Nevertheless, he faced the music. Got up and went across the room toward where the City Editor was standing. And he managed a smile. Beat down his panic and smiled.
Dade kept him waiting. The City Editor was giving some instructions to Ingalls, the City Hall man. Bob, his thoughts misted and confused by his own apprehensions, nevertheless heard what Dade was saying, and subconsciously registered and filed it away.
“ ...going to start something,” Dade explained to Ingalls. “Mr. Boswell is interested, so you want to get results. The Building Department has been slack. Not inspectors enough, maybe. Fire Department, too. There were two girls caught in that fire in the South End ten days ago. Got out, I know, but it was luck. We’re going to cover every fire, from now on. Going to watch the fire-escapes and the fire-doors and get the goods on this bunch, if they’ve been falling down. You keep it to yourself, but see what you can dig up. There must be stuff filed, up there. I’ll let you know.... Don’t make any breaks till you hear from me, but keep on the job....”
Bob listened, finding some relief from his own apprehensions in doing so. “Another crusade ...” he thought, idly. Abruptly, Dade dismissed Ingalls and turned to him, and Bob turned pale, then colored with relief when he understood that Dade simply wished to give him an assignment.
“Jack Brenton,” Dade said, in the staccato sentences which were his habit. “We hear his wife has run away from him. He lives out in Hanbridge. Here’s the address. I sent the district man over. He says Brenton’s drunk. Threatened to shoot him. You’ll have to handle him right. Jack’s a bruiser, looking for trouble. Ask him if it’s true his wife’s gone. Ask him who she went with, and why, and what he’s going to do about it. Telephone me.”
Bob nodded. “All right,” he said quickly. “I’ll phone in.” He swung back to his desk for coat and hat, eager to be away, eager to be out of the office and away from present peril.
III
Outside the building, Bob headed for the subway. He had no qualms at the thought of Jack Brenton and his drunken pugnacity. Bob was an old hand, a good leg man, a competent reporter. He had handled angry husbands many times. He could handle Brenton.
Yet he might have been forgiven for being afraid to encounter Jack Brenton. The man was a professional pugilist of some local note, and his record was bad. He had once, by ill luck, killed an opponent in the ring; he was known to possess a sulky temper that flamed to murderous heat, and it was said of him that when he was in his cups, he was better left alone.... He was in his cups this morning. Bob knew this as soon as he heard the other’s sulky shout that answered his knock at the apartment door. The prize-fighter yelled: “Come in!” And Bob went in.
Inside the door there was a little hallway, with a bathroom opening off one side, and a living-room at the end. Brenton came into this passage from the living-room as Bob entered from the hall, and they met face to face. Brenton looked down at the little man; and he asked suspiciously: