He couldn’t give more than the fuzziest description of the man. Medium height. Average build. Neither especially light or dark. Indeterminate age. He was certain it was a man. That was about all he was sure of.
Auguste had taken his tables along to the service elevator and thought no more about it. It was “quite pozzible, yes,” that this nondescript individual had wiped a hand on Auguste’s sleeve.
I’d gotten to the point of explaining to Auguste that in all probability he’d had his hands on a murderer — or the other way round — when there was a pounding on my door.
And Hacklin’s voice demanding admittance.
Chapter thirteen:
Diamond-studded compact
“Just a minute,” I called.
Auguste looked worried. He whispered, “Mister Fine, I haf my perzsonal reasons for not wiszhing to be infestigated. By you, I don’t mind. But not outsziders.”
I motioned him to follow me into the lost-and-found room, which opens off the opposite side of my six-by-ten cubbyhole. When I got him out there among the shelves loaded with umbrellas, slippers, girdles, bathrobes, so on, I told him to go down to the employees’ smoking-room, wait for me. I wasn’t sure whether that crack about not minding my looking into his affairs was complimentary or not.
“Thank you szo ferry much, Mister Fine.” He stepped into the corridor, around the corner and out of sight from Hacklin. I went back through my private cubicle, shut the doors, let the Prosecutor’s assistant in.