Ralston gathered up the mail and started down the stairs. At the curb stood a hansom, the driver cloaked in a heavy waterproof. A fine rain had begun to fall, making the light from a nearby street lamp seem dim and uncertain. As Ralston stepped toward the lamp-post to mail his letters he observed a diminutive messenger boy vainly trying to decipher the address upon a telegram, which he was holding to the light. Ralston pushed the letters into the box and closed it with a slam.
"Does Mr. Ralston live here?" asked the boy.
"Right here!" answered Ralston, holding out his hand.
He scrawled an apology for a signature upon the damp page of the book and tore the end off the envelope. Then, like the boy, he held the yellow paper to the light. It bore but nine words:
He read the words several times and repeated them aloud, as if in doubt as to their meaning. "Find Steadman!" Where? Find him! How? Why? . . .
The messenger boy had started away, whistling shrilly "Marching Through Georgia." Ralston wrinkled his forehead. Here was irony of Fate for you! She called upon him to save the honor of this man, whom he hardly knew, for whom he cared not a whit, whom by this time he had begun to hate, to save him--for her. He stood motionless in the rain, the telegram hanging limply from his fingers. He had not seen Steadman for nine months. Knew practically nothing of him except from clubroom gossip. And Ellen asked him to find the man for her, in the seething life of the city--find him in such a way that, wherever found, his honor would be safe, find him secretly, surely, and place him upon his feet at the head of his company before the next morning at seven o'clock. He crumpled the paper into his pocket and turned to the waiting driver.
He climbed in and threw himself back upon the seat.
"Something of a large order, my dear young lady," he muttered. "If your attractive friend is to be found, it must be done without publicity. It would be a great deal worse to find him where he ought not to be, than not to find him at all. There are many cycles in New York's Inferno. If it were not for that, my old friend Inspector Donahue could send out a general alarm and turn him up before daylight. But that won't--no, that won't do. He's got to be located on the quiet and put into shape to march respectably off with his company.