It was the servant. Cokesbury hasn't any intention of renting and is leaving for Europe."

"For Europe!" I cried out. "_When?_"

"The man didn't know exactly. He said he thought in a few days."

We walked down the street silent and thoughtful. The only feeling I had at first was disappointment. I didn't get the whole thing clear as Babbitts did. It came on him all in a minute, he told me afterward.

We were on Broadway as light as day with the signs and people walking by us and crowding in between us as if they were hurrying to catch trains. I felt Babbitts' hand go round my arm, steering me into a side street. It was darker there and there were only a few passers-by. We slackened up and still with his hand around my arm, he bent his face down toward my ear and said low, as if he was afraid someone was listening:

"Kiddo, are you on?"

"To what?"

"Cokesbury. Don't you get it? He won't answer the phone."

"Do you mean he won't answer at all?"

"Not unless it's someone he knows. He's got his clerks in the office holding the fort and his servants at home."

We were just under a lamp and I stopped with my mouth falling open, for sudden, like a flash of light, it came to me.

"Soapy!" I gasped and wheeled round on him. His face bent down toward me, was intent like a hunting dog's when it sees a bird, his eyes, bright and fixed, looking straight into mine.

"You've made the first real discovery in this case, Molly Morganthau. Cokesbury's scared, d----d scared, so scared he's lost his nerve and is lighting out to Europe."

We walked round into Bryant Park and sat down on a bench. We were so excited we didn't notice anything--that I'd grabbed Babbitt's hand and kept hold of it, that it was freezing cold, that we'd got on a bench with a drunk all huddled up on the other end. We were as certain as if he'd confessed it that Cokesbury was the Unknown Voice and that he'd killed Sylvia Hesketh. We just brushed his alibi aside as if he'd never made one and planned how I was to hear him before he got away to Europe. We laid plots there in the dark, sitting close together to keep warm, with the drunk all lopped over and muttering to himself on the seat beside us.

When Babbitts left me at the Ferry we'd fixed it that he was to call me up the next day and tell me what he'd done in town and I was to tell him what I'd accomplished at my end of the line.

The next morning I tried Cokesbury's office with the same results. At one Babbitts called me and said he'd tried twice to get him as a test and been told that Mr. Cokesbury wasn't down to-day and his whereabouts were unknown. By inquiries at the steamship offices he'd found that Our Suspect--that's what we called him on the wire--had taken passage on the _Caronia_ for the following Saturday. That was four days off--four days to hear the man who wouldn't answer the phone.

That afternoon I had an idea, called up Anne Hennessey and asked her to meet me at the Gilt Edge for supper. She came and afterward in my room at Galway's I told her--I had to, but she's true-blue and I knew it--and she agreed to help. She was to come to the Exchange the next morning, call up Cokesbury and say she was Mrs. Fowler, who wanted to bid him good-bye before he left. While she spoke--imitating Mrs. Fowler--I was to listen. We did it--though she'd have lost her job if she'd been found out--and I heard the clerk tell her that Mr. Cokesbury wasn't in his office, that he didn't know where she could find him, and that it was very little use trying to get him on the phone as he was so much occupied prior to his departure.

When Anne came out of the booth I was crying. I guess I never before in my life had my nerves as strung up as they were then.

It wasn't long after that that I had a call from Babbitts. He'd been able to do nothing. When he heard of my last attempt he said:

"He's not answering any calls at all now. His own mother couldn't get him. It's no use trying that line any more. We've got to think up some other way."

That was Wednesday--I had only three days. Three days and I hadn't an idea how to do it. Three days and Jack Reddy was waiting indictment in Bloomington jail. We couldn't stop Cokesbury going or get anybody else to stop him unless we could light on something more definite than a hello girl's suspicions.

XII

Thursday afternoon I was sitting in the Exchange, feeling as if the bottom had fallen out of the world. I hadn't given up yet--I'm not the giving-up kind--but I _couldn't_ think of anything else to do. I'd tossed on my bed all night thinking, I'd dressed thinking, I'd tried to eat thinking, I'd put in the plugs and made the connections thinking--and nothing would come.

