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“Of course not. I go off work at four-thirty in the afternoon. But he said he’d stayed there Wednesday.”

The manager looked at me. “Anything else?”

I turned to the maid. “You’d know this man if you saw him again?”

“I’ll tell the world I’d know him, just like I’d know you. Five-dollar tips don’t grow on bushes on this job.”

I went back to the agency heap, drove to the nearest pay station, telephoned Elsie Brand, and said, “Elsie, I won’t be around for the weekend. I’m going to be in San Francisco. Tell Bertha, in case she wants to know, that whatever we’re working on is going to be in San Francisco.”

“Why?” she asked.

I said, “Because a six-foot string bean with a yachtsman’s cap has been down here in our honeymoon cottage.”

“Some honeymoon,” she retorted. “Give Sylvia my love.”

Chapter Six

Millicent Rhodes was engraved on a strip of cardboard which had been neatly cut from a visiting-card and inserted in the holder opposite the push button on Millie’s apartment out on Geary Street.

I pressed the bell button.

Nothing happened.

I pressed it again for a long ring, then three short rings.

The speaking-tube made noise. A girl’s voice said protestingly, “It’s Saturday morning. Go away.”

“I have to see you,” I said. “And it isn’t morning. It’s afternoon.”

“Who are you?”

“A friend of Sylvia’s — Donald Lam.”

She didn’t give assent specifically, but after a second or two the electric buzzer on the door signified that she had pushed the button which unlatched the door for me.

Millicent had apartment 342. The elevator was at the far end of the hall, but, since the oblong of light showed the cage was waiting at the ground floor, I walked back to it. It took the swaying, wheezy cage almost as long to get to the third floor as it would have taken me to walk up the stairs.

Millie Rhodes opened the door almost as soon as my finger touched the button.

“I hope this is important,” she said coldly.

“It is.”

“All right, come in. This is Saturday. I don’t have to work so I take it easy. It’s probably the one symbol of economic freedom I can afford.”

I looked at her in surprise.

She was a good-looking, well-formed redhead, despite the fact that there was no make-up on her face or lips. She had evidently tumbled out of bed in response to my ring and had simply thrown a silk wrap around her to answer the door. It was quite apparent she was easy on the eyes despite the attire.

“You’re different from the description I had of you,” I said.

She made a little grimace. “Give a girl a break. Let me get some make-up on and some clothes and—”

“I meant it the other way.”

“What other way?”

“You’re a lot more attractive than the description.”

“I guess I’ll have to speak to Sylvia,” she said grimly.

“Not Sylvia,” I told her. “Someone else. I gathered you were a demon chaperon.”

She looked at me with a puzzled frown for a moment, then said, “I don’t get it. Find yourself a chair and sit down. You’ve caught me pretty much unawares, but any friend of Sylvia’s is a friend of mine.”

“I waited as late as I could,” I said. “I was hoping you’d be up and I wouldn’t have to disturb you.”

“Skip it. It’s done now. Anyhow, I’m not working this week. The Saturday sleep is just a deeply entrenched habit.”

She looked as though she needed a cigarette. I offered her one, and she took it eagerly. She tapped the end of it gently on the edge of a little table, leaned forward for my light, settled back on the edge of the bed, then, after a moment, propped her back up with pillows, kicked her feet up, and said, “I suppose I should have kept you waiting while I made the bed, put it up out of sight, and spread the chairs around, but I decided you could take me as I am. Now, what about Sylvia?”

I said, “Sylvia told me an interesting story.”

“Sometimes she does.”

“I wanted it verified.”

“If Sylvia told it to you, it’s verified.”

I said, “It involves a trip you took to Hollywood, a short vacation trip.”

She suddenly threw back her head and laughed. “Now You should have seen him trying to be passionate one minute and drowsy the next. I thought I’d laugh right in his face.”

“I understand he finally passed out.”

“Like a light. We parked him on the davenport, covered him up, tucked him in, and sought our virtuous couches.”

“I trust you made him comfortable.”

“Oh, sure.”

I said, “Sylvia said you took his shoes off. Sylvia made the davenport into a bed, and then you tucked him in.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “That’s right.”

“You put his shoes under the bed, hung his coat over the back of a chair, and left him with his pants on.”

“That’s right.”

“A warm night?”

“Fairly warm. We covered him.”

“You don’t know his name?”

“Heavens, no. Not his last name. We called him John. You said your name was Donald?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, why talk so much about what happened down there in Los Angeles, Donald? What do you want?”

“To talk about what happened in Los Angeles.”

“Why?”

“I’m a detective.”

“A what?”

“A detective.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Private,” I said.

“Say, maybe I’m talking too much.”

“Not enough.”

“How long have you known Sylvia? I don’t remember hearing her speak of you.”

“I met her yesterday afternoon, and went to dinner with her.”

“That’s the first time you met her?”

“That’s right.”

“Say, what are you getting at, anyway? What are you after?”

“Information.”

“Well,” she said, “I guess you’ve got it, and your gain is my loss.”

“How do you mean?”

“My beauty sleep. For whom are you working?”

“The man who was with you.”

“Don’t be silly. He doesn’t know who we are. He couldn’t find us in a hundred years. We checked out of the