"Only--ah--Mrs. Boller!" Anthony said quietly. "My dear Mrs. Boller--Mr. Hitchin, one of our neighbors here." Johnson Boller himself started out of his chair, gripping its arms; and then, the general sense penetrating his cranium, dropped back with a puff. His mouth opened, as if to protest; his eye caught the eye of Anthony Fry. With a gasp and a flush, Mr. Johnson Boller subsided for the time, and Anthony was saying suavely: "Mr. and Mrs. Boller were with me overnight, you know--decorators have captured their place and they were good enough to take the edge off my loneliness for a little." "I never knew you minded it; I've heard you say you liked it," Hobart Hitchin smiled as he took Mary's hand and favored her with his drill-point stare. "But when you are alone again I'm quite sure that you'll know how lonely you are! My dear Mrs. Boller, I am honored!" Mary, after one startled and one thankful glance at Anthony, dimpled charmingly. Mr. Hitchin dropped her hand and ceased his inspection, and immediately he turned more tensely solemn than upon his entrance. "Ah--Fry," said he. "I suppose we can have a few minutes' chat?" "An hour if you like," Anthony smiled, quite happily, too, because he was rather proud of his quick-wittedness. Hobart Hitchin gazed straight at Mary. "And Mr. Boller will remain with us?" "What's the mystery?" Johnson Boller asked. "There is not, I fear, much mystery," Hitchin said, looking straight at Anthony. "But there is a little matter I'd like to discuss with--er--you two gentlemen." Mary rose hastily. "I'd better go?" she smiled. "If it would not inconvenience you, dear lady," Hitchin said unsmilingly and with a stiff bow. Chin squared, he stood in silence until she had vanished down the corridor. He crossed the room and listened intently, dramatically; he held up the curtains and looked for the sliding doors which had been taken out five years before. "No way of shutting up this room, Fry?" he asked crisply. "No need of shutting it up, either," said Anthony. "There is no one to listen. What seems to be the trouble, Hitchin?" Hitchin wheeled suddenly and turned his remarkable eyes upon Anthony. "_You_ don't know, eh?" he shot at him. "I'm sure I do not." "And whether he does or not, what do you think you're doing?" Johnson Boller asked impatiently. "Acting a moving picture or----" "Mr. Boller, may I trouble you to keep out of this for a little?" the crime student asked amazingly. "Later on I may wish to ask you a question or two, and if you will answer them it will serve me and--Mr. Fry. Just now, suppose we draw up around the table here, so that it will not be necessary to shout?" Anthony was there already, scowling. Johnson Boller, with a grunt, shuffled over and took a chair; because this Hitchin creature, on the face of him, was the morning's latest full-blown freak, and Johnson Boller did not wish to miss anything.