Perhaps "Central" was sleepy or tired, or the wires were crossed at some unknown point on the circuit. I didn't get Clyde and I couldn't attract Central's attention after the first response, though I shook the receiver and made remarks. Then suddenly, across the silence, out of space and into space, a man's voice spoke with passion:
"But Barker is dead, I tell you! You are free! Now will you marry me?"
And then again the buzzing silence of the "dead" wires!
Talk about the benefits of modern inventions! They don't come without their compensating disadvantages. I hung to that telephone till Central finally woke up and sleepily inquired if I were "waiting."
"Who was on this wire just now?" I demanded.
"Nobody," she said sweetly.
I called for "Information," and laid the case before that encyclopedic sphinx. Someone had been talking across my wire and in the interests of justice and everything else that would appeal to her, I must know who it was. With a rising accent and perfect temper she assured me that she didn't know, that no one knew, that if they knew they wouldn't tell, and that I probably had been dreaming, anyhow. I knew better than that, but I saw that there was no way of getting the information from her. I should have to go to headquarters,--and then probably the girl would not be able to answer. But who was it that knew, before the papers were fairly on the street, that Barker was dead? Who was it that would cry, with passion, "Now will you marry me?" I gave up the attempt to get Clyde, and went down to breakfast.
I had a suite of rooms in a private family hotel where everybody knew everybody else, and as I entered the common breakfast room I was assailed by questions. Never before had I so completely held the center of the stage! I could hardly get a moment myself to read the account in the paper which had set them all to gossiping. It was fairly accurate. The police reporter had his story from headquarters. It was not until I read at the end, "At this writing the police have found no clue," that I realized, by my sense of relief, the anxiety with which I had followed the report.
I wanted to see Clyde, but I thought it best to go to my own office first, and communicate with him from there. Fellows had not arrived when I reached there,--the first time in years that I had known him to be late. When he came he looked excited, though with his usual stoicism he tried to conceal all evidence of his feelings.
"Well, your friend Barker has met with his come-up-ance," I said at last, knowing he would not speak.