"You'll telephone me the moment you have news?" asked Miss Tabor. "Any time—I shall not sleep much, any news—good—or bad."
Feehan found the office force in the throes of getting out an edition, and he sidled through the hurrying, jostling office force to the city editor.
"Any news?" he asked quietly.
"Hello, Technicalities. Nothing yet. You take the case."
Feehan hurried to his desk, instructed the telephone girls to connect all reporters working on the McCarthy case with his desk, then extracted a mass of papers from various pockets and commenced to study and compile his unending statistics.
The reporters engaged in the search were under instructions to report at once any trace of the missing player and to report once an hour their whereabouts and progress. Every five or ten minutes one reported, and Feehan, laying aside his work, answered the call and suggested new lines of investigations.
Two o'clock came. The office was growing quieter. Weary news gatherers slipped into their coats and departed quietly. Copy readers and editors completed their tasks and went away.
Three o'clock came, and Feehan was busy tabulating the statistics of some player in a far-off league, when the telephone rang. By some inspiration he knew a trail had been found and he reached for the instrument with more haste than he had shown, his seventh sense spurring him on.
"Hello! Yes—that you, Jimmy?"
"I've hit a trail."