And there was something there, too; the dizziest kind of a visitin' card that was ever handed out, I suspicion, in those particular swell chambers for single gents. It was a cuff, just a plain, every day wrist chafer, pinned up with the wickedest little blood letter that ever came off the knife rack. Half an inch of the blade stuck through the panel, so the one who put it there must have meant that it shouldn't blow away. The Boss jerks it loose, sizes it up a minute, and says:
"Stiletto, eh? Made in Firenze—that's Florence. Shorty, have you any friends from abroad that are in the habit of leaving their cutlery around promiscuous?"
"I know folks as far west as Hoboken, if that's what you mean," says I, "but there ain't none of them in the meat business."
Well, we takes the thing inside under the bunch light and has another squint.
"Here's writin' in red ink," says I, and holds up the cuff.
"Read it," says the Boss.
"I could play it better on a flute," says I. "You try."
We didn't have to try hard. The minute he skinned his eye over that his jaw goes loose like he'd stopped a body wallop with his short ribs.
"It's Tuscan," says he, "and it means that someone's in trouble and wants help."
"Do they take this for police headquarters, or a Charity Organization?" says I. "Looks to me like a new kind of wireless from the wash lady. Why don't you pay her?"