“Yes,” said I, “Crocker was alive when they started over here in the automobile.”
“I gathered that. Well, we can give a pretty complete story, among us all. I don't know just how much you can tell, of course, but I advise you to come out with everything you know. Then, when we are all together, we can agree on what we'll give to the press. The managers of both hotels will be glad to keep it quiet. And the Consul-General's all right—he'll help us out to that extent, I think. You see, there's no public interest to consider, nothing to hide but news. It's the lady being involved, you know.”
He smoked a moment longer, then concluded:
“I think we can swing it. You go up now and advise the lady to keep very quiet and follow instructions, while I'm getting Tientsin on the wire. Then meet me here.”
When I came down, twenty minutes later, he met me with a cheerful sort of steadiness and led the way to a corner of the lounge.
“The old boy's coming himself,” he said, as we dropped into chairs. “I'm dam' glad. This is no job for student interpreters.”
For a few moments we talked along in a desultory way. We had to wait for a few hours—no escaping that. I could see that the Cincinnati man had assumed the task of keeping me occupied, and I liked him for it.
He gave me his card, by the way. His name is
Hindmann. He has large interests in vaudeville theaters through the Middle West.
As we chatted, my share in this strange drama of Crocker's life and death seemed to be clearing itself up in my mind and taking form as a narrative. Hindmann had advised me to tell everything to the Consul-General. I was wondering how I could ever do it. For one moment I even thought of handing him my journal and asking him to read it. The next moment, of course, I realized how impossible it would be to do that—for this most intimately personal of my belongings is no longer mine; it is more than a part Heloise's. And the story I tell the Consul-General must be only my story.