“Yes. He went in to dinner just before you entered. It’s not time for him to come out.” “Did Draper, the valet, come down with him?” “I’m not sure. I saw Draper in the office just before Doctor Guelpa showed up, however, and he may be at dinner.” “I’ll mighty soon find out,” thought Patsy; then, aloud: “That’s all, Vernon, and I’m vastly obliged. Mum’s the word, mind you.” “Trust me, Garvan,” nodded the clerk. Patsy thanked him again and departed. He had decided what course he would shape. He knew that he could easily learn whether Doctor Guelpa, or his valet, then was in the physician’s suite. “If both are absent, by Jove, I’ll have a look at his rooms,” he said to himself. “They may contain something worth seeing. It may be more than a coincidence, by gracious, that he was a Charley on the spot this morning and contrived to be in mademoiselle’s suite so soon after the robbery. “He may, if my suspicions have feet to stand on, have been out to learn what had been discovered, or was suspected, and what detectives were to be employed. “This looks too good to me to be dropped without looking deeper, and I’ll snatch this opportunity for a peep at that sawbones’ rooms before I phone the chief. A throat specialist, eh? I’ll have him by the throat sooner or later, if I find I’m on the right track.” Patsy was seeking the fourth floor while indulging in this hopeful train of thought. He ignored the elevator and quickly mounted the several stairways, and brought up at the door of Doctor Guelpa’s suite. It then was half past six, and many of the guests had gone down to dinner. The long, luxuriously carpeted corridor was quiet and deserted, lighted only with an incandescent lamp here and there. Patsy listened at the door for a moment. He could hear no sound from within, nor detect any evidence of a light. “It’s a hundred to one the sawbones is out,” he muttered. “I can woolly eye that valet, all right, if he is here. I’ll pretend I’ve got a bad throat, trouble in my pipes, and that I want to consult his jags from Hungary. He’ll be a wise gazabo, all right, if I can’t fool him.” Patsy was folding his handkerchief in the form of a bandage, which he then fastened around his neck, turning up his coat collar, much as if the advice and aid of a physician was really necessary. Putting on a look of abject misery that would have deceived a clairvoyant, he then knocked sharply on Doctor Guelpa’s door. It brought no response from within. Patsy listened intently, then knocked again, with the same negative result. “Gee! that’s good enough for me,” he muttered. “It’s a cinch that both are out, and it’s me for the inside. I’ll make this door look like thirty cents.” Patsy had it unlocked and opened in less than thirty seconds, at all events, and he then stepped into the entrance hall. A thick portière across an inner door was closely drawn. The room beyond was in darkness. Silence reigned in the gloomy suite.