I put fingers in my ears. They didn’t shut out the noise, but they insulted him into cutting the bellowing short.

I took the fingers out and said:

“Send the flunkey away so we can talk. You won’t need him. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He said, “Get out,” to the chauffeur.

The chauffeur, looking at me without fondness, left us, closing the door.

Old Elihu gave me the rush act, demanding that I surrender the rest of the letters immediately, wanting to know loudly and profanely where I had got them, what I was doing with them, threatening me with this, that, and the other, but mostly just cursing me.

I didn’t surrender the letters. I said:

“I took them from the man you hired to recover them. A tough break for you that he had to kill the girl.”