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something and—”
    “Oh,” she said, “that was the gentleman who stayed there Wednesday night. He’d forgotten something. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. Just said to let him in and he’d get it. I told him I didn’t think there was anything in there, but he handed me five dollars and — Lord, I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “That’s all right,” I told her. “Now, I want you todescribe him. Was he a tall drink of water, about twentyfive or twenty-six, wearing a sport coat and slacks? He—”
    “Lord, no,” she interrupted. “This gentleman was wearin’ a leather coat and a cap with lots of gold braid.”
    “Military?” I asked.
    “Like the swells on yachts,” she said. “But he sure was tall and string-bean-like.”
    “He gave you five dollars?”
    “That’s right.”
    I gave her five dollars and said, “There’s the mate to it. How long was he in there?”
    “He wasn’t in there more’n long enough to just turn around and come back. I heard a couple of drawers opening and closing and then he was right out all covered with grins. I asked him if he’d found what he’d lost and he laughed and said after he got in there he remembered he’d put it in the pocket of his other suit and packed his suit in the suitcase. He said he was kind of absent-minded, and jumped in his car and drove off.”
    “Do you know he stayed there in that cabin Wednesday night?”
    “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