I waited a minute till I got my heart quieted down, then took a call for Babbitts’ paper. Luck was with me all round that night, for he was there. I couldn’t tell him everything—I was afraid—but I told him enough to show him I’d landed Cokesbury and he answered to come across to town and he’d meet me at the Ferry. I caught a boat as it pulled out of the slip and at the other side he was waiting for me. "Come on," he said, putting his hand through my arm and walking quick for the street, "I got a taxi here. We’ll charge it up to the defense." I got in, supposing he was going to take me somewhere to dinner, but he wasn’t. When I heard where we were bound I was sort of scared—it was to Wilbur Whitney’s house, Jack Reddy’s lawyer. "He’s expecting us," Babbitts explained. "I called him up right after I’d heard from you. You see, Kiddo, we don’t want to lose a minute for we can’t stop Cokesbury going unless we got something to stop him for." Mr. Whitney’s house was a big, grand mansion just off Fifth Avenue. A butler let us in and without waiting to hear who we were showed us into a room with lights in bunches along the walls, small spindly gold chairs and sofas, and a floor that shone like glass between elegant soft rugs. There was some class to it and Babbitts and I looked like a pair of tramps sitting side by side on two of the gold chairs. I was nervous but Babbitts kept me up, telling me Mr. Whitney was a delightful gentleman and was going to jump for all I had to say. Then we heard steps coming down the stairs—two people—and I swallowed hard being dry in the mouth, what with fright and having had no supper. Mr. Whitney was the real thing. He was a big man, with a square jaw and eyes deep in under thick eyebrows. He spoke so easy and friendly that you forgot how awful sharp and keen those eyes were and how they watched you all the time you were talking. A young man came with him—a real classy chap—that he introduced to me as his son, George. They couldn’t have acted more cordial to me and Babbitts if we’d been the King and Queen of Spain. When they sat down and asked me to tell them what I knew I loosened up quite natural and told the whole story. The young man sat sideways on the gold sofa, smoking a cigarette and looking into the air with his eyes narrowed up as if he was spying at something a long ways off. Mr. Whitney was sort of slouched down in an easy chair with his hands—white as a woman’s—hanging over the arms. Now and then he’d ask me a question—always begging my pardon for interrupting—and though they were so calm and quiet I could feel, as if it was in the air, that they were concentrated close on every word I said. When I got through Mr. Whitney said, very cheerful, as if I’d been telling some yarn in a story book: "That’s very interesting, Miss Morganthau, and very well told. Quite a narrative gift, eh George?" and he looked at his son.