Looking back now I can remember dressing the next morning, all trembly
and with my hands damp, and my face in the glass, white and pinched like
an East Side baby's in a hot wave. But there wasn't anything trembly
about the thinking part of me. That was working better than it had ever
worked before. It seemed to be made of steel springs going swift and
sure like an engine that went independent of the rest of my machinery.
And, thank God, it did work that way, for it had thought of something!
The idea came on me in the second part of the night, flashed out of the
dark like a wireless. I'd been wondering about the man who made the
telephone date with Sylvia--the Unknown Voice they'd got to calling him.
People thought as Jasper had said, that Reddy had found her with this
man and there had been a terrible scene. But whatever had happened the
Unknown Voice was the clew to the mystery. The police had tried to
locate him, tried and failed. Now _I_ was going to hunt for him.
My plan was perfectly simple. From what I had seen myself and heard from
Anne Hennessey I was sure I knew every lover that Sylvia had had. I was
going to call each one of them up on the phone and listen to their
voices, and I wasn't going to tell a soul about it. Everybody would
say--just as you say as you read this--"but all those men gave
satisfactory alibis." I knew that as well as anyone, but it didn't cut
any ice with me, I didn't care what they'd proved. I was going to hear
their voices and see for myself. If I was successful, then I'd tell
Babbitts and have him advise me what to do. I'd heard Jack Reddy had
retained Mr. Wilbur Whitney, the great criminal lawyer, but I wouldn't
have known whether to go to him or the police or the District Attorney
and if I did it at all I wanted to do it right.
Now that there were three of us in the Exchange my holiday had been
changed to Monday, and I made up my mind not to put my plan into
execution till that day. I didn't want to be hurried, or confused, by
possible interruptions, and also I wanted to hear the voices at short
range and could do that better from the city. I telephoned over to
Babbitts that I'd be in town Monday to do some shopping, and he made a
date to meet me at the entrance of the Knickerbocker Hotel and dine with
me at some joint near Times Square.
Monday morning I was up bright and early and dressed myself in my best
clothes. From the telephone book I got the numbers of the four men who
were known to have been Sylvia's lovers and admirers--Carisbrook,
Robinson, Dunham and Cokesbury. I had found out from Anne what their
businesses were and I had no trouble in locating them. With the slip of
paper in my purse I took the ten-twenty train and was in town before
midday.
On the way over I worked out what I'd say to each of them. I was going
to ask Carisbrook, who was a soft, dressed-up guy, if he knew where
Mazie Lorraine, a manicure who'd once been in the Waldorf, had moved to.
It was nervy but I wanted to give him a dig, he having put on airs and
treated me like a doormat. Robinson was easy--he had a common name and
I'd got the wrong man. Excuse _me_, please, awful sorry. Dunham was a
lawyer and I was a dressmaker that a customer wouldn't pay. And
Cokesbury was easy, too--I'd heard Cokesbury Lodge was for rent and was
looking for a country place.