At this juncture Mr. Bienenflug's door burst open.
"Ralph!" he roared.
"Oh, Mr. Bienenflug," Miss Haig said, "I want to see you for a minute."
She smiled on him with the same smile she had employed nightly in the second act of "Rudolph" and Mr. Bienenflug immediately regained his composure.
"Come into Mr. Krimp's room," he said.
And he closed the door of Room 6000, which was his own room, and ushered Miss Haig through Room 6010, which was the outer office, occupied by the stenographer and the office boy, into Mr. Krimp's room, or Room 6020; for it was by the simple expedient of numbering rooms in tens and units that the owner of the Algonquin Theatre Building had provided his tenants with such commodious suites of offices—on their letterheads at least.
"By jinks! I clean forgot all about it, Miss Schwartz," Ralph said after Mr. Bienenflug had become closeted with his more recent client. "He told me to tell you to come in and take some dictation."
"I'll go in all right," Miss Schwartz said; and she entered Mr. Bienenflug's room determined to pluck out the heart of Mrs. Fieldstone's mystery.
It needed no effort on the stenographer's part, however; for as soon as she said "How do you do, Mrs. Fieldstone?" Mrs. Fieldstone forthwith unbosomed herself.
"Listen, Miss Schwartz," she said. "I've been here about buying houses, and I've been here about putting out tenants—and all them things; but I never thought I would come here about Jake."