Babbitts repeated it and went on:
"Doesn't appear to have been in the least drunk—perfectly sober and spoke like a gentleman. She gave him the direction and here's what caught me—describes his voice as very deep, rich and pleasant, almost the same words the Longwood telephone girl used to describe the voice she overheard speaking to Miss Hesketh Saturday noon."
"Any more?"
"Impossible to identify man but says she'd know the voice again. He thanked her very politely—she couldn't lay enough stress on how good his manners were—and she heard him walk away, splashing through the mud."
There were a few ending-up sentences that gave me time to pull out a novel and settle down over it. I seemed so buried in it that when Babbitts put down his money I never raised my eyes, just swept the coin into the drawer and turned a page. He didn't move, leaning against the switchboard and not saying a word. With him standing there so close I got nervous and had to look up, and as soon as I did it he made a motion with his hand for me to lift my headpiece.
"If two heads are better than one," he said, "two ears must be; and the words I am about to utter should be fully heard to be appreciated."
Of course I thought he was going to tell me what he'd found out at Cresset's. It made me feel proud, being confided in by a newspaper man, and I pushed up my headpiece, all smiling and ready to be smart and helpful. He didn't smile back but looked and spoke as solemn as an undertaker.
"Miss Morganthau, yours is a very sedentary occupation."
Believe me I got a jolt.
"If you're asking me to violate the rules for that," I answered, "you're taking more upon yourself than I'll overlook from a child reporter with a head of hair like the Fair Circassian in Barnum & Bailey's."