“Not getting married—getting the wife.... We will be married—”
“In good time,” said Hildegarde, gravely.
Downs appeared in the door of the library, came forward eagerly. “Waite, I’m glad to see you. I’m relieved. We were afraid they had you.”
Potter wanted to ask questions, not to answer them.
“What have you done? Have you got them? Did they get away?”
“We had a mighty successful round-up,” Downs said, “and those papers were worth their weight in diamonds.... We smashed the organization, smashed it flat.... But the man Cantor got away. There’s not a trace of him.”
“No,” said Potter, soberly, “Cantor did not get away.”
“What’s that? Where is he?”
“Let me tell you,” said Hildegarde. “Potter won’t tell it as it ought to be told.” She took up the story, told it vividly, feelingly, so that her hearers saw the things she saw, experienced the things she had experienced, and as she continued Downs and Fabius Waite looked at Potter as at a stranger suddenly set among them, some stranger worthy of deference, of something like awe.
“So,” finished Hildegarde, “Potter met him in the air—and shut the highway to him.... And that was Cantor’s end.”