I opened my eyes sitting on the side of my bed in the dim light of a moon that was just coming up, with the ringing telephone in my hand.
O’Gar’s voice: “1856 Broadway! On the hump!”
“1856 Broadway,” I repeated, and he hung up.
I finished waking up while I phoned for a taxicab, and then wrestled my clothes on. My watch told me it was 12:55 a.m. as I went downstairs. I hadn’t been fifteen minutes in bed.
1856 Broadway was a three-story house set behind a pocket-size lawn in a row of like houses behind like lawns. The others were dark. 1856 shed light from every window, and from the open front door. A policeman stood in the vestibule.
“Hello, Mac! O’Gar here?”
“Just went in.”
I walked into a brown and buff reception hall, and saw the detective sergeant going up the wide stairs.
“What’s up?” I asked as I joined him.
“Don’t know.”
On the second floor we turned to the left, going into a library or sitting room that stretched across the front of the house.
A man in pajamas and bathrobe sat on a davenport there, with one bared leg stretched out on a chair in front of him. I recognized him when he