"Are you sure it's all right? Have you seen the papers here?"
"All of them. Don't be afraid. I'm taking no risks. Are you coming?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"I can leave tonight. There's a train at eight."
"Good. I'll meet you and explain everything. Do as I said in the letter. I'll be there."
"Very well—understand. Please ring off. Good-bye."
For a moment I sat thinking. She was going to Toronto to meet Barker by a train that left at eight, and it was now half-past five. There was no use trying to trace the call—I knew enough for that—so I got Mr. Whitney's office and told him, careful, without names. He was awful pleased and handed me out some compliments that gave me the courage to ask for something I was crazy to get—the scoop for Babbitts. It would be a big story—Barker landed through the girl he was in love with. I knew they'd follow her and could Babbitts go along? I don't have to tell you that he agreed, making only one condition—if they were unsuccessful, silence. O'Mally, who was up from Philadelphia, would go. Babbitts could join him at the Grand Central Station.
I took a call for the Dispatch, found Babbitts and told him enough to send him home on the run—but not much; there's too many phones in those newspaper offices. It was nearly seven when I got there myself, dragged him into our room, and while I packed his grip gave him the last bulletins. He was up in the air. It would be the biggest story that had ever come his way.
I had to go down to the station with him, for neither he nor O'Mally knew her. I was desperate afraid she wouldn't come—get cold feet the way women do when they're eloping. But at a quarter of eight she showed up. She didn't look a bit nervous or rattled, and went about getting her ticket as quiet as if she was going for a week-end to Long Island. O'Mally—he was a fat, red-faced man, looking more like a commercial traveler than a sleuth—was right behind her as she bought it. Then as she walked to the track entrance with her suitcase in her hand, I saw them follow her, lounging along sort of neighborly and casual, till the three of them disappeared under the arch.