Mrs. Leonetti shrugged. "Is okay. I cook fast. If he's-a there when you go down, you give him. If he's-a no there, you eat yourself. Okay?"
"A fine idea," Mrs. Tibbets smiled.
An hour later, Mrs. Tibbets tiptoed down into the cellar, with a steaming covered dish in her hands. She knocked on the door of Vandor's room, but there was no response.
"Oh, I've missed him," she complained aloud. "But maybe he's just stepped out for cigarettes or something. I can leave it for him."
She set the dish on the closed lid of the wooden box, and went back into the cellar proper, searching in the heaped cartons until she found a blank sheet of paper.
"Dear Mister Thobal," she scribbled, "if this has gotten cold when you return, feel free to use the stove to heat it up. Mrs. Leonetti, one of your fellow roomers, made it. It's really quite good, if you like Italian food. It's got a bit too much garlic in it for my taste."
Smiling, she signed the note, and went back upstairs.
She was awakened just before dawn by a hand upon her shoulder, shaking her violently. She sat up in bed, very startled, and flicked on the bedside lamp.
"Mister Thobal!" she said in horror, drawing the bed-clothes about her, "How dare you come into a lady's bedroom at—" she consulted her alarm clock "—at four in the morning, and—"