Lawrence followed the direction of his thumb, and saw a very diminutive youngster, with a pert, freckled face and fiery red hair, sitting nonchalantly on the end of the bench and eying the newcomer with undisguised curiosity.
"Want me to call him over?" continued the temporary manager. "Maybe I can help you get what you want out of him."
Barry shook his head. "If you don't mind, I'll just talk to him over there." He hesitated an instant and then went on, in an attempt to assuage the other's very evident curiosity: "The letter was unsigned, and Mrs. Wilmerding is very anxious to have a description of the person who sent it."
"Well, go ahead and see what you can do," replied the man at the desk. "Jimmy's a sharp little cuss, though, and if he's been paid to hold his tongue, you'll have a job getting anything out of him."
"I can try, anyhow," smiled Lawrence. "By the way, you have a record of where the call came from, I suppose?"
"Sure!" The young man reached across the littered desk and drew a slip of paper toward him. "I thought you might want to know, so I looked it up when I first came in. It was phoned in from the Merton House at six-five. Party by the name of Brown."
"Much obliged," Barry remarked thoughtfully. "I'll see what I can get out of the boy."
As he turned toward the youngster, he saw the latter's eyes drop and his heels begin to kick automatically against the rungs of the wooden bench.
"Just a little too careless to be natural," Barry reflected. "Looks to me as if you'd been well coached, my son."
The boy did not look at him squarely as Lawrence took his seat on the bench beside him; but the man caught a flashing glint from the blue eyes which told him that his young neighbor was on the alert.