"Y-yes, Your Honorship." The man skittered off.
When they had all gone, Gervase approached a small, unobtrusive door marked Danger—No Admittance. Dust lay thick on the sill, for it was seldom opened.
Gervase took a tiny, intricate piece of metal from his pocket and fitted it into the lock. Something inside clicked. The door swung open.
Beyond, a narrow flight of steps spiraled downward. Gervase descended them unhesitatingly until he came to another small door. This one was simply marked Private. He knocked on it.
"Aah, go butter your earlobes!" a cracked voice called from within. "Can't you read, you dumb cluck?"
"It's me, Gervase!" He pounded on the door with the butt of his gun. "Open up!"
The door swung open creakily. Through the gloom inside, there could be dimly seen antique furnishings in a poor state of preservation and a still more imperfect state of cleanliness. An outmodedly streamlined twentieth-century typewriting machine was set on a costly metal stand with one caster missing. The flaps of the table were open—one held a chipped teapot, the other a dusty crystal ball and a dog-eared pack of Gypsy cards. Behind all this was a rare old psychoanalyst's couch, ripped open here and there and showing the original stuffing.
