Late that afternoon I got my copies of the girl’s photograph and handwriting, and put one of each in the mail for Baltimore. Then I went around to the three taxicab companies’ offices and got my reports. Two of them had nothing for me. The third’s records showed two calls from the girl’s apartment.
On one rainy afternoon a taxi had been called, and one passenger had been taken to the Glenton Apartments. That passenger, obviously, was either the girl or Pangburn. At half-past twelve one night another call had come in, and this passenger had been taken to the Marquis Hotel.
The driver who had answered this second call remembered it indistinctly when I questioned him, but he thought that his fare had been a man. I let the matter rest there for the time; the Marquis isn’t a large hotel as San Francisco hotels go, but it is too large to make canvassing its guests for the one I wanted practicable.
I spent the evening trying to reach Pangburn, with no success. At eleven o’clock I called up Axford, and asked him if he had any idea where I might find his brother-in-law.
“Haven’t seen him for several days,” the millionaire said. “He was supposed to come up for dinner last night, but didn’t. My wife tried to reach him by phone a couple times today, but couldn’t.”