"You may go up," the girl reported. "It's Number Forty-three, fourth floor—no elevator."
After ascending the three flights of stairs, he sat down on the top step, to get his breath. Mr. Hastings was stout, not to say sebaceous—and he proposed to begin the interview unhandicapped.
Mrs. Brace answered his ring. There was nobody else in the apartment. The moment he looked into her restless, remarkably brilliant black eyes, he catalogued her as cold and repellent.
"One of the swift-eyed kind," he thought; "heart as hard as her head. No blood in her—but smart. Smart!"
He relied, without question, on his ability to "size up" people at first glance. It was a gift with him, like the intuition of women; and to it, he thought, he owed his best work as a detective.
Mrs. Brace, without speaking, without acknowledging his quiet "Mrs. Brace, I believe?" led him into the living room after waiting for him to close the entrance door. This room was unusually large, out of proportion to the rest of the apartment which included, in addition to the narrow entry, a bedroom, kitchen and bath—all, so far as his observation went, sparsely and cheaply furnished.
They sat down, and still she did not speak, but studied his face. He got the impression that she considered all men her enemies and sought some intimation of what his hostility would be like.
"I'm sorry to trouble you at such a time," he began. "I shall be as brief as possible."
Her black eyebrows moved upward, in curious interrogation. They were almost mephistophelian, and unpleasantly noticeable, drawn thus nearer to the wide wave of her white hair.
"You wanted to see me—about my daughter?"