“Do you know where he is?”
“Not—not exactly.”
That reply conveyed the impression the young skipper hoped it would, namely, that he simply didn’t want to tell where the Wall Street man was supposed to be.
“All I can tell you,” Tom Halstead added, “is that Mr. Delavan is probably not many miles away from here at this moment, that he will undoubtedly turn up very soon, and that he will be pretty angry over the stories that his brief absence have caused.”
Not being easily daunted or turned aside, these New York reporters continued their siege of the young skipper for at least another quarter of an hour. Tom, however, could not be trapped into saying more than he had already said. Yet he spoke so simply, and with such candor, that he imagined the reporters themselves were beginning to believe that too much ado had been made over Mr. Delavan’s brief absence, and that Wall Street had gone astray on another crazy story. However, still intent on seeing Eben Moddridge, and perhaps hoping to find Mr. Delavan himself before the day was over, the reporters lounged about the lobby or at the hotel entrance.
As soon as he could do so without attracting the attention of any of the others, Halstead strolled over to the “Sun” reporter, a fair-haired, alert, athletic-looking young man.
“Do you know that brown-haired, tall young man, in the blue suit?” asked Halstead, rather carelessly.
“I do not,” answered the “Sun” man.
“Yet he belongs to your party, doesn’t he?” pursued the young skipper.
“Why, he was with us, yes.”