"Towers," I said in a low voice.
A quiet "Ah!" came to me over the wire, and then:
"I think I understand, Sir Thomas, you wish--?"
"To tell you something that I feel sure you ought to know, in your own
interests."
"Pass, _Friend_!" was the reply, followed by a little chuckle in which I
thought--I might have been mistaken--I detected a note of relief.
"When shall we meet?" I asked.
"Look here, Kirby," was the reply, "can you come here at eleven
to-night? I'll give orders that you are to be taken up to my rooms at
once. I can't guarantee that I shall be in at the moment. I also have
something of considerable importance on hand, but if you will wait--I'm
afraid I'm asking a great deal--I'll be certain to be with you sooner or
later. My daughter may be at home and, if she is, no doubt she'll give
you a cup of coffee or something while you wait. Do you think you can
manage this?"
"I shall be delighted," I answered, trying to control my voice, and I
hardly heard the quiet "Good-by" that concluded our conversation.
Well, I had done better for myself than I had hoped, and, so vain are
all of us, I felt a kind of satisfaction in having "played the game" and
at the same time won the trick. I did not reflect till afterwards that
if Morse had been some one else and not the father of Juanita, I should
not have hesitated for a moment to fill the _Special_ with scare
headlines.
I sat down again in my chair, ordered a cup of tea, drank it with
splendid visions of a _tete-a-tete_ with Juanita that very night, and
was leaning back in my chair lost in a rosy dream when the door opened
and the odd little man with the red hair appeared at my side, holding
two or three sheets of typewritten copy.
"The story, sir," he said.
I took it from him mechanically, it would never be published now, in all
probability, but it would at least serve to show Morse how much I knew.
I began to read.
At the end of the first paragraph I knew that the stuff was going to be
all right. At the end of the second and third I sat up in my chair and
abandoned my easy attitude. When I had read the whole of the thousand
words I knew that I had discovered one of the best journalistic brains
of the day! The boy could not only ferret out news, but he could
_write_! Every word fell with the right ring and chimed. He was terse,
but vivid as an Alpine sunset. He made one powerful word do the work of
ten. He suggested atmosphere by a semicolon, and there were fewer
adjectives in his stuff than one would have believed possible. There
were not four other men in Fleet Street who could have done as well. And
beyond this, beyond my pleasure at the discovery of a genius, the
article had a peculiar effect upon me. I felt that somehow or other the
matter was not going to die with my interview to-night at the Ritz
Hotel. The room in which I sat widened. There was a glimpse of far
horizons....