Mr. Whitney's house was a big, grand mansion just off Fifth Avenue. A butler let us in and without waiting to hear who we were showed us into a room with lights in bunches along the walls, small spindly gold chairs and sofas, and a floor that shone like glass between elegant soft rugs. There was some class to it and Babbitts and I looked like a pair of tramps sitting side by side on two of the gold chairs. I was nervous but Babbitts kept me up, telling me Mr. Whitney was a delightful gentleman and was going to jump for all I had to say. Then we heard steps coming down the stairs—two people—and I swallowed hard being dry in the mouth, what with fright and having had no supper.
Mr. Whitney was the real thing. He was a big man, with a square jaw and eyes deep in under thick eyebrows. He spoke so easy and friendly that you forgot how awful sharp and keen those eyes were and how they watched you all the time you were talking. A young man came with him—a real classy chap—that he introduced to me as his son, George.
They couldn't have acted more cordial to me and Babbitts if we'd been the King and Queen of Spain. When they sat down and asked me to tell them what I knew I loosened up quite natural and told the whole story.
The young man sat sideways on the gold sofa, smoking a cigarette and looking into the air with his eyes narrowed up as if he was spying at something a long ways off. Mr. Whitney was sort of slouched down in an easy chair with his hands—white as a woman's—hanging over the arms. Now and then he'd ask me a question—always begging my pardon for interrupting—and though they were so calm and quiet I could feel, as if it was in the air, that they were concentrated close on every word I said.
When I got through Mr. Whitney said, very cheerful, as if I'd been telling some yarn in a story book:
"That's very interesting, Miss Morganthau, and very well told. Quite a narrative gift, eh George?" and he looked at his son.
"First-class story," said George, and as careless as you please flicked off his cigarette ashes on the rug.
Mr. Whitney leaned forward clasping his big white hands between his knees and looking into my face, half-smiling but with something terrible keen behind the smile.
"How can you be so sure of the voice, Miss Morganthau? I don't know whether on the phone I could recognize the voice of my own son here."
"You get that way in my work," I answered. "Your ear gets trained for voices."