“Going? G’night. Fare thee well, fare thee well—”
“Night.”
“Fare—thee—well!” Galloway ended, in a melancholy outburst of tunefulness, as he turned over preparatory to going to sleep.
Vanning sighed again and let himself out into the coolness of the night. Stars blazed in the sky, except toward the south, where the aurora of Lower Manhattan dimmed them. The glowing white towers of skyscrapers rose in a jagged pattern. A sky-ad announced the virtues of Vambulin—“It Peps You Up.”
His speeder was at the curb. Vanning edged the locker into the trunk compartment and drove toward the Hudson Floataway, the quickest route downtown. He was thinking about Poe.
The Purloined Letter, which had been hidden in plain sight, but re-folded and re-addressed, so that its superficial appearance was changed. Holy Hutton! What a perfect safe the locker would make! No thief could crack it, for the obvious reason that it wouldn’t be locked. No thief would want to clean it out. Vanning could fill the locker with credit coupons and instantly they’d become unrecognizable. It was the ideal cache.
How the devil did it work?
There was little use in asking Galloway. He played by ear. A primrose by the river’s rim a simple primrose was to him—not Primula vulgaris. Syllogisms were unknown to him. He reached the conclusion without the aid of either major or minor premises.
Vanning pondered. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Ergo, there was a different sort of space in the locker—
But Vanning was pumping at conclusions. There was another answer—the right one. He hadn’t guessed it yet.