“I assure you that that appreciative journal will be deeply grateful. Where shall I call for your ultimatum?”
“We are stopping at the St. James. And now I must hurry home to examine my purchases. Thank you so much for your kindness, Mr. Ashley. I am so glad to have met you again. Good-by.”
“Au revoir—until the morrow,” Jack responds, as Miss Hathaway’s elegant figure threads its way through the throng. “I wonder what the straight-laced Vermont maiden would say if she could look into the wine-room of the garden about an hour before the French ball makes its last kick. But she won’t, though. The first hour or two of the function is as decorous as an afternoon tea on Fifth Avenue—rather more so, I fancy. And now to the office to fire the Cuban heart with Don Manada’s screed.”
But seated at his desk at the Hemisphere office, Ashley’s thoughts persist in straying away from the yellow sheets he is rapidly covering with the Manada interview.
The Raymond tragedy mingles with thoughts of Cuba. His previously conceived ideas are undergoing a decided metamorphosis. The knowledge that the elder Felton is going to Cuba, where his son, according to the description of Manada, is apparently settled, and for a long period, if not forever, suggests to the newspaper man the conclusion that Mr. Felton must have been aware of his son’s movements since the sudden departure from Raymond; may even have counseled that flight. Nay, more, that father and son are jointly implicated in the death of Cashier Hathaway. The theory just evolved grows stronger the more Jack considers the circumstances. On Cyrus Felton, then, depends the unraveling of the mystery. And he left Raymond suddenly, according to Miss Hathaway’s admission. Barker, judging from his message on the finding of the revolver, must have been in Raymond before or during the departure of Cyrus Felton. Is it not possible, then, that the ex-bank president became possessed of the knowledge that Barker is again actively at work on the case; that he further became aware that Barker had, or was likely to get, some important clew, such as the discovery of the revolver, for instance; that he considered discretion the better part of valor and determined to flee the country and join his son in Cuba?
Ashley’s busy pen ceases to skim over the paper for a moment, as he rears this dazzling edifice.
“I believe I have struck the bull’s-eye,” he reflects. “If only Barker has a little more evidence to back up the finding of the revolver, Miss Hathaway may not take that trip to Cuba after all—at least, not with her present amiable traveling companion.”
A few moments later the big batch of copy, the result of Ashley’s visit to Don Manada, is tossed upon the desk of the city editor. Then, still preoccupied and unusually untalkative for jovial Jack Ashley, the interviewer has again drawn on overcoat and gloves and is leaving the entrance to the Hemisphere office when a hand is dropped on his shoulder, as Detective Barker earnestly greets him:
“You’re just the man I want to see. Where can we indulge in a quiet talk for half an hour?”
“Come right up to the cable editor’s room. He won’t be in for an hour or two.”