Two days more--two days more--two days more--those three words kept going through my head as if they were strung on an endless chain.

And then--isn't it always that way in life? Just when you're ready to throw up the sponge and say you're beaten, Bang--it comes!

It came in the shape of a New York call for Azalea.

Like a dream, for I was pretty nearly all in, I could hear the operator's voice:

"That you, Longwood? Give me Azalea, 383."

And then me answering:

"All right. Azalea 383. Wait a minute."

I plugged in and heard that queer grating sound as if the wires were rubbing against each other:

"Hello, New York. All right for Azalea 383."

And then a woman's voice, clear and small.

"Here's your party. Just a minute. There you are--Azalea 383."

Then a man's voice far away as if it might be in Mars:

"Hello, is that Azalea 383?"

"Yep--the Azalea Garage," that was close and plain.

"This is Mr. Cokesbury's butler----" Believe _me_, I came to life. "Cokesbury, Cokesbury of Cokesbury Lodge--get it?"

"Yep."

"I've a message for Miner--the manager."

"Fire away, I'm Miner."

"He wants to know if you found a raincoat in that auto he had from you last time he was down? _Raincoat_, waterproof. Do you hear?"

"Yes sir, I hear perfect. We've got it and I'd 'a' sent it back but I thought he'd be down again any time and it was just as well to keep it here."

"That's all right. The coat doesn't matter--but he's lost a key that does. Thinks maybe he left it in the pocket. Have you found any key?"

"I haven't looked. Hold the wire while I see?"

There was a pause while I prayed no one would come in or call up. My prayer was answered. There was nothing to interrupt when I heard the garage man's voice again:

"The key's there."

"Good work! Mr. Cokesbury's had the house here upside down looking for it. He wants you to do it up careful and give it to Sands the Pullman conductor on the six-twenty to-night. I'll come across and get it off him at Jersey City."

"All right. Will I send the raincoat along, too?"

"No, he don't want that. He's goin' to Europe Saturday and I guess he's calculating to buy a new one. Thanks for your trouble. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

I dropped the cam, sat tight, and thought. People kept coming in and out and calls came flashing along the wires and I worked swift and steady like an operator that's got no thought but for what's before her.

But my mind was working like a steam engine underneath. How could I get him--how could I get him? It was as if I had two brains, one on the top that went mechanical like a watch and one below that was doing the real business.

Before the afternoon was over I'd decided on a line of action.

I called up Katie Reilly and asked her if she'd relieve me at five-thirty instead of six--that I'd an invitation to go down to a party at Jersey City and I was keen to get there early. She agreed and at six I was on the platform of the station waiting for the New York train.

I took a seat in the common coach and at Azalea watched from the window and saw a man on the platform give Sands a packet. I knew Sands well and when he passed back through my car nodded to him and he stopped and stood in the aisle talking.

It wasn't long before I said, careless:

"I hear Cokesbury Lodge is for rent."

"I ain't heard it," said Sands, "but I ain't surprised. Now he's sent his family away he don't want a house that size on his hands."

"Has he been down lately?"

"No--not for--lemme see--it's several weeks. Yes--the last time was the Sunday before Sylvia Hesketh's murder."

I knew all that but it doesn't do to jump at what you're after too quick.

"Lucky for him he could prove his car was on the blink that time," I said, looking languid out of the window.

"Sure. He and Reddy were the only ones of her fellers within striking distance. But no one ever'd suspicion Cokesbury. He ain't the murderin' kind, too jolly and easy. I hear he's goin' to Europe."

"Is he now? Where'd you hear that?"

"From Miner, that runs the Azalea Garage. He come down to the station just now and gave me a package. Something Cokesbury left in the motor the last time he was down. I'm to hand it over to his servant at Jersey City."

"Is it love letters that he don't want to leave behind?"

