"Mr. Finch? You are drivelling, Garroway. Mr. Finch is on his wedding-trip. He very kindly lent this lady his apartment during his absence."
"But, Mr. Beamish, I was talking to him only just now. We sat at the same table."
"Absurd!"
The dress had disappeared from George's range of vision now, and he heard the door open.
"What does this man want, Jimmy?"
"A doctor, apparently," said Hamilton Beamish. "He says he met George Finch just now."
"But George is miles away."
"Precisely. Are you ready, darling? Then we will go off and have some dinner. What you need, Garroway, is a bromo-seltzer. Come down to my apartment and I will mix you one. Having taken it, I would recommend you to lie down quietly on the sofa and rest awhile. I think you must have been over-exercising your brain, writing that poem of yours. Who blacked your eye?"
"I wish I knew," said Officer Garroway wistfully. "I received the injury during the fracas at the Purple Chicken. There was a table-cloth over my head at the moment, and I was unable to ascertain the identity of my assailant. If, and when, I find him I shall soak him so hard it'll jar his grandchildren."
"A table-cloth?"