“As he did not volunteer the information, I am unable to say.”
“Unfortunate again. Well, I think you may drop the notion of suicide. If anything of importance occurs, please notify me at once. Otherwise, I’ll send you word when I have made progress.”
Having dismissed the anxious pundit, Average Jones, so immersed in thought as to be oblivious to outer things, made his way to the Cosmic Club in a series of caroms from indignant pedestrian to indignant pedestrian. There, as he had foreseen, he found Robert Bertram.
“Can I detach you from your usual bridge game this evening?” he demanded of that languid gentleman.
“Very possibly. What’s the inducement?”
“Chapter Second of the Bellair Street advertisement. I’ve told you the first chapter. You’ve been the god-outside-the-machine so far. Now, come on in.”
Together they went to the Greenwich Village house. The name “Smith” had disappeared from the vestibule.
“As I expected,” said Jones. “Our hope be in the landlord!”
The landlord turned out to be a German landlady, who knew little concerning her late ground-floor tenant and evinced no interest in the subject. The “perfessor,” as she termed “Smith,” had taken the flat by the month, was prompt in payment, quiet in habit, given to long and frequent absences; had been there hardly at all in the last few weeks. Where had he moved to? Hummel only knew! He had left no address. Where did his furniture go? Nowhere; he’d left it behind. Was any one in the house acquainted with him? Mrs. Marron in the other ground-floor flat had tried to be. Not much luck, she thought.
Mrs. Marron was voluble, ignorant, and a willing source of information.