second she put down the receiver with a heightened color, saying, “They might be a little civiler in their answers, if it is Mr. Keatcham’s suite.”

“What did the beggar say?” bristled the colonel.

“Only that it was Mr. Keatcham’s suite—Mr. E. S. Keatcham—as if that put getting into it quite out of the question. Some underling, I presume.”

“There is the unoccupied room between. That is not accounted for. But it shall be. I will find out who is in there.” Rupert rose as he spoke,[87] pricked by the craving for action of a man accustomed to quick decision. He heard his aunt brusquely repelling Millicent’s proposal of the police, as he left the room. Indeed, she called him back to exact a promise that he would not make Archie’s disappearance public. “We want to find him,” was her grim addendum; “and we can’t have the police and the newspapers hindering us.”

[87]

In the office, he found external courtesy and a rather perfunctory sympathy, based on a suppressed, but perfectly visible conviction that the boy had stolen out for a glimpse of the city, and would be back shortly.

The manager had no objection to telling Colonel Winter, whom he knew slightly, that the occupant of the next room was a New England lady of the highest respectability, Mrs. Winthrop Wigglesworth. If the young fellow didn’t turn up for dinner, he should be glad to ask Mrs. Wigglesworth to let Mrs. Winter examine her room; but he rather thought they would be seeing young Winter before then—oh, his hat? They usually carried caps in their pockets; and as to coats—boys never thought of their coats.

The manager’s cheeriness did not especially uplift the colonel. He warmed it over dutifully,[88] however, for his womankind’s benefit. Miss Smith had gone out; why, he was not told, and did not venture to ask. Mrs. Melville kept making cautious signals to him behind his aunt’s back; otherwise she was preserving the mien of sympathetic solemnity which she was used to show at funerals and first visits of condolence and congratulation to divorced friends. Mrs. Winter, as usual, wore an inscrutable composure. She was still firmly opposed to calling in the aid of the police.

[88]

Did she object to his making a few inquiries among the hotel bell-boys, the elevator boy and the people in the restaurant or in the office?

Not at 

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