"Why, hello, Lester," he cried, holding out his hand. "This is luck!"
"Hello, Godfrey," I answered, returning his clasp with interest. "Glad to see you."
"Not half so glad as I am to see you. Come over here to this side-table where we can talk in peace. Quite like the Studio, isn't it?"
I laughed responsively at the memory of that night when Jim Godfrey, of the Record, for purposes of his own, had kidnapped me and entertained me with a superb dinner at the famous Sixth Avenue resort. I had met him occasionally since, and had found him always the same genial, generous, astute fellow he had proved himself then. Trained on the detective force, he had been for some years the Record's star reporter, and was employed only on what the newspapers love to call causes célèbres. Of course, I knew instantly what "cause" it was had brought him to Elizabeth.
"Here on business?" he asked, as we sat down.
"Yes. And you?"
"Oh, I came down last night to write up this Lawrence-Curtiss affair. You've heard about it?"
He was looking at me keenly.
"Yes," I answered steadily, determined to keep him from guessing my connection with it; "I read about it in the papers last night. Queer affair, wasn't it?"
"Mighty queer. You haven't happened to form a theory about it, have you?"