“What do you want?” the little man asked in a more pacific tone.

“We can talk better inside, unless”—­the detective grinned sardonically—­“you want to get out hand-bills about this matter.”

“Let me go, then,” said P. Sybarite.  “I’ll follow you.”

“You’ve got a better guess than that:  you’ll go ahead of me,” retorted the other.  “And while you’re doing it, remember that there’s a cop at the Fifth Avenue door, and I’ve got a handy little emergency ration in my pocket—­with my hand on the butt of it.”

“Very well,” said P. Sybarite, boiling with rage beneath thin ice of submission.

His shoulder free, he moved forward with a high chin and a challenge in his eye for any that dared question his burning face—­marched up the steps through ranks that receded as if to escape pollution, and so re-entered the lobby.

“Straight ahead,” admonished his captor, falling in at his side.  “First door to the right of the elevators.”

Shoulder to shoulder, the target for two-score grinning or surprised stares, they strode across the lobby and through the designated door.

It was immediately closed; and the key, turned in the lock, was removed and pocketed by the detective.

In this room—­a small interior apartment, plainly furnished as a private office—­two people were waiting:  a stout, smooth little man with a moustache of foreign extraction, who on better acquaintance proved to be the manager of the establishment; the other Bayard Shaynon, stationed with commendable caution on the far side of the room, the bulk of a broad, flat-topped mahogany desk fencing him off from the wrathful little captive.

“Well?” this last demanded of the detective the moment they were private.

“Take it calm’, son, take it calm’,” counselled the man, his tone not altogether lacking in good-nature.  “There seems to be some question as to your right to attend that party upstairs; we got to investigate you, for the sake of the rep. of the house.  Get me?”

P. Sybarite drew a long breath.  If this were all that Shaynon could have trumped up to discomfit him—!  He looked that one over with the curling lip of contempt.

“I believe it’s no crime to enter where you’ve not been invited, provided you don’t force door or window to do it,” he observed.

“You admit—­eh?” the manager broke in excitedly—­“you have no card of invitation, what?”

“I freely admit I have no card of invitation what or whatever.”

“Then perhaps you’ll explain whatcha doing here,” suggested the detective, not without affability.

“Willingly:  I came to find a friend—­a lady whose name I don’t care to bring into this discussion—­unless Mr. Shaynon has forestalled me.”

“Mr. Shaynon has mentioned a lady’s name,” said the manager with a significance lost upon P. Sybarite.

“That,” he commented acidly, “is much what might have been expected of”—­here he lifted his shoulders with admirable insolence—­“Mr. Shaynon.”