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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 youwaiting 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 motor court the next morning so he couldn’t. I was afraid he might get suspicious and resentful.”
    “No,” I said. “He hired me. I found you.”
    “How?”
    “Simple enough. You used sleeping-capsules that a doctor had given Sylvia on a prescription. The gummed label fell off the box and was caught in the back of one of the bureau drawers.”
    “Say,” she said, “you might be right at that!”
    “It had slipped down behind one of the drawers in the bureau.”
    She made a little gesture of disgust. “I thought I was being a smart girl. I