question whether it’s a holdup or a holdout.”
He teased some more poison-gas out of the cigar-thing, and added:
“The holdup might have been on the level, though. What are you figuring on doing now?”
“Let’s go up to the agency and see if anything new has turned up. Then I’d like to talk to Mrs. Banbrock again. Maybe she can tell us something about the Correll woman.”
At the office I found that reports had come in on the rest of the out-of-town names and addresses. Apparently none of these people knew anything about the girls’ whereabouts. Reddy and I went on up to Sea Cliff to the Banbrock home.
Banbrock had telephoned the news of Mrs. Correll’s death to his wife, and she had read the papers. She told us she could think of no reason for the suicide. She could imagine no possible connection between the suicide and her stepdaughters’ vanishing.
“ Mrs. Correll seemed as nearly contented and happy as usual the last time I