But it was about ten days after we first launched ourselves upon society that Moore got what he believed to be our first clew.
I had come home late from a small private dance, bewildered and bored by the shifting panorama of small intrigues and light love affairs impossible to avoid seeing.
I sat in my bedroom, slowly undressing and wondering what future lay ahead for these girls when some of their charm was gone, when I heard the familiar buzz of our private line. This must be something special, because we had already compared notes of our evening’s plans at dinner-time.
Moore’s voice was tense. “Hello, Clayton? Good! Damned glad you’re home. Old man, I think there’s something stirring at last!”
“Great! What is it?”
“Well, you know I went up to a party on Riverside Drive to-night. My host made his pile doing construction work for innocent and confiding suburban municipalities. Now I guess he’s trying to drown his memories in one of the finest cellars in New York and finding plenty of friends to help him. I never saw him before and I never want to see him again, except in the way of our business, but I got what I think is a clew there, and that’s the main thing.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“It was just before I left. I’d gone to one of the bedrooms used as a men’s cloak-room, to get my hat. The party had been pretty wild—one woman nearly had her clothes torn off her by our playful and animated host—and I was straightening up a bit when a young fellow blew in, looking for his hat.
“I’d already spotted him as a well-known young rip, with a lot more money than either wits or decency, and I’d been casually introduced to him in the early part of the evening. But now he fell on me like a long-lost friend. ‘Not a bad party, eh?’ said he. ‘But the women aren’t up to much. Too damned stand-offish for my taste. Only the same old booze, too. Gee, you oughta been on the party I was on th’ other nigh’. Say, I thought I was ’n heaven.’
“I tried to shake him off and get out of there, but he wasn’t having any. ‘Wai’ a minut’, I wan’ tell ya ’bout it,’ he said, in an injured tone, so I waited.