"My glass is still full," the girl answered, and smiled at him. She did not look so young now that he saw her face to face. The features were young, but the eyes were old, and too wise for one of her chronological age. With his flameless lighter Ostby lit the white oval which the girl drew from its package and placed between her full red lips.
All the while Ostby's eyes made their swift survey of the room and stamped its every feature in his eidetic memory. Only one exit, other than the front door, he saw. The windows were all about seven feet above the floor, and banded with burglar-bars. A man would have difficulty gaining entrance or exit.
At the opposite end of the room he observed a small dance floor and a mechanical music box. His attention was held for a moment by a party seated in a booth at the edge of the dance floor. The men and women in the booth were too well dressed, too well bred, to be down here in the Flats.
The apex of the party was a woman whose beauty attracted Ostby clear across the room.
"Who are the people in the back booth?" he asked his companion.
"The Duchess of North Hudson," the girl answered, wrinkling her nose in affected hauteur. "She's slumming. Seeing how the other half lives."
"Does she come often?"
"Only when she gets tired of being a lady. Right now she's celebrating her separation from her second husband."
Abruptly Ostby sensed something was wrong.
He glanced into the mirror. At the door stood a half dozen of the police. His gaze shifted to the rear entrance. He saw another party of police there.