Tony buttered a piece of bread with a glance of scorn. “And would that make him inaccessible to _you_, you pluperfect sleuth?” he demanded caustically. “To me it merely meant that I would have to dig up his address and call on him when he was not on guard, so to speak. He is a very nice, pleasant youth. You would not get on with him at all; you would hurt his feelings. I have feelings of my own, so we were delighted with each other! You do neglect your opportunities, you know, Jim!” “Did you find out when Miss Legaye got in last night?” asked Barrison, but Tony’s answer was disappointing. “I did not,” he rejoined. “I found that my night clerk had not seen Miss Legaye at all last night.” Barrison jumped and stared at him. “Not seen her!” ejaculated he. “No. She had not come through the office at all. But he says that she often avoids the crowd in the hotel office by going up to her apartment by the back way. He says she hates publicity.” “Oh!” Barrison was thinking. “Is there, then, no one who would have seen her, if she came in ‘the back way,’ and went up to her room?” “I can’t see how any one could have seen her. You see, Jim, it’s this way. In the Golden Arms Hotel, there is a side door, which is kept open and unguarded until after eleven o’clock at night. Lots of people, women especially, who don’t want to go through the crowded office at that hour, prefer to slip in that way. It’s a regular thing; they all do it. As to the elevator boy who——” “Yes, I was going to ask about him. Did he take her up?” “No, he didn’t. At that hour of the night, even an elevator boy sometimes nods. Anyway, he remembers the bell ringing for a long time while he was half asleep, and when he got to the lift there was no one there. The answer seems obvious.” “That she walked upstairs, having become tired of waiting?” “I should say so. Especially as she lived only one floor up, and often ran up the flight to save time!” Barrison thought of this as he drank black coffee. “And that is all you found out?” he demanded suddenly, raising his head. “Not at all!” responded Tony cheerfully. “I found out that the first news the night clerk had had of Miss Legaye last night was a telephone message from her room at about eleven o’clock.” “A message? What was it?” “She said that she had a frightful headache, and that she wanted one of the bell boys to go out to the drug store for her, and get a medicine bottle filled—stuff that she often took when she had trouble about sleeping.” “And then?” “And then the boy went upstairs, and got the empty bottle from her. She was wearing a wrapper. He took the bottle out and had it filled. That’s all. It establishes the fact that she was in, and undressed, at eleven.” Barrison called for the check and paid it; then he still knitted his brows over the thing that troubled him. “Tony!” he said suddenly. “Well?” “_Could_ she have gotten upstairs into that hotel without being seen? I can’t believe it.” “Why not?”