Napier's instinctive reluctance was overborne by Macray's misinterpreting its origin. "Schwarz won't be there. No fear! All same, no sense exciting remark."
Napier in his turn made no secret of the ground of his special interest in the enterprise. "Why do you think she's behind this concern?"
Macray's curt: "Don't think. Know," decided Napier.
Two flights up, in a derelict office building on lower Broadway, they found a back room with a number on the door. It bore no business sign, no name.
The arrangement that Hahn should do the talking was initiated in the German tongue as they climbed the dingy stairs. Napier's secret uneasiness took alarm at the sound of steps behind. He looked back. On the first landing, under the flaring gas, which of itself was a sign of the outworn character of the place, a shabby old man in a fur cap was coming up behind them. Coming stealthily, Napier felt. But Hahn talked on stolidly about a hypothetical family in Karlsruhe. He knocked at the door, and then went in.
A hairless head, with outstanding ears, bent over a table, reading. The gas jet, directly above, was set in a green tin reflector, and all the light in the room seemed to concentrate itself on that corpse-white cranium; or, rather, the effect was as though the masked light, instead of being thrown on the man's head, had its origin there. A polished and luminous orb, it seemed to contain the shining like one of those porcelain globes over the old-time lamps.
"Is dis de blace vhere I can send money to Sharmany?" Hahn inquired.
"Yep," said the clerk. "Shut the door, will you?"
Hahn had not budged. "Bott safe, hein?" he said.
"Absolute." The man got up and shut the door. It was a drafty old place, he explained. "Safe?" he went on, resuming his place and gathering the light to himself again. This was not only a safe way; it was the only safe way.