Dorothy was on her feet instantly. “It is the managing editor who dismisses me, Mr. Harding,” she reminded him, and turned with dignity to Mitchell. “As I must turn in my copy, Mr. Mitchell, you will have to excuse me.” And closing her roll-top desk she picked up her coat and hat and joined Wyndham in the city room, where he had preceded her. She tossed her manuscript to a copy reader, and, after exchanging a word with the foreman, left the office, Wyndham in tow.
The Porter limousine had driven off but a scant five minutes when Inspector North entered the Tribune building and went direct to the managing editor’s office, only to be told that he would not be there until after dinner. The inspector was making for the society editor’s office when he spied the city editor emerging from it.
“Hello, Harding,” he hailed. “Miss Deane in?”
“No, just gone.” Harding kicked a chair out of his way as a slight vent to his feelings. “Anything I can do for you, Inspector?”
“Yes. Tell me, is Miss Dorothy Deane in mourning?”
“Mourning? H—l, no! Say—” But the inspector waved a friendly farewell as he hastened toward the elevator shaft, and Harding completed his sentence with another oath.
Inspector North was more fortunate in his next call, and found the Chief of the Secret Service comfortably seated in his office in the Treasury Department.
“I don’t usually bring ‘lost and found’ articles to you, Chief,” he explained, taking a chair by the desk and drawing a leather handbag out of his overcoat pocket. “But I’m puzzled. What do you think of this?”
Chief Connor turned the bag over and over. “Good leather,” he remarked. “Unmarked. Where did you get the bag?”
“It was turned in by a conductor on the Mt. Pleasant line who found it in his car. Open it, Chief.”