David Lannarck arrived in Chicago in the late afternoon. Wanting to see Bransford in the daylight hours, he stayed the night with a friend at the Miami Patio to take a morning train to his destination. He had never been in Bransford and he preferred to take an open cab to the Grand Union so that he might look around. At the hotel he was assigned the parlor suite with telephone and bath, probably because the clerk had never before registered a three-footer with the face and voice of an adult.
Davy was not yet ready to announce his plans for rehearsals. He wanted to know more of local conditions. He phoned the Fred Townsend office. "Mr. Townsend is in court this morning," the secretary reported, "but he will be available this afternoon."
"Save me the first hour," said Davy. "It's important to both of us."
After luncheon Davy tipped the bellhop to accompany him. "I could probably find the place," he explained, "but I go better if I am haltered and led to the spot." As the caller hoped, Townsend was in. The secretary ushered Davy into the private office.
"I was sent here by a Mister Sam Welborn," Davy explained. "He wants to learn of the legal status and community standing of a former resident by the name of Shirley Wells."
"Shirley Wells! Do you know Shirley Wells?" Townsend sprang to his feet and walked around the desk. "Is Shirley Wells alive? Available? Can I get in touch with him right away?"
"Say, Mister Townsend, out in my blessed locality, where men are men, and the women are glad of it, they accuse me of asking eight or ten questions before the first one is answered. I want to take you out there to show 'em I am an amateur. For a year or more I have been associated with an upstanding gent who gave out his name as Sam Welborn. In all my public career I've never met a person more honest in business or more fearless with thugs and undesirables. Ten devils couldn't stop him if he thought he was right and even a midget could, and did, shame him out of some of his atrocious efforts. When he reached a certain goal in his persistent activities he disclosed to us four at the home where he headquartered that he was going back to his old home town to find out just where he stood—criminal or citizen. He planned to go back there in disguise; to listen in, to read old newspaper files, and to learn the truth.
"And then I horned in. This man Welborn had saved my life; he got me planted where I wanted to be; I owed him everything. I didn't ask—I just told him—that I would go to his town and, under the pretext of rehearsing a midget show, I would get the needed dope. He fell right in with my proposal. He disclosed that his name was Shirley Wells, that his home town was Bransford, and here I am."
Townsend went to the door of the office. "I will be busy for the next hour," he said to the secretary as he closed the door.
"Just where, and how soon, can I contact this Shirley Wells?" Townsend asked as he seated himself alongside of Davy. "This is really the only time I've needed him since he left. Where is he? I'll send him all the funds needed to get him home."