From a drug store I phoned Peak Murry’s pool room.

“Is Peak there?” I asked.

“This is Peak,” said a voice that didn’t sound anything at all like his. “Who’s talking?”

I said disgustedly, “This is Lillian Gish,” hung up the receiver, and removed myself from the neighborhood.

I gave up the idea of finding Reno and decided to go calling on my client, old Elihu, and try to blackjack him into good behavior with the love letters he had written Dinah Brand, and which I had stolen from Dawn’s remains.

I walked, keeping to the darker side of the darkest streets. It was a fairly long walk for a man who sneers at exercise. By the time I reached Willsson’s block I was in bad enough humor to be in good shape for the sort of interviews he and I usually had. But I wasn’t to see him for a little while yet.