"I hardly feel equal to doing just that," says the Bishop in his mild way. "Now if you could only----" "Why, sure!" says I. "It'd do me good to take a whirl out of that Englishman. I'll make him give up!" He's a bird though, that Kupps. I hadn't talked with him two minutes before I would have bet my pile he knew all about where Ferdy was roostin' and what he was up to; but when it come to draggin' out the details, you might just as well have been tryin' to pry up a pavin' stone with a fountain pen. Was Ferdy in town, or out of town, and when would he be back? Kupps couldn't say. He wouldn't even tell how long it was since he had seen Ferdy last. And say, you know how pig headed one of them hen brained Cockneys can be? I feels my collar gettin' tight. "Look here, Hiccups!" says I. "You----" "Kupps, sir," says he. "Thomas Kupps is my full nyme, sir." "Well, Teacups, then, if that suits you better," says I. "You don't seem to have got it into your head that the Bishop ain't just buttin' in here for the fun of the thing. This matter of retrievin' Ferdy is serious. Now you're sure he didn't leave any private messages, or notes or anything of that kind?" "Nothink of the sort, sir; nothink whatever," says Kupps. "Well, you just show us up to his rooms," says I, "and we'll have a look around for ourselves. Eh, Bishop?" "Perhaps it would be the best thing to do," says the Bishop. Kupps didn't want to do it; but I gives him a look that changes his mind, and up we goes. I was thinkin' that if Ferdy had got chilly feet at the last minute and done the deep dive, maybe he'd left a few lines layin' around his desk. There wa'n't anything in sight, though; nothin' but a big photograph of a wide, full chested lady, propped up against the rail. "That don't look much like the fair Alicia," says I. The Bishop puts on his nigh-to glasses and says it ain't. He thinks it must have been took of a lady that he'd seen Ferdy chinnin' at the house party, where he got his last glimpse of him. "Good deal of a hummin' bird, she is, eh?" says I, pickin' it up. "Tutty tut! Look what's here!" Behind it was a photo of Alicia. "And here's somethin' else," says I. On the back of the big picture was scribbled, "From Ducky to Ferdy," and the date. "Yesterday!" gasps the Bishop. "Well, well!" says I. "That's advancin' the spark some! If he meets her only a week or so ago, and by yesterday she's got so far as bein' his ducky, it looks like Alicia'd have to get out and take the car ahead." The Bishop acts stunned, gazin' from me to the picture, as if he'd been handed one on the dizzy bone. "You--you don't mean," says he, "that you suspect Ferdy of--of----" "I hate to think it," says I; "but this looks like a quick shift. Kupps, who's Ferdy's lady friend?" "Mr. Dobson didn't sye, sir," says Kupps. "Very thoughtless of him," says I. "Come on, Bishop, we'll take this along as a clue and see what Vandy has to say."