We sat for a while chatting about this and that and then Dulcet got up and put on his hat.
“Look here, old man,” he said. “You squat here and be comfortable while I run round to Digby. It won't take me more than a few minutes—he lives on Eighty-second Street. I'll be back right speedily, and we can go on with our talk.” I heard him go down in the elevator, and then I refit my pipe, and picked out a book from one of his shelves. I remember that it was Brillat-Savarin's amusing “Gastronomy as a Fine Art”. I smiled at finding this in Dulcet's library, for I knew that the agent rather prided himself on being something of a gourmet, and I was reading the essays of the jovial French epicure with a good deal of relish when the telephone rang. I went to it with that slight feeling of embarrassment one always has in answering someone else's phone.
To my surprise, it was Dulcet's voice.
“Hullo?” he said. “That you, Ben? Listen, I want you to come round to Digby's right away,” and he gave the address.
Thinking he had arranged a chance for me to meet Digby (I had long wanted to do so), I felt hesitant about intruding; but he repeated his message rather sharply. “Please come at once,” he said. “It's important.” Again he gave the street number, made me promise to come immediately, and rang off.
It was nearly half-past ten, and the streets were fairly quiet as I walked briskly along. The house was one of a row of old cocoa-coloured stone dwellings, and evidently someone was watching for me, for while I was trying to read the numbers a door opened and from a dark hall an arm beckoned to me. I went up the tall steps and a stout woman, who seemed to be in some agitation, whispered my name interrogatively. “Is this Mr. Trovato?” she murmured.
“Yes,” I said, puzzled.
“Third floor front,” she said, and I creaked quietly up the stairs.
I tapped at the front room on the top floor, and Dulcet opened.
“Thank goodness you're here, Ben,” he said. “Something has happened.”