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 the captain repeated. "Well, that makes it some plainer, sir. They was off her when we found her. Now go right on, Mr. Fanneal. She left Mr. Sparling's big house on the Drive to go to the Drake hotel at half-past twelve, you say? She didn't go off, at that hour, alone?"

Jerry swung quickly and looked at me. "I'll tell 'em, Steve!"

"Go ahead," I said. God knows, I didn't want to. I had no idea how to tell it; my thoughts, on the subject of Keeban, were absolutely a blob, just then.

"She did not leave alone, Captain," Jerry told. "There is some confusion over who she went with. That was why, when she did not come to the Drake or return home, we became alarmed and I telephoned to you. Some people thought she went away with me; but she did not."

"Go on," said Mullaney again.

"You'll find a good many that say she went with me, Captain; Gibson, the doorman, and probably Mrs. Sparling and some of the guests. But it wasn't me, Captain."

Mullaney squinted his eyes as he looked at Jerry and then he looked at me.