“Your boss is hard of hearing, ain’t he?”
“A little. Say, why don’t you do something?”
Pinto walked to the outer door, shooed away a knot of curious spectators, then sauntered back to where the woman stood. There was a supercilious grin on his lips, but deep in his eyes lurked an uneasy gleam.
“So you’ve been feeling in your bones that something awful was going to happen,” he gibingly observed. “Then you hear a noise, and right away you yell murder. You’ve got some imagination, you have. I ain’t going to break in on a sleeping man just because your bones feel funny. Mine do, too, once in a while, but I don’t make any fuss about it. No, sir-ee! You might as well trot back to bed.”
The woman pulled at the folds of her robe. “I haven’t told you all yet.” She spoke fast and low, gazing fixedly at the door in the rear. “Yesterday afternoon Mr. Gage got a letter from—from a party he’s got good reason to be scared of. He hadn’t heard from him in years, and he’d been hoping he was rid of him for good. Well, I was watching him while he read the letter, and I saw him turn white as a sheet. Later, while he was out to lunch, I went to his desk and read the letter. I was just that curious. It told Mr. Gage that the writer would call on him inside forty-eight hours.”
“Was that all?”
“All but the name at the bottom—and the name was the main thing.”
“Eh?”
“It was the name of the man Mr. Gage has been afraid of all these years. When I saw that name at the bottom of the note I felt a chill all over. Say,” raising her voice, “why don’t you break in that door?”
Pinto stroked his chin, as if strongly impressed by what the woman had told him. Another group of spectators had gathered at the entrance, and he gruffly ordered them to disperse. Then he faced the inner door, turned the knob, pushed. The door did not yield, and he looked back over his shoulder.