It all started in late November, when, like every journalist in Lebanon, we were digging to find out what, precisely, had just happened to the prime minister, Saad Hariri. The basics were not in question: He had abruptly flown to Saudi Arabia and resigned; officials came to realize he was being coerced; and after a diplomatic scramble, he flew home and declared he was not quitting after all. He wanted what happened in Saudi Arabia to stay in Saudi Arabia. We, of course, did not.

One Lebanese official compared his task, and ours, to examining the black box: We knew the had plane crashed, but we wanted to know how and why. We eventually told the tale here as best we could, with new details like Mr. Hariri being physically manhandled by Saudi security agents.

I put out feelers to my contacts, and so did Maria Abi-Habib. Maria is an old friend, but a new colleague, just hired from The Wall Street Journal’s Beirut bureau. She is headed to The Times’s Delhi bureau, but has not moved yet. So now, instead of competing, we combined our sources. That was how one story led to another.

From the start, the Hariri story opened new doors. One reason we rarely write about Lebanese politics is that many officials here stand on great ceremony: Despite wielding diluted power in a deadlocked government in a tiny state, they require long preparations and faxed questions before the simplest interview. This time, though, they kept telling us to come right over. They wanted to dish.

It was Maria who got the most tantalizing early tip. But it was a confusing one. She went to see a senior Lebanese official who, instead of talking about Mr. Hariri, began a tale about the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his recent trip to the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Maria looked so confused that the official paused to make sure she recognized Mr. Abbas’s name.