ys I. "Didn't we just follow
her in?"

"No coom yet," insists Helma in her wooden way.

That's all I can get out of her, too. It wasn't that she'd had orders
to say Auntie wasn't at home, or didn't care to receive just then.
Helma sticks to the simple statement that Auntie hasn't come back.

"But say," I protests; "we just trailed her here. Get that? We was
right on her heels when she struck the elevator. And the Captain was
with her."

"No coom," says Helma, shakin' her head solemn.

"Why, you she-Ananias, you!" I gasps. "Do you mean to tell me that--"

"I beg pardon," says a familiar acetic acid voice behind us--and I
turns to see Auntie steppin' out of the elevator. "Were you looking
for someone?" she goes on.

"You've guessed it," says I. "In fact, we was--"

"Madam," breaks in Mr. Ellins, "will you kindly tell me what you have
done with Captain Rupert Killam?"

"Certainly, Mr. Ellins," says Auntie. "Won't you step in?"

"I should prefer to be told here, at once," says Old Hickory.

"My preference," comes back Auntie, "if I must be cross-examined, is to
undergo the process in the privacy of my own library, not in a public
hallway."

Well, there was nothing else to it. We could either stay out there and
stare at the door, or follow her in. So in we goes. And maybe Vee's
gray eyes don't open some wide as she views the procession streamin'
in. She glances at me inquirin'. I throws up both hands and shakes my
head, indicatin' that it was beyond words.

"Now," says Auntie, liftin' her purple-decorated lid off one ear and
tuckin' a stray lock into her back hair, "I will answer your question.
I have just sent Captain Killam back to his hotel."

"The Illington?" demands Old Hickory.

"No," says Auntie. "It was my fancy that Captain Killam deserved
rather better quarters than those you saw fit to provide. So I found
others for him--just where, I do not care to say."

"But he came in here with you a moment ago," insists Old Hickory. "How
could you--"

"I'm next!" says I. "You smuggles him over the roof and down the
elevator in the next building. Wasn't that how you gave us the slip?"

Auntie indulges in one of them lemony, tight-lipped smiles of hers.
"You have exposed my poor strategy," says she; "but a little late, I
trust."

Mr. Ellins makes her a bow.

"Mrs. Hemmingway," says he, "my compliments on your cleverness as a
tactician. But I fail to see how you justify your methods.