"Woman?" said Warren uncontrollably. "Woman? There's no woman! Why, my un—"
"Steady," interrupted Morgan, his face stolid. "Mr. Woodcock's doing the talking."
Woodcock did not even smile or contradict. He probably expected this. He was still helpful, concerned; but there were tighter wrinkles round his jaw and his eyes were expressionless. "So maybe I'm thinking to myself," he pursued, jerking his wrist and shoulder with a curiously Hebraic gesture while the sharp eyes fixed Warren, "about a very funny cablegram I overhear in the wireless-room. And maybe I don't make much sense out of it, see? because I don't hear much of it; except that it's about a movie film and also about somebody being bare. Now, now, old man, you needn't look so funny at me — I understand how these things are. But I think, 'Charley, maybe you're wrong. Maybe it was just an ordinary stick-up job. And if it was, then of course there'll be a noise about it this evening, and Mr. Warren'll report he's been robbed.' All right! Only," concluded Mr. Woodcock, leaning over and tapping Warren on the knee, "there wasn't, and he didn't."
During the silence they could hear some children crying out and pelting past the door of the writing-room. The engines throbbed faintly. Slowly Warren passed his hand over his forehead.
"There've been some funny interpretations put on all this," he said in a strained voice, "but this is the limit. A woman!… All right to you, old horse," he added, with sudden crispness. "You're wrong, of course; but this isn't the time to discuss that. Who was that man who stole the film? That's what we want to know. What is it you want? Money?"
Clearly this had never occurred to the other. He jumped on the seat of the window. "I may not be as big as you," he said quietly, "but you try offering me money again, and, by God! you'll regret it. What do you think I am, a blackmailer? Come on, old man" — his voice changed and his eyes had a hopeful and propitiatory gleam—"come on now. I'm a business man and this is the biggest chance of my life. I'm only trying to do my job, after all. If I can put this across, I'll be in line for an assistant-vice-presidency. I'm giving it to you straight: if I'd thought that anything really important'd been stolen, or anything like that, I wouldn't hold out on you for a second. But I figure it this way. What's happened? An old guy, who ought to know better, has played sugar-daddy and got himself into a jam with a woman, and there's a picture of it. All right! I don't wish him any bad luck — I sympathise, and I offer to help. I offer to tell you who's got it, so's you can get it back… well, whatever way you like. But I figure I rate a favour in return. And if that's not fair, I don't know what is."
The man was desperately serious. Morgan studied him, trying to understand both the man's ethics and the man's nature. He was a problem aside from both the grim and the comic. That a governmental stuffed-shirt had been caught in a compromising position with a woman before somebody's moving-picture camera he thought of as neither serious nor ridiculous; in all probability he simply supposed that, if a government official got into difficulties they would be difficulties of that nature, to be judged solely from how he could use the fact in a legitimate business fashion. Morgan looked at Warren, and he could see that the latter considered it all fair enough.
"Good enough," said Warren, nodding grimly. "You've got a right to proposition me. Fire away. But what the devil can / do for you?"
Woodcock drew a deep breath.
"I want a signed testimonial, with a picture," he said, "for the newspapers and magazines."