One could read such a communication in more ways than one; at present he could read it only as a curious and inscrutable message, or inspiration. He could not have said just why it seemed to him so important, so imperative. He only knew that the phrases of it, simple as they were, seemed to fill the room and echo from wall to wall. Miss Templeton herself might have stood before him; he might have been listening to her voice. Tony Clay, poor lad, was looking troubled, huddled there in the big chair on the other side of the table. He had forgotten to finish his whisky and soda, and was staring at Barrison in a queer, uncomfortable way. “I say, Jim!” he burst out at last, desperate through his shyness. “You’re looking not a bit like yourself. What’s the matter? That note doesn’t sound so very important, now I hear it, and yet, to look at you, one would say you’d received a message from the tomb.” Barrison laughed. “I haven’t!” he said lightly. “But I have received a tip. Just a plain, ordinary, every-day sort of tip! And I’m going to follow it, too! How much sleep do you need, Tony?” Tony considered. “Four will do me,” he said judicially. “You’ll get five. It’s three o’clock now. At eight you’ll be ready for business; at eight thirty we’ll be at Miss Kitty Legaye’s door. It may be a pipe dream, but I’ve taken kindly to the notion of announcing the news of Mortimer’s death in person! Now tumble in on that couch there, and don’t dare to speak again until eight in the morning!” As he fell asleep, he was still repeating the pregnant words: “Just suppose that you found it was not precisely ‘news’ after all!” CHAPTER XV A MORNING CALL Miss Legaye lived at a very smart little hotel near Fifth Avenue. It was not one of the strictly “theatrical” hostelries, since Kitty had always had leanings toward social correctness. But the house was patronized by so many actresses of exactly the same predilections that it could not help being run with an indulgent and sagacious understanding of their tastes and peculiarities, and might almost as well have been one of the just-off-Broadway variety. When Barrison and Tony Clay presented themselves at the “Golden Arms” at twenty minutes after eight in the morning, they found the hotel barely awake. The clerk who had just come on duty at the desk eyed them with surliness and distaste. The very electric lights, turned on perforce, because of the outrageous dinginess of the morning, seemed to glare at them with disfavor. Bell boys looked unrelentingly cross; a messenger boy was making his exit with as much dripping and mud as he could; and a departing patron appeared to be becoming quarrelsome over a fifteen-cent overcharge.