ked out, sir, early
this morning. The room is unoccupied."

Malone swallowed hard. It was all true, then. Sir Lewis' note hadn't
simply been one last wave of the red cape before an angry bull. Luba
was one of them.

_Miss Ardanko_, he corrected himself savagely.

"What time?" he said.

The operator consulted an information board before him. "Approximately
one o'clock, sir," he said.

"In the morning?"

"Yes, sir," the clerk said.

Malone closed his eyes. "Thanks," he said.

"You're quite welcome, sir," the operator said. "A courtesy of the
Great Universal Ho--"

Malone cut him off. "Ho, indeed," he said bitterly. "Not to mention ha
and hee--hee and yippe-ki-yay. A great life." He whisked himself back
to New York in a dismal, rainy state of mind. As he sat down again to
the books and papers the door to the room opened.

"You still here?" the agent-in-charge said. "I'm just going off duty
and I came by to check. Don't you ever sleep?"

"I'm on vacation, remember?"

"Some vacation," the a-in-c said. "If you're on special assignment why
not tell the rest of us?"

"I want it to be a surprise," Malone said. "And meantime, I'd
appreciate it if I were left entirely to my own devices."

"Still conjuring up ghosts?" the a-in-c said.

"That," Malone said, "I don't know. I've got some long-distance calls
to make."

* * * * *

He started with the overseas calls, leaving the rest of the United
States time for the sun to get round to them. His first call, which
involved a lot of cursing on Malone's part and much hard work for the
operator, who claimed plaintively that she didn't know how things had
gotten so snarled up, but overseas calls were getting worse and worse,
went to New Scotland Yard in London. After great difficulty, Malone
managed to get Assistant Commissioner C. E. Teal, who promised to
check on the inquiry at once.

It seemed like years before he called back, and Malone leaped to the
phone.

"Yes?" he said.

Teal, red-faced and apparently masticating a stick of gum, said: "I
got C. I. D. Commander Gideon to follow up on that matter, Mr. Malone.
As you know, it's after noon here--"

"And they're all out to lunch," Malone said.

"As a matter of fact," Teal went on, "they seem to have disappeared
entirely. On vacation, that sort of thing. It is rather difficult
attempting any full-scale tracing job just now; our men are terribly
overworked. I imagine you've had