“No sir. There was a little more but I didn’t catch it. They seemed to know what they was talkin’ about, but most anybody else wouldn’t. But I’m dead sure about the puffumery and the Sea.”
“Those are certainly queer words to connect with this case. But maybe the message you tell of was not the one that called Mr. Trowbridge to the Park.”
“Maybe not, sir.”
“It might have been a friend warning him of the trap set for him, and urging him to go south to escape it.”
“Maybe sir.”
“These things must be carefully looked into. We must get the number of the telephone call and trace it.”
“Can’t be done,” said Detective Groot, who being a taciturn man listened carefully and said little. “I’ve tried too many times to trace a call to hold out any hopes of this. If it came from a big exchange it might be barely possible to trace it; but if from a private wire or a public booth, or from lots of such places you’ll never find it. Never in the world.”
“Is it then so difficult to trace a telephone call?” asked one of the jury. “I didn’t know it.”
“Yes, sir,” repeated Groot. “Why there was a big case in New York years ago, where they made the telephone company trace a call and it cost the company thousands of dollars. After that they tore up their slips. But then again, you might happen to find out what you want. But not at all likely, no, not a bit likely.”
Avice looked at the speaker thoughtfully. The night before she had asked the number of a call and received it at once. But, she remembered, she asked a few moments after the call was made, and of the same operator. Her thoughts wandered back to that call made by Eleanor Black, and again she felt that impression of something sly about the woman. And to think, she had the number of that call, and could easily find out who it summoned. But all such things must wait till this investigation of the present was over. She looked at Mrs. Black.