But I finds myself tacklin this hopeless puzzle from every angle I could think of. I tried 'phonin' to Claire's old street number. Nothin' doin'.

They didn't know anything about Miss Hunt.

"What brand of art was she monkeyin' with?" I asks.

Mrs. Parker Smith couldn't say. Claire hadn't been very chatty in her letters. Chiefly she had demanded checks.

"But in one she did mention," says the lady in gray, "that---- Now, what was it! Oh, yes! Something about 'landing a cover.' What could that mean?"

"Cover?" says I. "Why, for a magazine, maybe. That's it. And if we only knew what name she'd sign, we might---- Would she stick to the Claire part? I'll bet she would. Wait. I'll get a bunch of back numbers from the arcade news-stand and we'll go through 'em."

We'd hunted through an armful, though, before we runs across this freaky sketch of a purple nymph, with bright yellow hair, bouncin' across a stretch of dark blue lawn.

"Claire Lamar!" says I. "Would that be---- Eh? What's wrong?"

Mrs. Parker Smith seems to be gettin' a jolt of some kind, but she steadies herself and almost gets back her smile.

"I--I am sure it would," says she. "It's very odd, though."

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Listens kind of arty--Claire Lamar. Lemme see. This snappy fifteen-center has editorial offices on Fourth Avenue and---- Well, well! Barry Frost, ad. manager! Say, if I can get him on the wire----"

Just by luck, I did. Would he pry some facts for me out of the art editor, facts about a certain party? Sure he would. And inside of ten minutes, without leavin' the Corrugated General Offices, I had a full description of Claire, includin' where she hung out.

"Huh!" says I. "Greenwich Village, eh? You might know."

"My dear Lieutenant," says Mrs. Parker Smith, "I think you are perfectly wonderful."

"Swell thought!" says I. "But you needn't let on to Mr. Ellins how simple it was. And now, all you got to do is----"

"I know," she cuts in. "And I really ought not to trouble you another moment. But, since Mr. Ellins has been so kind--well, I am going to ask you to help me just a trifle more."

"Shoot," says I, unsuspicious.

It ain't much, she says. But she's afraid, if she trails Claire to her rooms, the young lady might send down word she was out, or make a quick exit.

"But if you would go," she suggests, "with a note from me asking her to join us somewhere at dinner----"

I holds up both hands.

"Sorry," says I, "but I got to duck. That's taking too many chances."

Then I explains how, although I may look like a singleton, I'm really the other half of a very interestin' domestic sketch, and that Vee's expectin' me home to dinner.

"Why, all the better!" says Mrs. Parker Smith. "Have her come in and join us. I'll tell you: we will have our little party down at the old Napoleon, where they have such delicious French cooking. Now, please."

As I've hinted before, she is some persuader. I ain't mesmerized so strong, though, but what I got sense enough to play it safe by callin'

up Vee first. I don't think she was strong for joinin' the reunion until I points out that I might be some shy at wanderin' down into the art-student colony and collectin' a strange young lady ill.u.s.trator all by myself.

"Course, I could do it alone if I had to," I throws in.

"H-m-m-m!" says Vee. "If that bashfulness of yours is likely to be as bad as all that, perhaps I'd better come."

So by six o 'clock Vee and I are in the d.i.n.ky reception-room of one of them Belas...o...b..ardin'-houses, tryin' to convince a young female in a paint-splashed smock and a floppy boudoir cap that we ain't tryin' to kidnap or otherwise annoy her.

"What's the big idea?" says she. "I don't get you at all."

"Maybe if you'd read the note it would help," I suggests.

"Oh!" says she, and takes it over by the window.

She's a long-waisted, rangy young party, who walks with a Theda Bara slouch and tries to talk out of one side of her mouth. "h.e.l.lo!" she goes on. "The Parker Smith person. That's enough. It's all off."

"Just as you say," says I. "But, if you ask me, I wouldn't pa.s.s up an aunt like her without takin' a look."

"Aunt!" says Claire Lamar, _alias_ Hunt. "Listen: she's about as much an aunt to me as I am to either of you. And I've never shed any tears over the fact, either. The only aunt that I'd ever own was one that my family would never tell me much about. I had to find out about her for myself.

Take it from me, though, she was some aunt."

"Tastes in aunts differ, I expect," says I. "And Mrs. Parker Smith don't claim to be a reg'lar aunt, anyway. She seems harmless, too. All she wants is a chance to give you a rosy prospectus of life on a cow farm and blow you to a dinner at the Napoleon."

"Think of that!" says Claire. "And I've been living for weeks on window-sill meals, with now and then a ptomaine-defying gorge at the Pink Poodle's sixty-cent table d'hote. Oh, I'll come, I'll come! But I warn you: the Parker Smith person will understand before the evening is over that I was born to no cow farm in Illinois."

With that she glides off to do a dinner change.

"I believe it is going to be quite an interesting party, don't you?"

says Vee.

"The signs point that way," says I. "But the old girl really ought to wear shock-absorbers if she wants to last through the evenin'. S-s-s-sh!

Claire is comin' back."

This time she's draped herself in a pale yellow kimono with blue triangles stenciled all over it.

"Speaking of perfectly good aunts," says she, "there!" And she displays a silver-framed photo. It's an old-timer done in faded brown, and shows a dashin' young party wearin' funny sleeves, a ringlet cascade on one side of her head, and a saucy little pancake lid over one ear.

"That," explains Claire, "was my aunt Clara Lamar; not my real aunt, you know, but near enough for me to claim her. This was taken in '82, I believe."

"Really!" says Vee. "She must have been quite pretty."

"That doesn't half tell it," says Claire. "She was a charmer, simply fascinating. Not beautiful, you know, but she had a way with her. She was brilliant, daring, one of the kind that men raved over. At twenty she married a Congressman, fat and forty. She hadn't lived in Washington six months before her receptions were crushes. She flirted industriously. A young French aide and an army officer fought a duel over her. And, while the capital was buzzing with that, she eloped with another diplomat, a Russian. For a year or two they lived in Paris. She had her salon. Then the Russian got himself killed in some way, and she soon married again--another American, quite wealthy. He brought her back to New York, and they lived in one of those old brown-stone mansions on lower Fifth Avenue. Her dinner parties were the talk of the town--champagne with the fish, vodka with the coffee, cigarettes for the women, cut-up stunts afterwards. I forget just who No. 3 was, but he succ.u.mbed. Couldn't stand the pace, I suppose. And then---- Well, Aunt Clara disappeared. But, say, she was a regular person. I wish I could find out what ever became of her."

"Maybe Mrs. Parker Smith could give you a line," I suggests.

"Her!" says Claire. "Fat chance! But I must finish dressing. Sorry to keep you waiting."

We did get a bit restless durin' the next half hour, but the wait was worth while. For, believe me, when Claire comes down again she's some dolled.

I don't mean she was any home-destroyer. That face of hers is too long and heavy for the front row of a song review. But she has plenty of zip to her get-up. After one glance I calls a taxi.

The way I'd left it with Mrs. Parker Smith, we was to land Claire at the hotel first; then call her up, and proceed to order dinner. So we had another little stage wait, with only the three of us at the table.