Clearly Mr. Taylor, whether in obedience to his own judgment or to the issue of some mot d'ordre, was disposed to take Napier at face-value; but he was far from accepting Napier's facts on the sole ground of Napier's belief in them. After the Schwarzenberg incident had been probed and sifted, Mr. Taylor sat back in his chair, gently perplexed and obviously perturbed.
"It's not that we haven't been expecting her. The chief value of one of our men is that he has hitherto been able to keep in touch with her. But if she really has left the other side, he ought to have warned us." He took up the receiver of his desk telephone, and then laid it down. "We go warily with Miss von Schwarzenberg." He rose and opened a door at the very moment that a frail, grizzled man entered the adjoining room from the hall. "Oh, Macray, just a moment!"
The man did not stop to take off either hat or coat. Middle-aged, dyspeptic-looking, he came in, settling his black-rimmed pince-nez on an insufficient nose. He took a reporter's note-book out of his pocket and stood there, sour, hopeless, a mere sketch of a man in black and white.
"Greta Schwarz is back," said Mr. Taylor. Without a pause and in the same low voice he ran rapidly over the main facts in the story Napier had told him. "Just set them to work," he wound up. "Quickest way to get on her track—" he turned to Napier—"what's the American girl's address?" Napier did not disguise his reluctance to produce that particular information.
"You understand," he repeated for the benefit of the pessimist with the note-book, "this Miss Ellis is under the most complete misapprehension about the woman."
"Of course, of course," agreed Mr. Taylor.
Macray impassively poised his pen. Napier gave the address. Macray set down a grudging stroke or two, and then: "All New York knows where to find Schwarzenberg," he said, dragging out the information as though to talk increased his affliction, whatever it was. "Just heard. Been seeing reporters all afternoon."
"Who's been seeing reporters?" Taylor demanded.
"Schwarz."
"The deuce she has!"