"Oh, hullo!" I said and returned to reading the paper.
The newspaper was firmly taken out of my hands and the man sat down beside me.
"We've got to have a talk," he said.
"Why? What's happened?"
"There's been a lot of talk about you running around town in the last twenty-four hours, Winnie. None of the other alleged friends we know had the guts to tell you. But I thought your room-mate—"
"So you're Merry Vail," I said stupidly.
"You're in worse shape than I thought you were, Winnie," he replied. "Yes, I'm Merriwether Vail who started his life-long career of rescuing Winfred Tompkins from blondes and booze at Harvard in 1916. Now, if you'll just crawl out of your alcoholic coma and listen to me for five minutes before you take off for your next skirt, you'll learn something to your advantage."
"How about a drink, Merry?" I asked, to keep in character.
"Not before five, so help me, and you'd better lay off liquor till you hear this. Here it is. There's a story going the rounds that the F.B.I. is after you. At any rate, at least one obvious G-man has been reported in full cry on your foot-prints."
I sat up, startled. This was too much, even for purgatory. What had Winnie been up to?