“You know Angel Grace Cardigan?” I asked him.
He saved a word by shaking his head, no.
“I’m going to meet her in the telephone station. When I’m through, stay behind her. She’s smart, and she’ll be looking for you, so it won’t be duck soup, but do what you can.”
Dick’s mouth went down at the corners and one of his rare long-winded streaks hit him.
“Harder they look, easier they are,” he said.
He trailed along behind me while I went up to the station. Angel Grace was standing in the doorway. Her face was more sullen than I had ever seen it, and therefore less beautiful—except her green eyes, which held too much fire for sullenness. A rolled newspaper was in one of her hands. She neither spoke, smiled nor nodded.
“We’ll go to Charley’s, where we can talk,” I said, guiding her down past Dick Foley.
Not a murmur did I get out of her until we were seated cross-table in the restaurant booth, and the waiter had gone off with our orders. Then she spread the newspaper out on the table with shaking hands.
“Is this on the level?” she demanded.
I looked at the story her shaking finger tapped—an account of the Fillmore and Army Street findings, but a cagey account. A glance showed that no names had been given, that the police had censored the story quite a bit. While I pretended to read I wondered whether it would be to my advantage to tell the girl the story was a fake. But I couldn’t see any clear profit in that, so I saved my soul a lie.
“Practically straight,” I admitted.