As he refilled Henry's glass with sherry, I heard him mutter: "If you've any suspicions about any of the servants in the house, sir, it's your plain duty to say so."
Henry looked coldly at the butler out of the corner of his eye, and replied, in a low voice: "I have no suspicions at all, Orkins, in that direction." Then his attention was attracted to Olinski, who said: "Your best move will be to continue to exercise the utmost caution, and to prevent any possible personal contact with this reporter."
Henry wagged his head defiantly. "He's certainly a mono-maniac on the subject of news, but I've got my eye on him now, and I'll give him something to try his teeth on. He'll never get the best of me again—never!"
At that point, Pat chimed in. "What's all this fuss about a reporter?" she asked. "Is this Mr. McGinity, who just called, the same reporter who got the first news about the comet?"
"The same cheeky rascal," Olinski replied; "and now, apparently, he's bent on getting some advance information about our experiments in interplanetary radio communication."
"And aren't you going to oblige him, Uncle Henry?" Pat inquired.
Henry's eyebrows went up. "Oblige him? Certainly not."
"It will be the perfect imbecility on this reporter's part to try and get anything out of your Uncle, or me, on our latest discovery," Olinski explained. "The time is not yet ripe for any sort of public announcement."
"If he's a live-wire reporter," I offered, "and he seems to be just that, I'm afraid he'll go the limit in getting what he's after."
"Of course he will," Pat smiled. "Now that Uncle Henry has refused to be interviewed, he'll try some other means to get at him. Oh, the life of a reporter must be terribly thrilling! One reads so much about them in detective and mystery stories." She paused for a moment, and then continued, half musingly. "I wonder what he's like—this Mr. McGinity—this mono-maniac on the subject of news. Did you ever meet him, personally, Uncle Henry?"