As we retired to a table for two, I saw grins on a couple of his companion's faces. They probably assumed we were plotting an assignation. If my theory about Mr. Dabbs was correct, that was the farthest thing from his mind possible.
"Before you say anything." Dabbs leaned in to speak softly in my ear. "I don't have your husband's money."
His behavior might be proving his friends' assumption to them. Maybe he didn't mind the smokescreen. I kept my face as blank as possible. I didn't really care what these unknown gentlemen thought about me, but I was a married woman.
"I am not precisely here about the money," I said, "but I would like to hear how you lost it. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt in thinking you didn't mean to defraud your old friends."
"You're correct. I made an investment in a new technology I thought would be extremely profitable. I was wrong. The man who proposed it was a charlatan. He ran away with all my money and many other people's as well."
"Did you go to the authorities?"
"I did, but nothing has come of it. Mr. Murdoch, supposedly the cousin of William Murdoch, the inventor of the capsule pipeline has disappeared without a trace."
"Are those the things people call pneumatic tubes?"
"Yes, Mr. Murdoch proposed using the tubes in a series of restaurants around the company. Instead of having waiters or waitresses, each table would be connected to a system of tubes. The food would be served to them almost instantly from the kitchen."
Many thoughts ran through my head at this. Wouldn't this be putting many servers out of work? How would the food not get destroyed inside the tube? How expensive was this proposed system? Most restaurants lived on the edge of being profitable. Although it was amusing to think of my mother's meat pie cart being connected to a pneumatic tube and her being able to deliver her pies directly to her customers at home.
"I'm surprised you bought into this. I doubt the technology for delivering food safely exists at this time," I said.
"Young Mr. Murdoch said that his cousin was working on it and was almost ready for a patent. He was very persuasive," Dabbs said. "Now that I've told you all this, why are you here, exactly?"
I stared for a moment at the gold star top of the small Christmas Tree which stood below the remains of the real tree. "I am here because Barton Whitlock came to see Emory and me. He says his father won't let him return home unless he finds you, but I suspect he's the one who is looking for you. I doubt the senior Mr. Whitlock ever wants to see you again."