n be? I feels my collar gettin'
tight.

"Look here, Hiccups!" says I. "You----"

"Kupps, sir," says he. "Thomas Kupps is my full nyme, sir."

"Well, Teacups, then, if that suits you better," says I. "You don't
seem to have got it into your head that the Bishop ain't just buttin'
in here for the fun of the thing. This matter of retrievin' Ferdy is
serious. Now you're sure he didn't leave any private messages, or
notes or anything of that kind?"

"Nothink of the sort, sir; nothink whatever," says Kupps.

"Well, you just show us up to his rooms," says I, "and we'll have a
look around for ourselves. Eh, Bishop?"

"Perhaps it would be the best thing to do," says the Bishop.

Kupps didn't want to do it; but I gives him a look that changes his
mind, and up we goes. I was thinkin' that if Ferdy had got chilly feet
at the last minute and done the deep dive, maybe he'd left a few lines
layin' around his desk. There wa'n't anything in sight, though;
nothin' but a big photograph of a wide, full chested lady, propped up
against the rail.

"That don't look much like the fair Alicia," says I.

The Bishop puts on his nigh-to glasses and says it ain't. He thinks it
must have been took of a lady that he'd seen Ferdy chinnin' at the
house party, where he got his last glimpse of him.

"Good deal of a hummin' bird, she is, eh?" says I, pickin' it up.
"Tutty tut! Look what's here!" Behind it was a photo of Alicia.

"And here's somethin' else," says I. On the back of the big picture
was scribbled, "From Ducky to Ferdy," and the date.

"Yesterday!" gasps the Bishop.

"Well, well!" says I. "That's advancin' the spark some! If he meets
her only a week or so ago, and by yesterday she's got so far as bein'
his ducky, it looks like Alicia'd have to get out and take the car
ahead."

The Bishop acts stunned, gazin' from me to the picture, as if he'd been
handed one on the dizzy bone. "You--you don't mean," says he, "that
you suspect Ferdy of--of----"

"I hate to think it," says I; "but this looks like a quick shift.
Kupps, who's Ferdy's lady friend?"

"Mr. Dobson didn't sye, sir," says Kupps.

"Very thoughtless of him," says I. "Come on, Bishop, we'll take this
along as a clue and see what Vandy has to say."

He's a human kodak, Vandy is--makes a livin' takin' pictures for the
newspapers. You can't break into the swell push, or have an argument
with Teddy, or be tried for murder, without Vandy's showin' up to