"Oh, then there _must_ be some mistake. This is Miss _Crooke_ speaking."
Lanyard uttered a strangled "Sorry!" and hung up, abandoning further effort
as hopeless.
That matter would have to stand over till morning.
Time now pressed: it was nearly eleven; he had a rendezvous with Destiny to
keep at midnight, and meant to be more than punctual.
Walking to his apartment house, he proceeded to establish an alibi by
entering through the public hallway and registering with the telephone
attendant a call for seven o'clock the next morning.
In the course of the next half hour Lanyard let himself quietly out of the
private door, slipped around the block and boarded a Riverside Drive bus.
Alighting at Ninety-third Street, he walked two blocks north on the Drive,
turned east, and without misadventure admitted himself a second time to the
Stanistreet garden.