"No, I guess he's careful of them. Here it is," he drew out of his breast pocket an envelope with Cokesbury's name and address written on it and held it out to me. "That ain't no love letter."

I pinched it.

"It's a key. It may open the desk where the love letters are kept."

"I guess he's too fly to keep any dangerous papers like that around."

"Yes," I says, "they might set the house on fire."

"Well, ain't you the sassy kid," says he and then the train slowing up for a station he walked on up the aisle.

In the Jersey City depot I went like a streak for the Telephone Exchange. My one chance was to catch him at dinner and I gave the operator the number of his house. When she pointed to the booth I was trembling like a leaf.

The voice that answered me was a woman's--Irish--the cook's, I guess. She began right off: "Yes, this is Mr. Cokesbury's residence, but you can't see him."

"Wait," I almost screamed, scared that she was going to disconnect, "this is important. It's about a key I've just found. If Mr. Cokesbury's there tell him a lady wants to see him about a key she picked up a few minutes ago on the New Jersey train."

"All right. Hold the wire."

I knew he'd come. My heart was beating so I had to hold it hard with my free hand and I had to bite my lips to make them limber. But, honest to God, when I heard him--clear and distinct right in my ear--I thought I was going to faint. For at last I'd got the Voice!

"What's this about finding a key?" he said gruff and sharp.

"Am I speaking to Mr. Cokesbury?"

"You are. Who is it?"

"No one you know, sir. I've just come in from Philadelphia and on the Pullman step I found a package which seems to have a key in it. I noticed that it was addressed to you and I looked you up in the telephone book and am phoning now from Jersey City."

He was very cordial then. His voice was the same deep, pleasant one he'd used to Sylvia.

"That's very kind of you and very thoughtful. I can't thank you enough. The package was given to the Pullman conductor and he's evidently dropped it."

"Then shall I give it to the Pullman conductor now?"

"If you'll be so kind. My servant's gone over there to get it. Just hand it to the conductor--a tall, thin man, whose name is Sands."

"I'll do it right off. Ain't it lucky I found it?"

"Very. I'm deeply grateful. It would have put me to the greatest inconvenience if it had been lost. I'd like to know to whom I'm indebted."

"Oh, that don't need to bother you. I'm just a passenger traveling down on the train. Awful glad I could be of any service. Good-bye."

I waited a minute till I got my heart quieted down, then took a call for Babbitts' paper. Luck was with me all round that night, for he was there. I couldn't tell him everything--I was afraid--but I told him enough to show him I'd landed Cokesbury and he answered to come across to town and he'd meet me at the Ferry. I caught a boat as it pulled out of the slip and at the other side he was waiting for me.

"Come on," he said, putting his hand through my arm and walking quick for the street, "I got a taxi here. We'll charge it up to the defense."

I got in, supposing he was going to take me somewhere to dinner, but he wasn't. When I heard where we were bound I was sort of scared--it was to Wilbur Whitney's house, Jack Reddy's lawyer.

"He's expecting us," Babbitts explained. "I called him up right after I'd heard from you. You see, Kiddo, we don't want to lose a minute for we can't stop Cokesbury going unless we got something to stop him for."

Mr. Whitney's house was a big, grand mansion just off Fifth Avenue. A butler let us in and without waiting to hear who we were showed us into a room with lights in bunches along the walls, small spindly gold chairs and sofas, and a floor that shone like glass between elegant soft rugs. There was some class to it and Babbitts and I looked like a pair of tramps sitting side by side on two of the gold chairs. I was nervous but Babbitts kept me up, telling me Mr. Whitney was a delightful gentleman and was going to jump for all I had to say. Then we heard steps coming down the stairs--two people--and I swallowed hard being dry in the mouth, what with fright and having had no supper.

Mr. Whitney was the real thing. He was a big man, with a square jaw and eyes deep in under thick eyebrows. He spoke so easy and friendly that you forgot how awful sharp and keen those eyes were and how they watched you all the time you were talking. A young man came with him--a real classy chap--that he introduced to me as his son, George.

