My stupefaction was pronounced enough to excite his wonder. I assure you, we are not often astonished at the Central Office.
I caught my breath and shook my head. Of course, I knew nothing about it. But it was something besides the amazing, unexpected intelligence of Felix Page's death that struck me right between the eyes. With the mention of his name, my mind cut one of those unaccountable capers which everybody has at some time in his life experienced.
The names of Felix Page and Alfred Fluette had been before me in one way or another for days; I had followed the remarkable wheat deal with about the same degree of interest that animated everybody else who was not immediately concerned; but not until this moment had it impressed me that I knew something respecting Page which had not appeared in the papers in connection with the corner. What was it?
But I could not remember. This was the scurvy trick my mind was playing. I stood there staring at the others, and they sat staring at me. A question was halted provokingly upon the very tip of my tongue, which, despite a most earnest whipping of memory, remained obstinately elusive.
Felix Page! What particular, unusual circumstance was associated in my mind with that name? Why should it come to flout me at this juncture without revealing itself?
My ineffectual effort to remember was cut short by my chief. He scowled, manifestly in perplexity at the way the news had affected me.
"These gentlemen," he said, with a gesture indicating the funereal quartet, "were more or less associated with Mr. Page; he don't seem to have had any close friends; but they can tell me nothing. Whatever line you pick up, you must find the end of it at the scene of the crime—the house. The address is on that card.
"Here 's all I know about it: It must have happened sometime during the night; the report came in from Sheridan Park station about daylight. Three men from there, Patrolmen Callahan and O'Brien and a plain-clothes man named Stodger, are at the house holding two suspects until somebody shows up from the Central Office. Stodger 's in a stew; can't seem to make head nor tail of what's happened.
"You hurry, Swift," he curtly concluded; "this is too important a matter to waste time over."
So it was. I saluted and hastily left him.