—$200.10—
I had my vest unbuttoned when the telephone bell rang.
It was Dinah Brand, complaining that she had been trying to get me since ten o’clock.
“Have you done anything on what I told you?” she asked.
“I’ve been looking it over. It seems pretty good. I think maybe I’ll crack it this afternoon.”
“Don’t. Hold it till I see you. Can you come up now?”
I looked at the vacant white bed and said, “Yes,” without much enthusiasm.
Another tub of cold water did me so little good that I almost fell asleep in it.
Dan Rolff let me in when I rang the girl’s bell. He looked and acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened the night before. Dinah Brand came into the hall to help me off with my overcoat. She had on a tan woolen dress with a two-inch rip in one shoulder seam.
She took me into the living room. She sat on the Chesterfield beside me and said:
“I’m going to ask you to do something for me. You like me enough, don’t you?”
I admitted that. She counted the knuckles of my left hand with a warm forefinger and explained: