Greg intervened and gave him the information he wanted. The young man recognizing a gentleman in Greg, unbent a little, and they fell into chat. He mentioned that the address he had spoken of was the office of the Managuayan consul. Greg pricked up his ears. "You are from Managuay?" he asked. The young man nodded. Greg impelled by his burning curiosity said: "I met two ladies from Managuay once. It was in Havana at the Palacio Presidential." "Ah yes," said the other, "we all go to Havana in the winter." "Señora and Señorita de Socotra," said Greg, watching him close. "Ah," said the other languidly, "my fiancée." CHAPTER VII THE UNDERTAKER Greg and Hickey dined with Bessie Bickle. Greg's zest in his adventure was gone; there was a pretty stew of suspicion and jealousy in his breast. In his first bitterness he even told himself that the little red-haired girl was no better than the rest of the gang. Nevertheless he had promised to tell Bessie the story, and he did so, disguising his changed feelings as best he could. That is to say, he told them the main lines of the tale; certain details it seemed more discreet to keep to himself. The volatile Hickey's sympathies were completely won. "Count on me to help you aginst them dagoes!" he said. Bessie, while kind, was less expansive. One could see that she was reserving judgment on a Miss who flew about town in taxi-cabs in the middle of the night dressed in boy's clothes. After dinner Greg and Hickey yielded perforce to Nature's demands and slept for a couple of hours. Later Greg dispatched Hickey in the flivver to pick up some business if he could; for the firm would shortly be in need of funds. Greg himself started by trolley car for the morgue. He told himself self-righteously that, however his friend has deceived him, he would carry out his part to the letter. Pressed to tell lost in what she had deceived him he could not have told; but he was sore. Entering the imposing little building on the East Side water-front his heart failed him a little, thinking of ghastly sights awaiting within. But he was spared all that. He saw only a business-like gentleman in a conventional office. It appeared that a body such as he described had indeed been found in the North River that morning and had been brought to the morgue in a police launch. The description tallied in every detail down to the ring with the curious red stone. There could be no mistake. But to Greg's intense chagrin it transpired that, only an hour or so before, the body had been identified and claimed by one who pretended to be the dead man's nephew. Having satisfied the authorities of his right to receive it, he had had the body transferred to an undertaker's shop.