"Inquiry made here today failed to disclose where George S. Withers, husband of the victim of the brutal crime at Furmville, N. C., is now. He left this city the morning Mrs. Withers was buried, according to his friends, but said nothing as to his destination or the probable length of time he would be away.
"The Atlanta authorities were asked by the Washington police to locate him if possible. No reason for the request was given."
There was a smile on Bristow's lips when he tossed the paper to one side. Braceway, he deduced from the article, was having his troubles making the Morley theory hang together. And why should he hurry back to Furmville? There was nothing new here.
He shrugged his shoulders and unwrapped the bundle of out-of-town papers.
Recalling how late he had received the albino message the night before, he concluded that Braceway had filed it in Washington during the afternoon, with instructions that it be sent as a night message. His resentment for Braceway flared up again.
"'Amazing disclosure,'" he mentally quoted the headlines. "Well, we shall see what we shall see. Perhaps, it will come as an amazing disclosure to him that I've been on the sound side of this question all along."
He began the work of cutting from the papers the accounts of the Loutois kidnapping. As he read them, he built up a tentative outline showing who the kidnappers were and where they probably had secreted the boy. He grew absorbed, whistling in a low key.
So far as he was concerned, the Withers case was a closed incident.
Early in the afternoon he called Greenleaf on the telephone, and announced:
"I'm leaving town for a few days tomorrow morning."