A wife.
The stenographer dropped his lower jaw, but said nothing. He immediately opened the inner door and led James up to an older man who sat dictating to a young woman at a typewriter. He was plump and clean-shaven and very neat about the collar and tie; James did not realize that this was the agent until the younger man told him so.
"My dear sir," replied Mr. Barker to James' question, "I know absolutely no more about it than you do. If I did, I'd tell you. The boys have been hammering away at me for the past hour, and I've given 'em every word that's come in. These two names are all I've got so far." He handed James a flimsy.
James' eye fell upon the names of two men, both described as traveling salesmen. He went back to the outer office and sat down to think. It was, of course, extremely improbable that Beatrice had been killed. There had been, say, two hundred people on the train, of whom fifteen were known to have died—something like seven and a half per cent. Two of these were accounted for; that left thirteen. He wondered how long it would be before those thirteen names came in.
The room began to fill up again; the reporters returned and new recruits constantly swelled their number. From their talk James gathered why there was such a dearth of detailed news. The wreck occurring during the waking hours of the day had been learned, as far as the mere fact of its occurrence was concerned, and published within half an hour after it had happened. It naturally took longer than this to do even the first work of clearing the wreckage and the compiling of the lists of dead and injured would require even more time. With the results that interested friends and relations, learning of the wreck but none of its particulars, were rushing pell-mell to headquarters to get the first news. One young man described in vivid terms certain things he had just witnessed down in the concourse.
"Best sob stuff in months," was his one comment.
Just then one of their number, a slightly older man and evidently a leader among them, emerged from the inner office.
"What about it, Wilkins?" they greeted him in chorus. "Slip it, Wilkins, slip it over! Give us the dope! Any more stiffs yet? Come on, out with it—no beats on this story, you know...."
Harpies!
The outer door opened and two women burst into the room. The first of them, a tall, stout, good-featured Jewess, clothed in deep mourning, was wildly gasping and beating her hands on her breast.