He did not appear to look at it at all. Instead, he looked her squarely in the eye. “Frank Morrow sent you all the way from Chicago that you might ask me that question? How extraordinary! Why did he not wire me? He knows I would tell him.” A slight frown appeared on his forehead.
“I—I am—” she was about to tell him that she was to ask the next person where he got it, but thinking better of it said instead, “That is only part of my mission to New York. Won’t you please look at the book and answer my question?”
Still he did not look at the book but to her utter astonishment said, while a smile illumined his face, “I bought that copy of ‘The Compleat Angler’ right here in this alcove.”
“From whom?” she half whispered.
“From old Dan Whitner, who keeps a bookshop back on Walton place.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, much relieved. Here was no mystery; one bookshop selling a book to another. There was more to it. She must follow on.
“I suppose,” he smiled, as if reading her thoughts, “that you’d like me to tell you where Dan got it, but that I cannot answer. You must ask him yourself. His address is 45 Walton place. It is ten minutes’ walk from here; three blocks to your right as you leave our door, then two to your left, a block and a half to your left again and you are there. The sign’s easy to read—just ‘Dan Whitner, Books.’ Dan’s a prince of a chap. He’ll do anything for a girl like you; would for anyone, for that matter. Ever been to New York before?” he asked suddenly.
“No.”
“Come alone?”
“Yes.”