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The clerk told me that De Guerre was out, but that the maid had returned after having been out alone, for a short time, also. The lobby of the Vanderveer was fairly crowded with people by this time, and I found no difficulty in keeping in the background and still seeing pretty much everything that went on.

It was rather tame, however, and I was still debating whether I should not do something active, when I happened to glance up and catch sight of a familiar face. It was Dr. Preston making inquiries for someone of the room clerk. I dodged back of a pillar and waited, covering myself with an early morning war extra that repeated the news of the night before.

A few moments later, Preston, who had received an answer from whomever he was calling, edged his way toward one of the deserted little reception rooms near a side carriage entrance. Carefully, I trailed him.

It was some minutes before I could make up my mind to risk passing the door of the little parlor and being discovered, but I was growing impatient. As I glanced in I was astonished to see him talking earnestly to Cecilie. I did not dare stop, for fear one or the other might look up, but I could see that Preston was eagerly questioning her. Her face was averted from me and I could not read even her expression. The passageway was deserted, and if I paused I would inevitably attract attention. So I kept on, turning instinctively in the labyrinth and coming back to the lobby, where I found a position near the telephone booths which gave me a concealed view at least of the door of the parlor around an angle. I waited.

Perhaps five minutes passed. Then Cecilie and Dr. Preston suddenly emerged from the reception room. Evidently the maid was anxious to get away, perhaps afraid to be seen with him. With a word, she almost ran down the corridor in the direction of the rear elevators, and Preston, with a queer look on his face, came slowly toward me.

Instinctively I drew back into a telephone booth; then it occurred to me that if I emerged just as he passed he would not be likely to suspect anything, and I might have a chance to study him.

I did so, and was quite amused at the look of surprise on his face as I greeted him. Still, I do not think he thought I was shadowing him. We paused for a moment on the street, after a conventional exchange of remarks about the tragedy to poor little Rawaruska.

“That Miss Hoffman seems to be a very capable woman,” I remarked, by way of dragging the conversation into channels into which it seemed unlikely to drift naturally.

“Y-yes,” he agreed, as I caught a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye. “I believe she has had a rather checkered career. I understand that she was a nurse, a trained nurse, once.”

There was something about the remark that impressed me. It was made deliberately, I fancied. What his purpose was, I could not fathom, but I felt that in the instant while he had hesitated he had debated and made up his mind to say it.

My face betraying nothing to his searching glance, he pulled hastily at his watch. “I’m going downtown on the subway–to clear up some of the muss that this European business has got me in with my bankers,” he said quickly. “I’d be glad to have you call on me at any time at the Charlton, just up the avenue a bit. Good-day, sir. I’m glad to have met you. Drop in on me.”

He was gone, scarcely waiting for me to reply, leaving me to wonder what was the cause of his strange actions.

Mechanically I looked at my own watch and decided that I had left Craig undisturbed long enough.