"Oh, Mr. Tompkins," she murmured in a clear, low voice, "there's a gentleman waiting to see you in the customer's room, a Mr. Harcourt. He's been here since ten o'clock this morning."
"He's had no lunch?" I inquired.
She shook her head.
I clucked my tongue. "We can't have our customers starve to death, can we? Send out for a club sandwich and some hot coffee. Give me five minutes to take a look at my mail and then send him in. When the food arrives, send that in, too."
She blinked her hazel eyes behind her pince-nez to show that she understood, and I walked confidently down to the end of the corridor to where a "Mr. Tompkins" stared at me conservatively from a glazed door.
My office lived up to my fondest dream of Winnie. It was an ingenious blend of the 1870's and functional furniture—like a cocktail of port wine and vodka. There were electric clocks, a silenced stock-ticker in a glass-covered mahogany coffin, an elaborate Sheraton radio with short-wave reception, tuned in on WQXR, and desks and chairs and divans and a really good steel engraving showing General Grant receiving Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, with a chart underneath to explain who was who in the picture.
The desk I was glad to note, was bare except for an electric clock-calendar which told me that it was 3:12 p.m. of April 4, 1945, and a handsome combination humidor, cigarette case and automatic lighter in aluminum and synthetic tortoise-shell. A glance out the window gave me a reassuring glimpse of the spire of Trinity Church. There was a single typed memo on the glass top of the desk, which read: "Mr. Harcourt, 10:13 a.m. Would not state business. Will wait."
I pushed one of the array of buttons concealed underneath the edge of the desk and a door opened to admit a largish blonde in a tight-fitting sweater.
"Yes, Mr. Tompkins?"
"Please have Mr. Harcourt sent in," I said, "And when he comes, bring your notebook and take a stenographic record of our conversation and—er—what's your name?"