Malone sighed. "I've tried every place I've been. The notebook couldn't be somewhere I haven't been. A rolling stone follows its owner." He thought about that. It didn't seem to mean anything, but maybe it had once. There was no way to tell for sure.
He went back to the bar to think things over and figure out his next move. A bourbon-and-soda while thinking seemed the obvious order, and Ray bustled off to get it.
Had he left the notebook on the street somewhere, just dropping it by accident? Malone couldn't quite see that happening. It was, of course, possible—but the possibility was so remote that he decided to try and think of everything else first. There was Dorothy, for instance.
Was it possible that she might have the book?
It was. But, if so, how had she got it?
Malone enumerated possibilities on his fingers. First, he could have dropped it or something like that, and she could have picked it up. But dropping the notebook was a chance he'd eliminated already. It just didn't sound likely.
Besides, if he were going to work on the dropping hypothesis, he might as well start from anywhere, on the assumption that he had dropped it anywhere on the street.
But if he had dropped it—second finger—and Dorothy had picked