The news came without warning. At just the moment when the Mayor replunged into his interrupted oratory, Varney became aware that a low, anxious voice behind him was insistently calling his name. He turned, and saw the figure of a man standing in Hackley's entryway, just inside the door; he had evidently slipped in from the rear; and now, catching the young man's eye, he began mysteriously beckoning and making signs.
"Kin I speak to you a minute, Mr. Varney?" he called in the same dramatic whisper.
Varney, in some surprise, advanced to the doorway and stepped inside the entry after the stranger--a poorly dressed fellow with an unshaven chin and a collarless neck.
"Well? What do you want, my man? And how do you know my name?"
At that the man gave the air of exploding, though his voice remained only a whisper, at once apologetic and immensely reproachful.
"_Know_ your _name_, sir! Why, _excuse_ me for usin' it so free, but I guess there ain't nobody in Hunston don't know _you_, Mr. Varney! Why, Mr. Varney, my six-year-old kid c'd pick you right out o' that crowd out there, same as 't was her pa, what with seein' your picture in the papers an' all, an' I guess there ain't anything you'd ever want in _Hunston_ you couldn't have just for the trouble o' namin' it."
The random assertion struck some of the blood from the young man's cheek, but he said good-humoredly: "Well, I'm glad to hear it. But tell me who you are, and what I can do for you."
The man's face, which had grown rather loose and mobile, instantly became business-like and alert.
"I'm 'Lije Stobo, Mr. Varney--Hackley'll tell you. I was hired a week ago by Mr. Maginnis to watch trains for a certain party kind of expected to show up here." His voice, already very low, dropped several tones lower, as he hurriedly went on: "Well, Mr. Varney, the party come in on Number 14 just now. It ain't five minutes ago since he stepped down on the deepo platform--disguised in some pretty good glad rags, he was, but o' course we spotted him right off, and--"
The man nodded. "My partner was with me--Callery--and we shadows our party to the Palace Hotel where he takes Room 41 and sneaks upstairs. Callery's sitting in the lobby now, and I runs out to take the tip to Mr. Maginnis--but Lord bless you, Mr. Varney--" He pointed out the open door in the direction of the little speaker's stand where Peter sat impregnably walled in on all sides by dense human masses. "It might be an hour before I could get to him through _that_. I was up against it, f'r he'd sure kill me if I let our party give us the slip again, and then I heard 'em all cheerin' you, and thinks I, _there's_ my man, and--"
