Now that there were three of us in the Exchange my holiday had been changed to Monday, and I made up my mind not to put my plan into execution till that day. I didn't want to be hurried, or confused, by possible interruptions, and also I wanted to hear the voices at short range and could do that better from the city. I telephoned over to Babbitts that I'd be in town Monday to do some shopping, and he made a date to meet me at the entrance of the Knickerbocker Hotel and dine with me at some joint near Times Square.
Monday morning I was up bright and early and dressed myself in my best clothes. From the telephone book I got the numbers of the four men who were known to have been Sylvia's lovers and admirers—Carisbrook, Robinson, Dunham and Cokesbury. I had found out from Anne what their businesses were and I had no trouble in locating them. With the slip of paper in my purse I took the ten-twenty train and was in town before midday.
On the way over I worked out what I'd say to each of them. I was going to ask Carisbrook, who was a soft, dressed-up guy, if he knew where Mazie Lorraine, a manicure who'd once been in the Waldorf, had moved to. It was nervy but I wanted to give him a dig, he having put on airs and treated me like a doormat. Robinson was easy—he had a common name and I'd got the wrong man. Excuse me, please, awful sorry. Dunham was a lawyer and I was a dressmaker that a customer wouldn't pay. And Cokesbury was easy, too—I'd heard Cokesbury Lodge was for rent and was looking for a country place.
I got Carisbrook first and he was as mad as a hornet.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Manicure? I don't know any manicure called Lorraine or anything else. I've never been manicured in the Waldorf—or any other hotel—in the city. The woman is a liar——" and so forth and so on, sputtering and fizzing along the wire. I had hard work not to laugh and in the middle of it I hung up, for he had a thin, high squeak on him like an old maid scared by a mouse.
Robinson was a sport, I liked him fine:
"Don't apologize. It's the penalty of being called Robinson. Still there's a bright side to every cloud. It might have been Smith, you know."
It wasn't Robinson. He talked with a dialect that sounded like Jasper's, English, I guess.
Dunham was very smooth and awful hard to get rid of. He kept on asking questions and I had to think quick and speak unnaturally intelligent. In the middle of it—I'd got what I wanted—I said it was too complicated to tell over the phone and I'd be in to-morrow at two and my name was Mrs. Pendleton.
It wasn't Dunham.