“Perhaps it was Digby himself?” I suggested. “I don't think so,” he said. “Because, in the first place, nervousness was the last thing I would associate with his temperament, which was calm and collected in the extreme. And also, he always smoked Brown Eyed Blend, and had done so for years. That was the first thing that struck me as unusual the night we were there—that tin of Cartesian on the table. He was a man of fixed habits; why should he have made a change just that night? I picked up the little wad of tobacco I found lying on the step, and took it carefully home. It's Cartesian, or I'm a Dutchman. So item I in our criminal rhyme-scheme is: Find me a nervous man smoking Cartesian.”
“It's a bit fanciful,” I objected.
“Of course it is,” he cried. “But crime is a fanciful thing. Ever let the fancy roam, as Keats said. What the deuce is the line that follows? Suppose we stroll down Amsterdam Avenue and find a new place to have dinner.”
“Poor old Digby,” he said, as we walked along admiring the lighted caves of the shopwindows. “How he enjoyed all this. You know, there is a certain honest simplicity about Amsterdam Avenue's merchandising that is pleasant to contemplate after the shining sophistications of Broadway. In a Broadway delicatessen window you'll see such horrid luxuries as jars of cocks' combs in jelly; whereas along here the groceries show candid and heartening signs such, as this: 'Coming Back to The Old Times, 17c lb. Sugar.' Amsterdam Avenue shopkeepers speak with engaging directness about their traffic; for instance, there's a barber at the corner of Eighty-first Street who embosses on his window the legend: 'Yes, We Do Buster Brown Hair Cutting.' That sort of thing is very humane and genuine, that's why Digby was so fond of it. There's a laundry along here somewhere that I have often noticed; it calls itself the Fastidious Laundry——”
“Speaking of laundries,” I said, “what do you think of this?” We stopped, and I pointed to a neatly lettered placard in a window which had caught my eye. It said:
Notice to Artists and Authors
We Sew Buttons on Soft Collars Free of Charge
“By Jove,” I said, “there's a laundry that has the right idea. I think I'll bring my——”
I broke off when I saw my companion's face. He was leaning forward toward the pane, and his eyes were bright but curiously empty, as though in some way the mechanism of sight had been reversed, and he was looking inward rather than out.
“That's very odd,” he said, presently. “I've been up and down this street many times, but I never noticed that sign before.”