Late that afternoon Babbitts came into the office. He was staying at the Longwood Inn, but it was the first time that day I’d seen him and after our supper together I’d begun to feel real chummy with him. Contrary to his usual custom he was short and preoccupied, giving me a number without more words and then banging shut the door of the booth. It got me a little riled and seeing he wasn’t wasting any manners I didn’t see why I should, so I lifted the cam and quietly listened in. Not that I expected to hear anything very private. The number he’d given was his paper. The chap at the other end had a way of grunting, "I got you," no matter what was said. I’d heard _him_ before and he had a most unnatural sort of patience about him, as if his spirit was broken forever taking messages off a wire. "Say," says Babbitts, "I got a new lead—up country near Hines’ place. I been there all morning. There’s a farm up that way. Cresset’s"—he spelled the name and the other one did his usual stunt—"Good people, years on the soil, self-respecting, stand high. Their house is about half a mile across woods and fields from the Wayside Arbor, lonely with a bad bit of road leading up from the pike. Do you hear?" "Get on," said the voice. "I stopped in there and had a séance with Mrs. Cresset, nice woman, fat with a white apron. I said I was a tourist thirsting for a drink of milk." The other one seemed to rouse up. "Did you thirst that bad?" "For information—and I got it. She’s been scared of the notoriety and has held back something which seems important. Her husband’s been prying her up to the point of going to the District Attorney and she’s agreed, but tried it on me first. Do you hear?" "I got you." "The night of the murder, about nine, a man knocked at her door saying he’d lost his way and wanting to know where he was, and how to get to the turnpike. She spoke to him from an upper window and couldn’t see his face, the night being dark. All she could make out was that he was large and wore an overcoat. He told her his auto was in the road back of him and he’d got mixed up in the country lanes. The thing’s funny, as there are very few roads that side of the pike." "Hold on—what’s that about pike?" Babbitts repeated it and went on: "Doesn’t appear to have been in the least drunk—perfectly sober and spoke like a gentleman. She gave him the direction and here’s what caught me—describes his voice as very deep, rich and pleasant, almost the same words the Longwood telephone girl used to describe the voice she overheard speaking to Miss Hesketh Saturday noon." "Any more?" "Impossible to identify man but says she’d know the voice again. He thanked her very politely—she couldn’t lay enough stress on how good his manners were—and she heard him walk away, splashing through the mud."