“Well, the fact is I didn’t stop there. My paper sent me in this general direction on business, but I had every honourable intention of making you that visit after I finished my assignment. But Cookie here says I’m arrested.”
“He’s a dangerous character and can’t be allowed to run loose in these parts. I’m going to tie him up,” said Cooke.
“May I ask you, Mr. Collins, just what you are doing here?” inquired Ardmore.
“You may, and I’ll bet a boiled goose that Cooke and I are on the same job.”
“What are you looking for?” demanded Ardmore’s chief of staff.
“It’s a big story if I get it, and I have every intention of getting it,” said Collins guardedly.
“Out with it!” commanded Ardmore.
“The fact is, then, that I’m looking for a person of importance.”
“Go right on, please.”
“And that person is the governor of North Carolina, who is mysteriously absent from Raleigh. He attended the Cotton Planters’ Convention in New Orleans. He got as far as Atlanta on his way home, and then disappeared. I need not say to gentlemen of your intelligence that a lost governor is ripe fruit in my business, and I have reason to believe that for some purpose of his own the governor of North Carolina is hiding in this very neighbourhood.”