“Wait a minute,” Lewis said, and then: “32, 67½, 174, medium, brown, brown, broad flat face with prominent cheekbones, gold bridge work in lower left jaw, brown mole under right ear, deformed little toe on right foot.”
“Have you a picture of him to spare?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, I’ll send a boy down for it.”
I told Tommy Howd to go down and get it, and then went out for some food. After luncheon I went up to Gungen’s establishment in Post Street. The little dealer was gaudier than ever this afternoon in a black coat that was even more padded in the shoulders and tighter in the waist than his dinner coat had been the other night, striped gray pants, a vest that leaned toward magenta, and a billowy satin tie wonderfully embroidered with gold thread.
We went back through his store, up a narrow flight of stairs to a small cube of an office on the mezzanine floor.
“And now you have to tell me?” he asked when we were seated, with the door closed.
“I’ve got more to ask than tell. First, who is the girl with the thick nose, the thick lower lip, and the pouches under grey eyes, who lives in your house?”
“That is one Rose Rubury.” His little painted face was wrinkled in a satisfied smile. “She is my dear wife’s maid.”
“She goes riding with an ex-convict.”
“She does?” He stroked his dyed goatee with a pink hand, highly pleased. “Well, she is my dear wife’s maid, that she is.”