The Girl at Central Part 18

"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.

c.o.kesbury'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 c.o.kesbury 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 c.o.kesbury'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. c.o.kesbury wasn't down to-day and his whereabouts were unknown. By inquiries at the steams.h.i.+p offices he'd found that Our Suspect-that's what we called him on the wire-had taken pa.s.sage on the _Caronia_ for the following Sat.u.r.day. 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 c.o.kesbury 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. c.o.kesbury 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 c.o.kesbury going or get anybody else to stop him unless we could light on something more definite than a h.e.l.lo 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:

"h.e.l.lo, 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:

"h.e.l.lo, is that Azalea 383?"

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

"This is Mr. c.o.kesbury's butler--" Believe _me_, I came to life.

"c.o.kesbury, c.o.kesbury of c.o.kesbury 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. c.o.kesbury'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 Sat.u.r.day 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed back through my car nodded to him and he stopped and stood in the aisle talking.

It wasn't long before I said, careless: