He offered to buy Alfred a malted, but Alfred had a New Year's date and was anxious to get back to the store to finish work.
"So have I got a date," Lennox said, and parted wistfully from his friend.
He walked home without incident except for a car which stopped for a traffic light directly in the path of the pedestrians' crossing. Lennox would have none of that. Refusing to detour around the car, he opened the rear door, climbed through the back, opened the opposite door and continued on his way.
He entered the apartment prepared to greet Cooper with brotherly affection, but Cooper was not home. Lennox gave the Siamese and the mink-dyed skunk a holiday meal of canned crabmeat, then bathed, changed to dinner clothes and demolished the Canadian whiskey in the bar. He stole a pack of cigarettes from Sam's cache in the storage closet, put on his burberry and decided to have dinner in The Crystal Key.
The Crystal Key is a private house in the West Fifties which caters both to Hipsters and Squares. It has a butler who looks like a magazine advertisement. It has footmen in knee-breeches, waiters, French chefs, a wine steward and even a cellar to go with the steward. It has a resident book-maker. It employs a slightly known chanteuse who entertains on the second, or dining floor. It provides a dozen young hostesses who will drink, chat and dance intimately on the third or supper room floor. It has a fourth and fifth floor for personalized entertainment.
Lennox entered with his mind intent on dinner. He permitted an attendant to take his coat, went into the bar on the street floor, nodded to the bookie and the neighborhood cop drinking beer in a corner, and ordered sherry. He began to laugh at himself. He recalled that no matter what he wanted to drink when he entered The Crystal Key, he always ended up ordering sherry. He gave the matter some thought, blamed the knee-breeches, and went upstairs to dine.
It was fortunate there were no menus. Lennox could not have read a menu even if there had been enough light. He was served hors-d'oeuvres, mussel soup, saddle of lamb, pommes soufflés, a still burgundy, salade fatigué, and something in a covered dish which he was too hazy to investigate. His faculties were restored by the blinding discovery that the gentleman seated two table down from him was Mr. Thomas Bleutcher of Brockton, Mass. The young lady with him was not his daughter.
"The scoundrel!" Lennox muttered. "The lecherous dog. He richly deserves a lesson."
He perceived that there was a brandy inhaler before him with a half inch of cognac in the bottom. Quite defiantly, he drank the cognac off without ceremony and devoted himself to the problem of disciplining Mr. Bleutcher's morals.
"How to chastise the heart of old Four-Buckle Arctics?" he asked himself. "Hit him in his carbohydrates? No. Where is his heart? In his boots. Very funny, Mr. Lennox. Oh, very funny indeed." He shook with laughter, slid under the table and began crawling on the floor toward Bleutcher. The maitre d'hotel rushed toward him in dismay. Before he could speak, Lennox lifted a finger to his lips and gave him an urgent look. The maitre d'hotel hesitated for a moment in perplexity. Lennox reached under Bleutcher's table and seized that unsuspecting man's feet. With a violent yank, he tried to pull Bleutcher's shoes off.