Mink Stole? Missing Lynx?Inaugural Ball Guests Keep Checking as Coat Hang-Up Continues

People continued to troop down to the D.C. Convention Center yesterday, looking for coats they couldn't find there after Monday's inaugural balls.

By afternoon, there were 15 coats left hanging on the racks -- and a lot of versions about how the wrap flap happened in the first place.

And there were still some missing coats.

"I left an $8,000 mink there, and I'm still looking for it," Colleen Beveridge, an inaugural ball guest, said yesterday.

Beveridge said she stayed at the convention center until 2 a.m. Tuesday looking for her fur and returned again yesterday. She and other ball guests complained that nearly everyone, from the coat check attendants to D.C. police called in when the departing ball crowd became rowdy, contributed to the confusion.

"An attendant took my claim check and was still gone 40 minutes later," said Beveridge, who had a police officer escort her through several coat check rooms, without success. Yet, Beveridge said, it took most of Tuesday and numerous telephone calls before she could find someone to take an official police report on the missing coat -- a report she needs in order to file an insurance claim.