But she had not reckoned upon the contingency that on this fine October forenoon, for the first time since buying his new touring car, Mr. Jake Goebel, shirt-waist manufacturer in a small way in Broome Street and head of a family in a large way in West One Hundred and Ninety-ninth Street, would be undertaking to drive the said car unaided and untutored by a more experienced charioteer on a trial spin up the Albany Post Road, accompanied—it being merely a five-passenger car—only by Mrs. Rosa Goebel, wife of the above, six little Goebels of assorted sizes and ages and Mrs. Goebel's unmated sister, Miss Freda Hirschfeld of Rivington Street. In Getty Square, Yonkers, about noontime occurred a head-on collision, the subsequent upshots of which were variously that divers of those figuring in the accident went in the following directions:
Miss Smith to a doctor's office near by to have a sprained wrist bandaged; and thence home in a hired automobile.
Her runabout to a Yonkers repair shop and garage.
Mr. Goebel, with lamentations, to the office of an attorney making a specialty of handling damage suits, thence home by train with the seven members of his family party, all uninjured as to their limbs and members but in a highly distracted state nervously.
Mr. Goebel's car to another repair shop and garage.
The traffic policeman on duty in Getty Square to the station house to make a report of the fifth smash-up personally officered by him within eight hours—on a Sunday his casualty list would have been longer, but this was a week day, when pleasure travel was less fraught with highway perilousness.
It so happened that Mullinix came to town from Washington next morning and, following his custom, rang up his unpaid but none the less valued aid to inquire whether he might come a-calling. No, he might not, Miss Smith being confined to her room with cold compresses on her injured wrist, but he might render a service for her if so minded—and he was. To him, then, over the wire Miss Smith stated her requirements.
"I want you please to go to this address"—giving it—"and see whether you find there a Mrs. Janet Vinsolving, a widow. I rather imagine the place may be a boarding house, though I won't be sure as to that. It will not be necessary for you to see her in person; in fact I'd rather you did not. What I want you to do is to learn whether she is still there, and if so how long she expects to stay there, and generally anything you can about her movements. She went there only three days ago and inasmuch as she has a reputation in her former home for keeping very much to herself this may be a more difficult job than it sounds. But do the best you can, won't you, and then notify me of the results by telephone? No, it is a personal affair—nothing to do with any of our official undertakings. I'll tell you more about it when I see you. I expect I shall be able to receive visitors in a day or two; just now I feel a bit shaken up and unstrung. That's all, and thank you ever so much."
Within an hour he had her on the telephone again.
"Hello!" she said. "Yes, this is Miss Smith. Oh, it's you, is it? Well, what luck?... Oh, so it was a boarding house, after all.... And you found her there?... No? Then where is she?... What? Where did you say? Bellevue!... I knew it, I knew it, something told me!... No, no, never mind my ravings! Go on, please, go on!... Yes, all right. Now then, listen please: You jump in a taxi and get here to my apartments as soon as you can. I'll be dressed and ready when you arrive to go over there with you.... What?... Oh, bother the doctor's instructions. It's only a sprain anyhow and I feel perfectly fit by now, honestly I do ... tell you I'd get up out of my dying bed to go.... Yes, indeed, it is important—much more important than you think! Come on for me, I'll be waiting."