Trotter brought his car up to the awning and grinned broadly as he leaned forward for "orders."
"Home, James," said Lady Jane, loftily.
"Very good, my lady," said Trotter.
The man from Scotland Yard squinted narrowly at the chauffeur's face. He moved a few paces nearer and stared harder. For a long time after the car had rolled away, he stood in the middle of the sidewalk, frowning perplexedly. Then he shook his head and apparently gave it up. He went inside to look for his friend.
The next day, the sallow-faced detective received instructions over the telephone from one who refused to give his name to the operator. He was commanded to keep close watch on the movements of a certain party, and to await further orders.
"I shall be out of town for a week or ten days," explained young Mr. Smith-Parvis.
"I see," said the sallow-faced man. "Good idea. That guy—" But the receiver at the other end clicked rudely and without ceremony.
Stuyvesant took an afternoon train for Virginia Hot Springs. At the Pennsylvania Station he bought all of the newspapers,—morning, noon and night. There wasn't a line in any one of them about the fracas. He was rather hurt about it. He was beginning to feel proud of his achievement. By the time the train reached Philadelphia he had worked himself into quite a fury over the way the New York papers suppress things that really ought to be printed. Subsidized, that's what they were. Jolly well bribed. He had given the fellow,—whoever he was,—a well-deserved drubbing, and the world would never hear of it! Miss Emsdale would not hear of it. He very much wished her to hear of it, too. The farther away he got from New York the more active became the conviction that he owed it to himself to go back there and thrash the fellow all over again, as publicly as possible,—in front of the Public Library at four o'clock in the afternoon, while he was about it.
He had been at Hot Springs no longer than forty-eight hours when a long letter came from his mother. She urged him to return to New York as soon as possible. It was imperative that he should be present at a very important dinner she was giving on Friday night. One of the most influential politicians in New York was to be there,—a man whose name was a household word,—and she was sure something splendid would come of it.
"You must not fail me, dear boy," she wrote. "I would not have him miss seeing you for anything in the world. Don't ask me any questions. I can't tell you anything now, but I will say that a great surprise is in store for my darling boy."