Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/386

378 "Please tell her a reporter would like to speak to her for a few minutes," he went on, his voice growing so husky as to be almost unintelligible.

The maid's face cleared. She went upstairs with the message, leaving Brooke, hat in hand, in the lower hall.

A moment later she reappeared.

"Mrs. Enfield will be down in a few moments, sir," she said with a marked change of manner. "Will you step into the drawing-room, pleased?"

Brooke laughed grimly as he paced the deserted drawing-room.

"If she'll see me, that's all I ask," he mused. "Trust me to get any story I choose out of a woman, if she'll only consent to speak to me. All any reporter who knows his business has to do is to keep his mouth shut, and in ten minutes a woman will tell all she knows. They begin by swearing they've nothing to say to the press. Then, if a man holds his tongue, they'll talk on till the cat's out of the bag and the story's told."

Brooke stopped short in his walk. Ascending the front steps was a very youthful man with a pad clutched in one hand and a pencil in the other.

"A new reporter from some paper or other," Brooke soliloquized. "Since these people seem so willing to see reporters, I may as well head him off and get an exclusive story on this. He's only a kid; probably his first month in the business. An older reporter doesn't flash a pad and pencil on the public, like a census man. Any old gag will work with him."

Brooke glanced to and fro. The entire lower floor was deserted. He stepped to the front door and opened it before the new-comer could ring.

The second reporter was thus confronted on the doorstep by a solemn-visaged being, who, from his hatless state, was apparently some member of the Enfield family.

"Good-morning, sir," said the youth. "I represent the New York Dispatch."

"I knew he was a cub reporter," mused Brooke. "Who ever says 'I represent,' except in detective novels?"

"I should like," went on the new-comer, "to interview Mrs. Enfield on this unfortunate embezzlement case."

"Ah, yes," Brooke broke in, his face assuming an undertaker-like air, "to be sure. But my poor sister cannot see you, sir. Remember what a blow this unmerited disgrace is to her. She is quite prostrated. Indeed, she has not even seen me. But any information I can give you"

The cub reporter's face brightened.