Million, of whom I can find no further trace! Now, what is the next----
Ah, the telephone bell again. The message from Lady Golightly-Long.
She is speaking herself, in a deep, drawly voice. She tells me that she knows nothing of Miss Million's movements.
"I left her there. I left them all there, at the Thousand and One," she drawls. "I was the first to leave. Miss Million was there, with Lord Fourcastles and the rest of them when I left.... What?... The time? Oh, I never know times. It wasn't very late. Early, I mean. I left her there."
And she rings off. So that's drawn a blank. Well, now what am I to do next?
I think I'd better go round to the club itself and make inquiries there about the missing heiress!
I have just come back from making inquiries at the Thousand and One Club.
The place looked strangely tawdry and make-believe this morning. Rather like ballroom finery of the night before, seen in daylight. I interviewed a sallow-faced attendant in the vestibule, whence I had got those glimpses of the larking and frolicking in the supper-room last night.
Miss Million? He didn't know anything about a lady of that name. With Miss Vi Vassity's party, had she been? Miss Vi Vassity always had a rare lot of friends with her. He'd seen her, of course, Miss Vi Vassity, all right. Several young ladies with her.
"But a small, dark-haired young lady, in a bright cerise dress, with spangles on it?" I urged. "She was sitting--I'll show you her place at the table. There! Don't you remember?"
The sallow-faced attendant couldn't say he did. There was always a rare lot of bright-coloured frocks about. He beckoned to a waiter, who came up, glancing at me almost suspiciously out of his sunken eyes.
"Young lady in a bright, cherry-coloured frock, sitting at Miss Vi Vassity's table? Yes! Now he came to go back in his mind, he had seemed to notice the young lady. She'd seemed a bit out of it at first. Would that be the one?"
"Yes, yes," eagerly from me. "That would probably be Miss Million!"
"Afterwards," said the waiter, "she seemed to be having a good deal o' conversation with that young Lord Fo'castles, as they call him."
"Ah, yes," I said, thinking again of the glimpse I'd had of the rowdy, foolish-faced young man with the eyeglass, who had been grabbing pink flowers off the table and therewith scufflingly decorating Million's little dark head.