“Yes, Posadowski, you are right. It is better that I should go back to New York.”
At three o’clock in the afternoon of this day, the city editor of the Trumpet sent for a reporter named Norman Benedict, a discreet but energetic and ambitious youth, whose record in the office was high.
“Benedict,” said the editor, “I want you to read this cable despatch. I will give you your orders afterward.”
He handed the reporter a proof of the despatch from Rexopolis that Gerald Strong on the following morning was to read to his family at the breakfast table.
“You can keep the proof for reference,” said the city editor, as the young man glanced up from the despatch. “Now, I want you to get among the Rexanians on the East Side and interview those who are willing to talk. They may be close-mouthed, but they are a thirsty crowd, and by spending a little money on them you will be able to set their tongues a-wagging. Get your copy in early. I want to make as good a showing as possible on the city end of this Rexanian business.”
Half an hour later, Norman Benedict was puffing a cigarette in the restaurant near St. Mark’s Church, in which the reader first made the acquaintance of the Rexanian conspirators. It was not yet four o’clock, and the café was well-nigh deserted. In one corner of the room, however, sat Ludovics, sipping brandy and smoking cigars. He felt lonely, and an indistinct impression was upon him that somebody, somehow, had done him a great wrong. He had depended upon liquor to clear his brain and to restore him to a thorough comprehension of what had befallen him, but his constitution was not equal to a full reaction, and the more brandy he drank the more acute became his sense of wrong and his certainty as to the source and character of the injustice that had been done him. There were two ideas in his mind to which he clung tenaciously, and which, by persistent nourishing, had become to his distorted consciousness facts of great moment: he had been ill-treated by a king, and that king was entertaining a few favored guests, with wild revelry, somewhere up in Westchester County.
“Pardon me,” said Benedict, who suspected that Ludovics was a Rexanian, partially because of his presence in the restaurant, but in a larger degree on account of the little man’s peculiar cast of countenance—“pardon me, but can you tell me where I can find somebody who is well acquainted with the city of Rexopolis?”
The reporter had crossed the café and seated himself at the table at which Ludovics preserved his wrongs in brandy. The disgraced conspirator glared at the youth suspiciously. Benedict’s frank, smiling face disarmed distrust.
“Before you answer,” went on the reporter, “permit me to order some fresh cigars, and—and—you are drinking?”