she wasn't accustomed to drinking bubbles and topping it off with brandy
and benedictine."

"The climax of your story lacks the full force of surprise," Eben
reminded his guest. "You forecast the result at the commencement."

"No, I haven't, gotten to the result yet. This is only one stage of it.
It happened that the Rev. Sam Haymond heard of a job as a lingerie model
in a department store, that would fit Minnie nicely, and he rushed
around to her room to carry the glad tidings. The landlady said that
Minnie had gone to the Van Styne with a gentleman friend--so the dominie
took a taxi and went there, too. You see he didn't know until he got
into the lobby and saw all them red lights and heard some little of the
conversation there, that it wasn't a _regular_ hotel. But there he
was--so he had her paged."

"Did he find her?"

"He did not. The clerk didn't mention that she was in the house and of
course 'Jim Smith and wife' on a register didn't mean much to him.... So
the Rev. Haymond didn't connect with Minnie--and Minnie didn't connect
with the job. But the rat-faced gentleman who had left her there after a
pleasant evening and was on his way out heard her real name paged. He
beat it back to inquire what in the Sam Hill Haymond wanted with her? He
found her in the sort of despair that would come to a girl like that at
a time like that. What you call the 'until' Minnie probably called the
'too-late.' Maybe she guessed what the minister had cone for and what
she had just missed. Anyhow her 'gentleman-friend' warned her that there
had been a raid on a place nearby and that downstairs they were having a
scare-- He said that he himself was leaving and she'd better be
careful. Well, she went clear out of her head--and she jumped out of
the window. It was the fifth floor, you see."

Mr. Tollman's face was gravely serious as he put a question which might
have seemed less near the kernel of the matter than several others, "Why
did they fear a raid?"

"They sometimes happen, you know. The police get periodically active.
The Van Styne has been pinched before." Mr. Hagan rose from his seat and
added with the solicitude of one wishing to make the _amende honorable_,
"However, Mr. Tollman, I believe that was before you owned the place."

The anxious anticipations of the host during the course of the story had
not quite prepared him against the bluntness of this announcement, and
his surprise vented itself in a sudden start. B