"What\'s the next move?" I inquired of Kennedy as we entered the elevator.

He did not answer, and I thought it was because he did not care to do so.

"Didn\'t like to talk, even though we were alone with the elevator boy," he explained, with his usual caution, when we had arrived at the ground floor. "You never can tell who is listening in public places."

"No," I answered, dryly. "That was how I found out where she was in the first place."

Kennedy smiled. "Very good, Walter. Still, it just goes to prove what I said. Mrs. Lathrop might do the same thing to find out about us."

We sauntered along a few steps through the lobby in silence.

"I don\'t suppose Shattuck will be in his own apartment after that talk with Honora," Kennedy considered, glancing at his watch. "Guess we\'d better try to see him at his office, if we want to see him anywhere."

I saw what he was thinking about—the relations [235] of Vina and Shattuck and the construction that Doctor Lathrop had put on them.

"The finding of that Calabar bean in Shattuck\'s apartment has puzzled me," I confessed. "I\'ve often wondered whether he ever missed it, whether he knows."

"Just what I was thinking about," admitted Kennedy. "On the way down-town I\'m going to drop in and see Mrs. Wilford\'s detective, Chase."

"Why, Mr. Jameson, you\'ve beaten me to it—and have you got the story?"

I turned in surprise at hearing my name spoken by a woman whom I hadn\'t noticed. It was Belle Balcom, always enterprising and on the alert for a good story for her column of society gossip.

"I thought I had a scoop," she pouted. "And I get here only to see you coming out."

"Where did you find out?" I asked, in surprise, careful, however, not to admit that I knew what she meant, although I was certain that it must be to see Mrs. Lathrop that she had come.

"Never mind," Belle tantalized. "Where did you find out?"

"That would be telling," I begged the question, turning and introducing Craig.

"Oh, I\'m so glad to meet you," she smiled. "Of course I\'ve heard a great deal about you from Mr. Jameson and I\'ve always admired your wonderful work."

"Indeed you\'ve helped us a great deal in this [236] case, yourself," returned Craig, ignoring the flattery, as he always did.

"I\'m so glad," thanked Belle, sincerely. "If there\'s anything I can do, ever, I hope you\'ll ask me. It isn\'t often that I feel that the stuff I do has any real importance. More often people think I\'m a prying pest, I imagine. But then without that eternal curiosity, who could write? Isn\'t that so?" she appealed to me.

"Quite," I agreed.

"Especially in a woman," thrust Belle.

"I\'m sure that can\'t be so," remarked Craig. "Reporters and detectives have much in common. Women make good in both fields—very good."

Belle smiled. Sophisticated she might be. Yet no woman can be said exactly to hate flattery of the right sort.

"How does Mrs. Lathrop take the affair—with bravado?" inquired Belle. "You see, that expedition down to Greenwich Village with Mr. Jameson has made me look on this case with a sort of proprietary interest."

Kennedy smiled seriously. "There, now," he nodded, "you\'re interviewing me."

Belle smiled back in turn, taking the hint. "I\'m sure you\'d be hard to interview, if you didn\'t want to be interviewed, Professor Kennedy," she said.

"How did you find out where she had gone—really?" I asked. "Tell us. It might help—and you remember what you said just a moment ago."

Belle considered an instant.
[237]

"Well," she thought, "I don\'t know as it would be violating any confidence, after all."

Kennedy, always thoughtful, had gradually edged our way into a sort of alcove.

"You see," she began, "first I tried to get at Doctor Lathrop himself. But I guess you must have been there first. He was barricaded, so to speak. I posed as a patient, tried to think up all kinds of ailments I could, just to get in. But he had an assistant who interviewed every patient. I think that fellow would make a medical detective. I thought I was clever, but he found me out and I was politely requested to step outside."

I glanced at Kennedy. Evidently Lathrop did not intend to talk. Was it wholly natural reticence?

"Then," resumed Belle to me, "I thought of our friend, Zona Dare. I remembered that she had been intimate with Vina Lathrop. Zona wouldn\'t say anything. But I didn\'t need that. From her I got the cue. I knew she was keeping something from me, just knew it—woman\'s intuition, I guess. I knew that Zona lived here at the Sainte-Germaine."

"But Mrs. Lathrop is alone," I hastened.

"Surely. You wouldn\'t see them together. Trust Zona. She\'s too clever for that."

Again I glanced at Kennedy without getting anything from the expression of his face. Was it a clue? Did it mean anything, this immediate appeal by Vina for help from the Freudian interpreter of the Village?
[238]

We chatted a few minutes longer, as Kennedy turned away further inquisitorial shafts of the clever reporter. However, somehow I felt that Belle still had something on her mind.

"Then you aren\'t going to write it, after all?" she asked, eagerly, of me, as Kennedy showed signs of leaving.

"Of course not," I assured. "It wouldn\'t look right—at this stage of the case—for me to write, do you think? However, that\'s no reason why The Star shouldn\'t have the story."

She beamed.

"Very well, then. I\'ll try to get it," she replied, rather relieved at the thought that whatever clever work she had done to get the tip that had located Vina would not go for naught and would be credited to her.

We bowed ourselves away, leaving Belle the difficult and unenviable job of getting at Mrs. Lathrop again, something I should not have wanted to do, judging by the fiery glance that had been shot at us from behind the slammed door.

"That will be a last straw to Vina Lathrop—when she knows the newspapers have found her out here," I remarked, as we turned toward the street entrance.

Kennedy drew me back and we sidled into the protection of the fronds of a thick clump of palms.

I looked out cautiously. There was Doyle just coming up the steps of the hotel.

Doyle bustled in, and we let him pass, unaccosted.
[239]

"Where did he get his information?" I wondered.

"Not so difficult. If the police drag-net is out, a hotel like the Sainte-Germaine isn\'t at all safe," replied Craig. "I imagine we can leave Vina to their tender mercies—the police and the press."

We left the hotel hurriedly lest we might encounter any one else, and a few minutes later found ourselves again at Chase\'s detective agency. Chase was in and regarded us inquiringly as we entered.

"About this Lathrop case," introduced Kennedy. "You know that she was very intimate with Mr. Shattuck."

Chase nodded.

"It occurred to me," went on Kennedy, "that since you were working for Mrs. Wilford you might be able to help me. There were several things you told me the other day that I\'ve been thinking about."

Chase narrowed his eyes as if trying to fathom what Kennedy was thinking. "I admit breaking into Shattuck\'s apartment," he said. "Do you mean that?"

"Partly. Why did you do it?"

"It was to get some letters Mrs. Lathrop had written to him," returned Chase, without quizzing.

"Did you get them?"

"I did."

"Where are they?"

Chase balked.

"Did you read them?"
[240]

"Yes," he answered, reluctantly.

"What was in them? Shattuck had been pursuing Mrs. Lathrop, hadn\'t he?" fenced Kennedy, keenly.

"No—he had not. She had been pursuing him," snapped Chase, though why he was so evidently put out about it I could not make out at first.

"How about that Calabar bean?"

"I found it in a cabinet, while I was searching for the letters," he answered, his face betraying no expression.

"Why did you tell me that in the first place?" demanded Kennedy, suddenly switching the subject. "Did you have any motive?"

"Motive? I thought you ought to know—that\'s all. He\'s not my client, you know."

"But he\'s a friend of your client and—"

"Say, Kennedy, I know how Doyle has been hounding that poor little woman. If you want the truth, I didn\'t tell Doyle because it ............