"All right. No need to alarm him. Not a bit. I'll call him up later, if necessary. But, of course, we'll find her at once. Hurry up and get started. Always best to act at once. Sure to be all right. Don't wait for me."
It occurred to me as I started out that Doctor Reid did not have a very high opinion of my ability. He was one of those cocksure men who confine their sureness mostly to their own mental processes. Well, we should see; and if I found myself right, I promised Carucci a beating that would dampen his black hand imaginings for some time to come.
My first move on leaving the house was to call up New York from the telephone booth at the inn. I was lucky enough to find Maclean at the office of his paper.
"Say, Mac," I asked him, "what did you make of that dago story?"
"Nothin'," Mac sniffed. "Nothin' at all. The gum-shoes think he croaked his old woman, an' they're waitin' for him to give himself or somebody else away, you see? Then they'll grab him. Course, I could have told 'em she was alive; but then that might have brought you people in, an' besides, those fellows wouldn't come across for me. Reciprocity's my cry, an' always has been."
"Well, do you know where I can find our friend? I want to talk to him?"
"Sure. I found him myself, but he wouldn't scare for a darn. Said Tabor had his wife all right, and not one of you dared touch him. You'll find Mr. Giuseppe workin' on the railroad, all the live-long day—that new trolley embankment we passed on the line. They have a guinea camp back in the woods a piece. Say, Laurie, course your friends are all right, an' it's none o' my business; but they smell fishy to me a mile off. If I was you, I'd duck out right now. There's some nigger in this wood-pile that we don't know anythin' about, you see?"
"Thanks, Mac," I said. "I know better than that, though. There's no trouble."
"Well, I'm only tellin' you what I think. That guinea put up a long howl to me about the old man that I wouldn't use and didn't more'n half believe; but I want to see you about it when you come in town, all the same. Say, you ain't sore, are you?"
"All right, old man," said I; and I hung up the receiver.