Drew glanced up. He passed his hand over his forehead in a sweeping motion as if brushing cobwebs from his brain. “Guess I am,” he admitted, with a sparkling glance at the paper held in the assistant’s hand. “Well!” he snapped, recovering himself. “Well, what luck? I see that you got something!”
“Yep! I got him, all right. He’s hanging around the front office of the prison seeing what he can find out. He says,” Harrigan consulted the paper. “He says, Morphy has been worried all morning. That he acts like a man in a daze. Always––”
“I don’t want that, now! Didn’t I send you out to call up the vice-president of the telephone company? The same man who helped us early this morning. Westlake!”
“I was getting to him, Chief! He was busy when I called, so I thought I’d get Frick again. That’s all Frick had to say, except a––”
“Well?”
“Except he’ll stay there until he receives instructions from you to the contrary. Says he’ll report if anything turns up.”
“Go on with Westlake!” The detective’s voice hardened.
“Well, I got him, finally. Had to wait till he cleaned out the callers in his office. He’s in charge of maintenance and equipment. He says that their records show––”
“Show what?” Harrigan had scowled at his own writing. “It took some time to get this, Chief. Oh, I see. Well, the records of the Westchester Company shows three long-distance calls from the prison between six o’clock last night and this morning. The first one was at seven-ten P. M. to a slot booth at the east end of the New York Central Railroad Station.”
“Good!” snapped Drew. “Good! Go on! We’re getting there!”