“Well, he appears to be in a fog now, and he expressed himself to me as being very much taken with the neat way in which you unravelled the diamond mystery at Meran, so he thinks you may be of great assistance to him in his present difficulty, and is willing to pay in cash or in kind.”
“Cash payment I understand,” said the girl, “but what does he mean by payment in kind?”
“Oh, he is willing that you should make a sensational article out of the episode. It deals entirely, he says, with persons in high life—titled persons—and so it might make an interesting column or two for the paper.”
“I see—providing, of course, that the tangled skein was unravelled by the transcendent genius of Mr. Cadbury Taylor,” said the girl cynically.
“I don’t think he wants his name mentioned,” continued the editor; “in fact, he said that it wouldn’t do to refer to him at all, for if people discovered that he made public any of the cases intrusted to him, he would lose his business. He has been working on this problem for several weeks, and I believe has made little progress towards its solution. His client is growing impatient, so it occurred to the detective that you might consent to help him. He said, with a good deal of complacency, that he did not know you were connected with the Bugle, but he put his wits at work and has traced you to this office.”
“How clever he is!” said Jennie, laughing; “I am sure I made no secret of the fact that I work for the Daily Bugle.”
“I think Mr. Taylor will have no hesitation in agreeing with you that he is clever; nevertheless, it might be worth while to see him and to assist him if you can, because nothing so takes the public as a romance in high life. Here is his address; would you mind calling on him?”
“Not at all,” replied the young woman, copying the street and number in her note-book.