“Nothing doing on either count, sir,” Morrow returned, ruefully. “I can’t get a glimpse of them, or a line on either of them; and as for who tried to plug me––well, there isn’t an iota of evidence, that I can discover, beyond the bare fact. I didn’t come to report, for there’s nothing to say, except that I’m sticking at it, and if I don’t get a sight of those two before long I’m going to burn a red sulphur light some fine night, and yell ‘fire!’ I bet that’ll bring the old codger out, for all his rheumatism!”
“Not a bad idea,” Blaine commented, adding dryly: “What did you come for, then, Guy?”
“To find out if you had any news you were willing to tell me yet, sir––of Emily?”
“Yes.” The detective’s slow smile was quizzical. “The most significant news in the world.”
“You’ve discovered their destination––hers and her father’s?” the young operative cried eagerly. “You traced their taxi, of course!”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“Just that, Guy––that I haven’t been able to trace the taxicab in which they left their house. Think it 292 over. Report to me when you’ve got anything definite to tell me.”
With a curt nod Blaine dismissed him, but he glanced after the dejected, retreating figure with a very kindly, affectionate light in his fatherly eyes. It was dusk when he was aroused from a deep study of his carefully annotated résumé of the case by the excited jangle of the telephone bell, to hear Guy Morrow’s no less excited but joyous voice at the other end of the wire.
“I’ve found her! I’ve found Emily! She loves me! She does! I made her listen, and she understands everything! She don’t mind a bit about my hounding her father down, because she sees how it all had to be, and the old man’s a regular brick about it!”