Hatch stood still for a long time on the curb and figured it out. Suddenly he rushed off to a telephone and called up Stuyvesant Randolph at Seven Oaks. He asked the first question with trepidation:
"Mr. Randolph, can you give me the address of Miss Dorothy Meredith?"
"Miss Meredith?" came the answer. "Let's see. I think she is stopping with the Morgan Greytons, at their suburban place."
The reporter gulped down a shout. "Worked, by thunder!" he exclaimed to himself. Then, in a deadly, forced calm:
"She attended the masked ball Thursday evening, didn't she?"
"Well, she was invited."
"You didn't see her there?"
"No. Who is this?"
Then Hatch hung up the receiver. He was nearly choking with excitement, for, in addition to all those virtues which have been enumerated, he possessed, too, the quality of enthusiasm. It was no part of his purpose to tell anybody anything. Mallory didn't know, he was confident, anything of the girl having been a possible guest at the ball. And what Mallory didn't know now wouldn't be found out, all of which was a sad reflection upon the detective.
In this frame of mind Hatch started for the suburban place of the Greytons. He found the house without difficulty. Morgan Greyton was an aged gentleman of wealth and exclusive ideas—and wasn't in. Hatch handed a card bearing only his name, to a maid, and after a few minutes Mrs. Greyton appeared. She was a motherly, sweet-faced old lady of seventy, with that grave, exquisite courtesy which makes mere man feel ashamed of himself. Hatch had that feeling when he looked at her and thought of what he was going to ask.