They couldn't have acted more cordial to me and Babbitts if we'd been the King and Queen of Spain. When they sat down and asked me to tell them what I knew I loosened up quite natural and told the whole story.

The young man sat sideways on the gold sofa, smoking a cigarette and looking into the air with his eyes narrowed up as if he was spying at something a long ways off. Mr. Whitney was sort of slouched down in an easy chair with his hands--white as a woman's--hanging over the arms. Now and then he'd ask me a question--always begging my pardon for interrupting--and though they were so calm and quiet I could feel, as if it was in the air, that they were concentrated close on every word I said.

When I got through Mr. Whitney said, very cheerful, as if I'd been telling some yarn in a story book:

"That's very interesting, Miss Morganthau, and very well told. Quite a narrative gift, eh George?" and he looked at his son.

"First-class story," said George, and as careless as you please flicked off his cigarette ashes on the rug.

Mr. Whitney leaned forward clasping his big white hands between his knees and looking into my face, half-smiling but with something terrible keen behind the smile.

"How can you be so sure of the voice, Miss Morganthau? I don't know whether on the phone I could recognize the voice of my own son here."

"You get that way in my work," I answered. "Your ear gets trained for voices."

"You're absolutely certain," said young Mr. Whitney, "that in that message you overheard, the man spoke of coming to the meeting place in his auto?"

"Yes, sir, I'm certain he said that."

He turned and looked at his father.

"And investigations have shown he had no auto, he telephoned to no other garage for one, he kept no horses, and to get there on his own feet, would have had to walk through bad country roads a distance of twenty-five miles."

"Um," answered old Mr. Whitney as if he wasn't interested and then he said to me: "In this message you heard to-day no suggestion was given of what that key was the key of?"

"No, sir. The man just said it was important and Mr. Cokesbury'd had the house upside down looking for it."

"Um," said Mr. Whitney again. "I rather fancy, Miss Morganthau, you've done us a double service; in hunting for a voice, you've stumbled on a key."

Young Mr. Whitney laughed.

"It's probably the key of his front door."

"Perhaps," said his father, and looked down on the carpet as if he was thinking.

Then Babbitts spoke up:

"Don't criminals, no matter how careful they are, often overlook some small clew that maybe is the very thing that gives them away?"

"Often," said Mr. Whitney. "In most crimes there's a curious lack of attention to detail. The large matters are well conceived and skillfully carried out. And then some minor point is neglected, sometimes forgotten, sometimes not realized for its proper value."

He got up and shook himself like a big bear and we all rose to our feet. I was feeling pretty fine, not only the relief of having delivered the goods, but proud of myself for getting through the interview so well. Mr. Whitney added to it by saying:

"You're a pretty smart girl, Miss Morganthau. _You_ don't know and _I_ don't know yet the full value of the work you've done for me and my client. But whatever the outcome may be you've shown an energy and keenness of mind that is as surprising as it is unusual."

I just swelled up with importance and didn't know what to say. Behind Mr. Whitney I could see Babbitts' face, all beaming and grinning, and I was so glad he was there to hear. And then--just when I was at the top-notch of my pride--Mr. George Whitney, who'd been silent for a while, said suddenly:

"If you don't mind me asking, Miss Morganthau, I'd like to know what lucky chance made you listen in to that conversation between Miss Hesketh and the Unknown Man."

Believe me I came down to earth with a thud. How could I tell them? Say I listened to everything in the hope of hearing Jack Reddy talking to Sylvia. I looked down on the floor, feeling my cheeks getting as red as fire.

"Go ahead," said Babbitts. "Don't be afraid to say anything."

"We're as close here as the confessional," said old Mr. Whitney, smiling at me like a father.

I had to say something and took what seemed to me the most natural.

"I'd heard Miss Hesketh was a great one for jollying up the men and I wanted to hear how she did it."

And they all--that means Babbitts, too--just burst out and _roared_.