The chief chuckled and said:

“Well, well, I did Whisper an injustice. I’ll have to hunt him up and square myself. So you landed the boy? That certainly is fine. Congratulations and thanks.” He shook my hand again. “You’ll not be leaving our city now, will you?”

“Not just yet.”

“That’s fine,” he assured me.

I went out for breakfast-and-lunch. Then I treated myself to a shave and haircut, sent a telegram to the Agency asking to have Dick Foley and Mickey Linehan shipped to Personville, stopped in my room for a change of clothes, and set out for my client’s house.

Old Elihu was wrapped in blankets in an armchair at a sunny window. He gave me a stubby hand and thanked me for catching his son’s murderer.

I made some more or less appropriate reply. I didn’t ask him how he had got the news.