thing you know. They’ve wired me to know who you are and what and why.”
“Why what?”
“Oh, I dunno. Why a fellow who can do that sort of thing hasn’t done it before or doesn’t do it some more, I suppose. If you should ever want a job in the newspaper game, that story would be pretty much enough to get it for you.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting a little local correspondence to do,” announced Banneker modestly.
“So you intimated before. Well, I can give you some practice right now. I’m on a blind trail that goes up in the air somewhere around here. Do you remember, we compared lists on the wreck?”
“Yes.”
“Have you got any addition to your list since?”
“No,” replied Banneker. “Have you?” he added.
“Not by name. But the tip is that there was a prominent New York society girl, one of the Four Hundred lot, on the train, and that she’s vanished.”
“All the bodies were accounted for,” said the agent.
“They don’t think she’s dead. They think she’s run away.”
“Run away?” repeated Banneker with an impassive face.
“Whether the man was with her on the train or whether she was to join him on the coast isn’t known. That’s the worst of these society tips,” pursued the reporter discontentedly. “They’re always vague, and usually wrong. This one isn’t even certain about who the girl is. But they think it’s Stella Wrightington,” he concluded in the manner of one who has imparted portentous tidings.
“Who’s she?” said Banneker.
“Good Lord! Don’t you ever read the news?” cried the disgusted journalist. “Why, she’s had her picture published more times than a movie queen. She’s the youngest daughter of Cyrus Wrightington, the multi-millionaire philanthropist. Now did you see anything of that kind on the train?”
“What does she look like?” asked the cautious Banneker.
“She looks like a million dollars!” declared the other with enthusiasm. “She’s a killer! She’s tall and blonde and a great athlete: baby-blue eyes and general rosebud effect.”
“Nothing of that sort on the train, so far as I saw,” said the agent.
“Did you see any couple that looked lovey-dovey?”
“No.”
“Then, there’s another tip that connects her up with Carter Holmesley. Know about him?”
“I’ve seen his name.”
“He’s been on a hell of a high-class drunk, all up and down the coast, for the last week or so. Spilled some funny talk at a dinner, that got into print. But he put up such a heavy bluff of libel, afterward, that the papers shied off. Just the same, I believe they had it right, and that there was to have been a wedding-party on. Find the girl: that’s the stunt now.”
“I don’t think you’re likely to find her around here.”
“Maybe not. But there’s something. Holmesley has beaten it for the Far East. Sailed yesterday. But the story is still in this country, if the lady can be rounded up. … Well, I’m going to the village to make inquiries. Want to put me up again for the night if there’s no train back?”
“Sure thing! There isn’t likely to be, either.”
Banneker felt greatly relieved at the easy turn given to the inquiry by the distorted tip. True, Gardner might, on his return, enter upon some more embarrassing line of inquiry; in which case the agent decided to take refuge in silence. But the reporter, when he came back late in the evening disheartened and disgusted with the fallibility of long-distance tips, declared himself sick of the whole business.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he said, having lighted his pipe. “What else have you written besides the wreck stuff?”
“Nothing,” said Banneker.
“Come off! That thing was never a first attempt.”
“Well, nothing except random things for my own amusement.”
“Pass ’em over.”
Banneker shook his head. “No; I’ve never shown them to anybody.”
“Oh, all right. If you’re shy about it,” responded the reporter good-humoredly. “But you must have thought of writing as a profession.”
“Vaguely, some day.”
“You don’t talk much like a country station-agent. And you don’t act like one. And, judging from this room”—he looked about at the well-filled book-shelves—“you don’t look like one. Quite a library. Harvey Wheelwright! Lord! I might have known. Great stuff, isn’t it?”
“Do you think so?”
“Do I think so! I think it’s the damndest spew that ever got into print. But it sells; millions. It’s the piety touch does it. The worst of it is that Wheelwright is a thoroughly decent chap and not onto himself a bit. Thinks he’s a grand little booster for righteousness, sweetness and light, and all that. I had to interview him once. Oh, if I could just have written about him and his stuff as it really is!”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Why, he’s a popular literary hero out our way, and the biggest advertised author in the game. I’d look fine to the business office, knocking their fat graft, wouldn’t I!”
“I don’t believe I understand.”
“No; you wouldn’t. Never mind. You will if you ever get into the game. Hello! This is something different again. ‘The Undying Voices.’ Do you go in for poetry?”
“I like to read it once in a while.”
“Good man!” Gardner took down the book, which opened in his hand. He glanced into it, then turned an inquiring and faintly quizzical look upon Banneker. “So Rossetti is one of the voices that sings to you. He sang to me when I was younger and more romantic. Heavens! he can sing, can’t he! And you’ve picked one of his finest for your floral decoration.” He intoned slowly and effectively:
“Ah, who shall dare to search in what sad maze Thenceforth their incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death?”
Banneker took the book from him. Upon the sonnet a crushed bloom of the sage had left its spiced and fragrant stain. How came it there? Through but one possible agency of which Banneker could think. Io Welland!
After the reporter had left him, Banneker bore the volume to his room and read the sonnet again and again, devout and absorbed, a seeker for the oracle.
CHAPTER X
“Wouldn’t you like to know when I’m going home?”
Io Welland looked up from beneath her dark lashes at her hostess with a mixture of mischief and deprecation.
“No,” said Miss Van Arsdale quietly.
“Ah? Well, I would. Here it is two full weeks since I settled down on you. Why don’t you evict me?”
Miss Van Arsdale smiled. The girl continued:
“Why don’t I evict myself? I’m quite well and sane again—at least I think so—thanks to you. Very well, then, Io; why don’t you go home?”
“Instinct