“It was just before I left. I’d gone to one of the bedrooms used as a men’s cloak-room, to get my hat. The party had been pretty wild—one woman nearly had her clothes torn off her by our playful and animated host—and I was straightening up a bit when a young fellow blew in, looking for _his_ hat. “I’d already spotted him as a well-known young rip, with a lot more money than either wits or decency, and I’d been casually introduced to him in the early part of the evening. But now he fell on me like a long-lost friend. ‘Not a bad party, eh?’ said he. ‘But the women aren’t up to much. Too damned stand-offish for my taste. Only the same old booze, too. Gee, you oughta been on the party I was on th’ other nigh’. Say, I thought I was ’n heaven.’ “I tried to shake him off and get out of there, but he wasn’t having any. ‘Wai’ a minut’, I wan’ tell ya ’bout it,’ he said, in an injured tone, so I waited. “He held a waving finger before me and went on: ‘I’ was like par’dise, I tell ya. I dunno what they gave us, but I was lost to the worl’ till the next mornin’. They kept me there all nigh’.’ “‘Where was it?’ I asked him. “‘Damned ’finno. Somewhere out town. But ol’ Babylon and Corinth hadn’t a thing on that party. I paid $200 to go, an’ I wouldn’t ’a’ missed it for a thousand—girls an’ divans and strange things to drink that gave ya the most won’erful dreams, Gee, what a party! They tol’ me special that I wasn’t even to mention it, but that’s only a a’vertising dodge. Ya can’t fool me. That was one of the conditions. Made me swear not to tell before they’d take me!’ He went off into fits of laughter here. “Some one else came in just then,” Moore continued, “and I noticed that the new-comer stared pretty hard for an instant at the young hopeful. I don’t know why. Anyhow this fellow had some more to say that convinced me he might be useful.” “Sounds like drugs, doesn’t it?” I cut in. “Wait,” Moore continued. “When this young fellow had stopped laughing I pumped him gently about the party. “‘I dunno,’ he said, ‘what they gave us. Must ’a’ been some kind of drug, for I had a rotten head the next day.’ “I asked him again where it was. “‘Search me,’ he answered. ‘They took me there in a closed car and brought me away in one. Mighta been anywhere a’most.’ “At this point,” Moore continued, “the fellow looked up and caught the new-comer’s eye and it seemed to sober him. He smiled in a sickly sort of a way and began a wild search for his hat. The other man went out right after that. But I had a good look at him, and I think I know who he is. Anyhow, the young rip wouldn’t talk any more—seemed scared and sobered—and I came away. But I got the young fellow’s address from him.” “What’s your idea?” I asked. “Why, follow him up and try to find out who asked him to the party. Then work it so that you or I get an invitation.” “Sounds promising,” I said.