"Thank you."
She gave him her hand and the enigmatic smile that always subtly but intensely annoyed him. There was something in that smile which he did not understand, but he suspected that it held an element of amused understanding. So might Doris, years hence, smile at her little son.
"She thinks I'm a reed," Laurie reflected as he waited in the outer hall for the elevator. "I don't blame her. I've been a perfectly good reed ever since I met her friend Bertie."
His thoughts, thus drawn to Shaw, dwelt on that ophidian personality. When the elevator arrived he was glad to recognize the familiar face of Sam.
"Yaas, sah," that youth affably explained, with a radiant exhibition of teeth, "it's Henry's night off, so I has to be on."
They were alone in the car. Laurie, lighting a cigarette, asked a casual question.
"There's a plump person in blue serge who hangs around here a good deal," he remarked, indifferently. "Does he live in the building?"
"The one wid eyes what sticks out?"
"That's the one."
Sam's jaw set.