She had me heeling her, therefore, without the least actual idea of handing her over to any one; but also without any intention of letting her go. For here I’d found her, after all that world of Jerry’s and of the Flamingo Feather had vanished into air. I began to understand that of course they hadn’t really vanished. They’d been about--those queens and ladies, those sailors, pirates and lighting plants--but I simply had not known it when I saw them. Think of the time it took me to identify Cleopatra, whom I’d made my chief companion that night. Now she meant to me, besides what she was herself, a chance for getting into touch again with all that world. I got to thinking particularly of her friend, Magellan, and looking for him in the offing. But if he were about, I didn’t recognize him; she spoke to nobody and seemed not to be expecting any one. She just kept on down the boulevard, minding her own business and glancing, as any girl would, into show windows. Then suddenly she stopped, entered a store and, during the six seconds she was in ahead of me, she did an expert disappearing piece. She was gone; absolutely! I stood and waited; I wandered about but drew a total blank. I taxied down to the Blackstone where she said she was staying. I thought I shouldn’t have believed that; yet it was true. There she was registered--at least somebody was registered, “Doris Wellington and maid, Denver.” By a little casual questioning, I made sure it was she; and by my soul I couldn’t help liking her the better for it. Not only was she stopping at our best, the Blackstone, but she had her own maid. “Doris Wellington and maid!” She’d come in that morning from Denver; at least that was what she’d told the hotel. She was checking out to leave for New York by the Century that noon. The hotel people, knowing me, naturally supposed me her friend. If she heard of my inquiry, I didn’t know what she’d suppose, so I asked them not to mention it; and I beat it over to my bank to make ready for contingencies in case it proved true that she was on her way to New York by the Century. Also I wanted to work up a little knowledge on the counterfeiting game; and I knew just the man to help me. Almost every big bank has its money crank. Old Wally Bailey holds the post at mine. His father founded the place and he has so much stock that, if the others won’t make him vice-president, he’ll have himself elected chief; so they all vote him vice, unanimously, at every election and put in half their thought between times at keeping him so busy at other ideas that he can’t gum up the banking game by having any time for business.