She gave me one of those adorable smiles that brought the dimples momentarily in her cheeks.
"If Mr. Boyne wants me. He hasn't said yet."
"Do I need to?" I asked. The question seemed reasonable. There she stood, such a very pretty girl, between her two cavaliers who looked at each other with all the traditional hostility that belonged to the situation. She smiled on both, and didn't neglect me. I settled the matter with,
"Worth has your address; we'll call for you in my machine." And I got the idea that Cummings was asking questions about it as he went away holding her arm.
"Do you think the little girl will really be of any use?" I spoke to the back of Worth's head as he continued to stare after them.
"Sure. I know she will." He shoved his crumpled napkin in among the coffee service, and we moved toward the desk. "Sure she will," he repeated. "Wonder where she met Cummings."
At the Palace Hotel Sunday morning where I went to pick up Worth before we should call for little Miss Wallace, he met me in high spirits and with an enthusiasm that demanded immediate physical action.
"Heh," I said, "you look fine. Must have slept well."
"Make it rested, and I'll go you," he came back cheerfully.
He'd already been out, going down to the Grant Avenue corner for an assortment of Bay cities papers not to be had at the hotel news-stands, so that he could see whether our canny announcement of Clayte's fifteen thousand dollar defalcation had received discreet attention from the Associated Press.
For my part, our agency had been able to get hold of three women who had seen Clayte and remembered the event; Mrs. Griggsby; a stenographer at the bank; and the woman who sold newspapers at the St. Dunstan corner. Miss Wallace's suggestion had proven itself, for these three agreed with fair exactness, and the description run in the late editions of the city papers was less vague than the others. It gave Clayte's eyes as a pale gray-blue, and his hair as dull brown, eliminating at least all brown-eyed men. Worth asserted warmly,
"That girl's going to be useful to us, Boyne." I couldn't well disagree with him, after using her hint. We were getting out of the elevator on the office floor when he looked at me, grinned boyishly, and added, "What would you say if I told you I was being shadowed?"