“Rawlins must have telephoned,” Graham said, “while we went to the stable.  They’re still playing Howells’s game.  They’ll give you plenty of rope.”

He drove straight to Bobby’s apartment.  The elevator man verified their suspicions.  Robinson had telephoned the New York police for a search.  A familiar type of metropolitan detective met them in the hall outside Bobby’s door.

“I’m through, gentlemen,” he greeted them impudently.

Graham faced him in a burst of temper.

“The city may have to pay for this outrage.”

The man grinned.

“I should get gray hairs about that.”

He went on downstairs.  They entered the apartment to find confusion in each room.  Bureau drawers had been turned upside down.  The desk had been examined with a reckless thoroughness.  Graham was frankly worried.

“I wonder if he found anything.  If he did you won’t get out of town.”

“What could he find?” Bobby asked.

“If the court was planted,” Graham answered, “why shouldn’t these rooms have been?”

“After last night I don’t believe the court was planted,” Bobby said.

In the lower hall the elevator man handed Bobby the mail that had come since the night of his grandfather’s murder.  In the car again he glanced over the envelopes.  He tore one open with a surprised haste.

“This is Maria’s handwriting,” he told Graham.

He read the hastily scrawled note aloud with a tone that failed toward the end.

“Dear Bobby;

“You must not, as you say, think me a bad sport.  You were very wicked last night.  Maybe you were so because of too many of those naughty little cocktails.  Why should you threaten poor Maria?  And you boasted you were going out to the Cedars to kill your grandfather because you didn’t like him any more.  So I told Carlos to take you home.  I was afraid of a scene in public.  Come around.  Have tea with me.  Tell me you forgive me.  Tell me what was the matter with you.”

“She must have written that yesterday morning,” Bobby muttered.  “Good Lord, Hartley!  Then it was in my mind!”

“Unless that letter’s a plant, too,” Graham said.  “Yet how could she know there’d be a search?  Why shouldn’t she have addressed it to the Cedars where there was a fair chance of its being opened and read by the police?  Why hasn’t my man made any report on her?  We’ve a number of questions to ask Maria.”

But word came down from the dancer’s apartment that Maria wasn’t at home.

“When did she go out?” Graham asked the hall man.

“Not since I came on duty at six o’clock.”

Graham slipped a bill in the man’s hand.

“We’ve an important message for her.  We’d better leave it with the maid.”

When they were alone in the upper hall he explained his purpose to Bobby.

“We must know whether she’s actually here.  If she isn’t, if she hasn’t been back for the last twenty-four hours—­don’t you see?  It was yesterday afternoon you thought you saw a woman at the lake, and last night a woman cried about the Cedars—­”