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men were Alden Fenway and the Mr. Craddock who looks after him, we know something else—neither of them is my client; they both have too much liberty to be forced into throwing messages out of a window.”
    Harold said: “Young Fenway hasn’t much liberty; Craddock was after him like lightning.”
    â€œBut he got out of the house alone, and he had time to slip a note to the cabdriver; hadn’t he?”
    â€œYes, I suppose he had. He’s a big, good-looking feller; I thought he must be lame or sick; I wouldn’t have known there was anything the matter with his brain. But of course I didn’t know there was a mental case in the house, and it’s no use now to say that I thought he didn’t have any more expression than the face of a clock. Lots of people don’t, anyway.”
    â€œI’ll take your word for his expression. Any more happenings?”
    â€œAs soon as the cab drove off, a nice car came along. Oldish man got out, nice-looking, carried a bag; looked like a doctor.
    He went in the house. Then the old guy arrived, and started in with his broom, and I came away.”
    â€œVery nice scouting. Bring your friend and Arline here for cocktails this evening.”
    Harold’s dark face was illumined by a slow smile. He said: “O.K. Like you to meet Corporal Lipowitsky. Quite a dancer.”
    Clara said: “I can’t wait. What an evening.”

CHAPTER THREE

Gamadge Buys A Book
    G AMADGE WENT OUT into a thin, icy snowfall, and along streets piled high at the curbs with Thursday’s snow. He crossed a deserted avenue, waited long for a bus, and when it came waded to it. Dismounting in the lower forties, he ploughed westward with his collar up, his hatbrim down, and his hands sunk in his pockets.
    He went into a converted brownstone house where J. Hall occupied the second floor. J. Hall’s show window was bare but impressive, with its reticent display of open folios, a map, a set of faded small octavos in red morocco gilt, and a framed copperplate engraving, dusky and mellow. Gamadge climbed dark stairs and opened a half-glass door, on which gold letters said merely: J. Hall. Books .
    He entered a large front room which had once been somebody’s parlor; books rose to its moulded cornices. Hall’s desk stood beside the window, Hall’s clerk’s desk had its modest place in a corner, beside folding doors. These led to the back office, where Hall informally received a chosen few.
    Hall’s clerk was at his desk, reading under a green-shaded light. He was a serious young man, whose very hair looked dusty. He rose. “Mr. Hall’s expecting you, Mr. Gamadge.”
    â€œThanks, Albert.”
    â€œIt’s an awful day.”
    â€œIt’s an awful day.”
    Albert opened a folding door. Gamadge paused beside his desk. “What are you reading? Men Working ?”
    â€œYes, sir. Business is a little slow.”
    â€œYou don’t say.”
    Gamadge went through the doorway into a sanctum warmed by a coal fire. J. Hall sat hunched over this, whiskey at his elbow, his face obscured by the large silk handkerchief on which he was blowing his nose. By birth an Englishman, he had been an American citizen for nearly forty years; but he adhered as faithfully as he could to the customs of his native land. Before he went home Albert would bring him a pot of tea.
    He looked at Gamadge over his shoulder, and put the bandanna away. “I have a frightful cold,” he said. “Have some medicine?”
    â€œNo, thanks.” Gamadge sat down at the other end of the hearth.
    â€œI’d retire, if I could find a cheap, sunny place with no arty people and no trippers. Did you come to buy something? The Cotter collection? Diaries, portraits—mostly proof impressions—and private plates of great rarity. Fine and scarce mezzotints. The whole bound up in half green levant by Rivière.”
    â€œI read about it