Halstead almost led the nervous one from the boat to the cab, helping him inside, and getting in with him.
“Wait here, gentlemen, if you wish to talk with Mr. Moddridge,” coaxed Tom. As the cab started one of the reporters bounded up onto the step, from which he was adroitly yanked by Jed Prentiss. Then the driver whipped his horses forward, and the reporters were distanced for the time being.
Yet one of the press scribes, as he ran along in the vain effort to overtake the cab, shouted:
“There’s a mysterious report in New York that everything is wrong with the P. & Y., and that Delavan has absconded to some other country. Can you say anything to that, Mr. Moddridge?”
If Moddridge could, he didn’t. Instead, his jaw dropped. He reeled to one side as though about to fall from the seat. Tom hastily changed to the same seat, supporting the worried man.
“So the news has already reached New York and Wall Street?” he asked, faintly.
“If it has,” whispered Halstead, watching to see whether the driver was trying to listen, “then it’s because the crowd back of the trouble took pains to send word in early this morning. Mr. Moddridge, the news must have been known hours ago, since reporters have had time to get away out here from the city.”
“If——”
“Don’t try to say any more, Mr. Moddridge,” urged Halstead, again in a whisper. “The driver may be trying to overhear.”
As they reached the telephone office, and got out, Tom hurriedly paid the driver, then escorted Mr. Moddridge inside. The manager of the office looked up to say, briskly: