He started to say something else, changed his mind, turned to the right, went a couple of blocks out of his way, and pulled up in front of the Commons Building. “How will this do?” he asked.
“This,” I said, “will be just swell,” and got out.
Ashbury drove away in a hurry, and I went up to the sixth floor, and took a look at the sign on six-twenty-two. It looked all right. I opened the door and went in. Elsie Brand was hammering away on the typewriter.
I said, “For God’s sake, you’re just a front here. You don’t have to pretend there’s that much business going on.”
She quit typing and looked up at me.
“The people who are coming in,” I said, “think that I’m a chap who inherited money. They don’t think I made it out of the business, so you don’t have to spread it on that thick.”
She said, “Bertha Cool gave me a lot of letters to write, told me I could take them up here, and do the work—”
“On what stationery?” I interrupted, and leaned over her shoulder to take a look at the letter that was in the typewriter.
“On her stationery,” she said. “She told me I could—”
I ripped the letter out of the typewriter, handed it to Elsie, and said, “Put it in the drawer. Keep it out of sight. Keep all of that stationery out of sight. When you go out to lunch, take the damn stuff out of the office and keep it out. Tell Bertha Cool I said so.”