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the roadway and the steps, and finally saw a grey, softly gleaming object in the rough grass that edged the drive. He turned it over, wondered at its subtle sheen, and went back into the hotel.
    Relieved to see that the pale young man had disappeared, he went into the back office and bestowed the cigarette case in an envelope, and marked it. Then he shut the envelope carefully into a desk drawer. When he emerged, Gamadge was sliding a thick letter into the mail slot.
    â€œSee young Cowden?” asked Sam.
    â€œNo. What do you mean? Didn’t they come long ago?”
    â€œSure they did.” Sam glanced up at the clock, which said 1:40. “Half an hour. He came down again, just now.”
    â€œShouldn’t think they’d let him do that.”
    Sam explained. “I thought there was something funny about it,” he said, looking bothered.
    â€œHow funny?”
    â€œCan’t exactly say. He was all bundled up.”
    â€œWell—he meant to go out in the fog, if you weren’t here.”
    â€œHe looked to me like he was goin’ somewhere more than that.”
    â€œWhere on earth should he be going, at this hour? And in his condition?”
    â€œIf he wasn’t a sick feller, I’d have said he was goin’ out to keep a date.”
    â€œDate! You must be dreaming. He doesn’t know a soul in the place, so far as I can make out, except the Barclays.”
    â€œWell, I guess I am crazy; but he looked too much dressed up to be going out just to look for a cigarette case.”
    â€œPerhaps that heart trouble of his makes him cold. I think I’ve heard so.” Gamadge turned towards the stairs and paused on the lowest step. “Come to think of it, Sam, it’s his birthday.”
    â€œSo he said.”
    â€œAnd it meant something to him, let me tell you! He’s been a rich man for forty minutes.”
    Gamadge climbed to the first floor, and stood looking down the hall. Sam’s story had impressed him; but he was inclined to think that they were both making too much of it.
    â€œHang it all,” he thought, irresolute, his eyes wandering from one end of the silent corridor to the other. “I can’t go knocking them up; they’d hear me, if I even scratched on his door. They must be down at that end—all the transoms are open. Shall I go back and get his room number from Sam? It does seem such a nursemaidy, rocking-chair thing to do. No, I won’t. Nothing to it.”
    Gamadge, in fact, had a virtue that sometimes transformed itself into a fault; that of minding his own business. He went up to the second flight of stairs, into cold, fog-laden air; entered his room; and was in bed and asleep in ten minutes.

CHAPTER THREE
Not Much of a Birthday
    A VIOLENT KNOCKING finally persuaded Gamadge to open his eyes. The room was flooded with sunshine. “All right, all right,” he muttered.
    Waldo, the tall bellboy, put his head around the door. “I forgot to call, Mr. Gamadge. It’s nearly nine.”
    â€œGood Lord, Macpherson will be raging.” Gamadge sat up annoyed. “What’s the idea, forgetting your calls?”
    â€œWe’re all upset. It don’t matter about Mr. Macpherson, he’s down at the cliff.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œDown the road, on the lookout. Something terrible happened. One of the guests fell off the rocks.”
    â€œThat’s too bad. When? This morning?”
    â€œLast night. Young feller that just checked in. Name’s Cowden.”
    â€œCowden!” Gamadge suddenly came awake. “Yes, sir. They think he had a heart attack, and fell over the cliff. Everybody’s down there. They just took the remains away.”
    Gamadge, staring at the bellboy, swung one leg over the side of the bed. “What did he go down there for?”
    â€œThey don’t know.”
    â€œDo they know when it happened?”
    â€œSomebody said around two