“So you intimated before.  Well, I can give you some practice right now.  I’m on a blind trail that goes up in the air somewhere around here.  Do you remember, we compared lists on the wreck?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got any addition to your list since?”

“No,” replied Banneker.  “Have you?” he added.

“Not by name.  But the tip is that there was a prominent New York society girl, one of the Four Hundred lot, on the train, and that she’s vanished.”

“All the bodies were accounted for,” said the agent.

“They don’t think she’s dead.  They think she’s run away.”

“Run away?” repeated Banneker with an impassive face.

“Whether the man was with her on the train or whether she was to join him on the coast isn’t known.  That’s the worst of these society tips,” pursued the reporter discontentedly.  “They’re always vague, and usually wrong.  This one isn’t even certain about who the girl is.  But they think it’s Stella Wrightington,” he concluded in the manner of one who has imparted portentous tidings.

“Who’s she?” said Banneker.

“Good Lord!  Don’t you ever read the news?” cried the disgusted journalist.  “Why, she’s had her picture published more times than a movie queen.  She’s the youngest daughter of Cyrus Wrightington, the multi-millionaire philanthropist.  Now did you see anything of that kind on the train?”

“What does she look like?” asked the cautious Banneker.

“She looks like a million dollars!” declared the other with enthusiasm.  “She’s a killer!  She’s tall and blonde and a great athlete:  baby-blue eyes and general rosebud effect.”

“Nothing of that sort on the train, so far as I saw,” said the agent.

“Did you see any couple that looked lovey-dovey?”

“No.”

“Then, there’s another tip that connects her up with Carter Holmesley.  Know about him?”

“I’ve seen his name.”

“He’s been on a hell of a high-class drunk, all up and down the coast, for the last week or so.  Spilled some funny talk at a dinner, that got into print.  But he put up such a heavy bluff of libel, afterward, that the papers shied off.  Just the same, I believe they had it right, and that there was to have been a wedding-party on.  Find the girl:  that’s the stunt now.”

“I don’t think you’re likely to find her around here.”

“Maybe not.  But there’s something.  Holmesley has beaten it for the Far East.  Sailed yesterday.  But the story is still in this country, if the lady can be rounded up....  Well, I’m going to the village to make inquiries.  Want to put me up again for the night if there’s no train back?”

“Sure thing!  There isn’t likely to be, either.”

Banneker felt greatly relieved at the easy turn given to the inquiry by the distorted tip.  True, Gardner might, on his return, enter upon some more embarrassing line of inquiry; in which case the agent decided to take refuge in silence.  But the reporter, when he came back late in the evening disheartened and disgusted with the fallibility of long-distance tips, declared himself sick of the whole business.