"Come, Jim," I shouted, rushing into the house. "I am not going down to the office to-day. I shall take a day off to straighten out your tangled affairs. Get your things on and come with me."
He seemed to doubt my prowess, but slowly worked his way into his coat. Before boarding the elevated train going north, I bought a handsome bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley, tuberoses, asparagus fern and enough forget-me-nots to appropriately light up the center. This indicated to Jim that I was preparing a peace offering to tender Gabrielle. He wanted to know if he hadn't better wait on the corner while I went in and did the talking.
"In where?" I asked, for I had given no particulars.
"Why, you are going up to Ninety-sixth Street, aren't you?"
"Not I," said I. "At least not yet. We are going beyond that, Jim; up to Mount Vernon and beyond by trolley when we leave the elevated." I looked him square in the eye, and I could see no quaking. If he was suspicious, he knew how to dissemble. Could that be possible? I wondered, but only for a second.
"What are you going there for, Ben?"
"Can't you imagine, Jim?" I asked, having that midnight journey in mind that he might have taken with the man Collins, or his representatives, the night I was at the hotel. But I could not understand how he could have had time to make the trip.
"Never was up this way in my life," he answered, "and don't see where it comes in now, hanged if I do."
"Well, it's a little notion of mine," I assured him. "I don't want to proceed on this matter with Gabrielle until I have been to Mount Vernon and two miles beyond. The air will do you good, and so I brought you for that purpose."
I thought I would appear benevolent in his eyes, if I could not startle him. To tell the truth, I did not expect to startle him. He could not plot, and I was a knave, I thought then, ever to have doubted him. But I must go on and give him the third degree, for common-sense compelled caution.