"About a rumour current in Wall Street."
"Rumour? No, sir. It must be some mistake."
"I guess so. Sorry to have troubled you. Good-bye."
Carton looked from one to the other of us. "You see," he said in disgust, "there it is again. That's the sort of thing that has been going on all day. How do I know what that fellow is doing now—perhaps using my name?"
I had no answer to his implied query as to who was the "wolf" and what he might be up to. As for Kennedy, while he showed plainly that he had his suspicions which he expected to confirm absolutely, he did not care to say anything about them yet.
"Two can play at 'wolf,'" he said quietly, calling up the headquarters of Dorgan's organization.
I wondered what he would say, but was disappointed to find that it was a merely trivial conversation about some inconsequential thing, as though Kennedy had merely wished to get in touch with the "Silent Boss." Next he called up the sanitarium to which Murtha had been committed, and after posing as Murtha's personal physician managed to have the rules relaxed to the extent of exchanging a few sentences with him.
"How did he seem—irrational?" asked Carton with interest, for I don't think the District Attorney had complete confidence in the commonly announced cause of Murtha's enforced retirement.
Kennedy shook his head doubtfully. "Sounded pretty far gone," was all he said, turning over the pages of the telephone book as he looked for another number.
This time it was Kahn whom he called up, and he had some difficulty locating him, for Kahn had two offices and was busily engaged in preparing a defence to the charges preferred against him for the jury fixing episode.