Handsome devil, he thought. He can’t be much older than forty, and he must be worth ten millions if he’s worth a cent.

O’Brien was good-looking in a dark, showy way. His eyebrows that sloped upwards and his fine pencilled moustache gave him a satanic look.

“What’s biting you, Commissioner?” he asked, sitting on me arm of a chair and swinging an expensively shod foot.

“Know anything about 25 Lessington Avenue?” Howard asked.

O’Brien’s right eyebrow lifted.

“Why?”

“I hear you own the place.”

“So what?”

“A call-girl was murdered there last night, and four other apartments in the house are occupied by call-girls.”

O’Brien drank from his glass, set it down and lit a cigarette. His face was