added slowly, "it might be a
good idea to wear the best bib and tucker, with Sunday School
manners."

"Oh?" I said, "that kind of a party? Fine. I'm all ready now. Better
get your hat."

At ten-thirty, the telephone rang. I answered it.

"This is the desk," it said. "Mr. Wakefield?"

"He's here," I said. "Wait a minute," and I passed the phone to Stein.

"Wakefield," he said. "Yes?"

The receiver chattered briefly.

"All right," and he waved at me. "Be right down." He turned. "Car
waiting." It didn't take us long to get downstairs.

It was a sedan with a neat little drive-yourself tab on the right-hand
door. Before we got near the car, Stein was careful to see who was the
driver. He evidently was someone he knew, so Bob nodded curtly, and we
got in and pulled away from the curb.

* * * * *

I don't know Washington at all, so I can't say where we made port. Not
too far a drive, I imagine, if we had gone there directly. It was a
good forty-five minutes before we ended our erratic turning of corners
and sped up a long tree-bordered driveway.

"Nice place," I said to Stein as we braked to a stop in front of a
long white-columned Southern portico. "Who lives here?"

He smiled and shook his head. "That's something I don't know. Does it
matter?"

It didn't.

As we strode up the steps the Drive-Yourself pulled away, tires
crackling on the white gravel. We both reached for the knocker at the
same time, but before we had it, the door swung open. Stein recognized
the young fellow who opened it and took our hats. A message passed
between their eyes, and the young man almost imperceptibly shook his
head in negation.

"Will you come this way, please?" and he led us down the hall.

The house was smaller than the outside had led me to expect. The
builder had gone whole hog on the giant Greek columns and the wide
sweep of the porch, and the inside of the house showed the results of
the skimping. Not that it wasn't a far bigger and a far more expensive
house than any average man would hope to have, but the limited space
inside didn't go with those sweeping curves of the drive. I wondered
who lived there.

The room where the doorman left us went with the inside of the house.
So small it reminded me of the times when I tried to sell brushes
during the depression, in Grosse Pointe, I expected every moment to
have an underpaid maid, laundress, and butler come in to tell me that
the lady