In the landlady’s apartment, her nervous sister briefed him doubtfully. “And that’s the only time she cries in a low, steady way so if you move fast there won’t be much damage done. Not much, anyway.”
He saw them to the door. “I’ll be fast enough,” he assured the mother. “Just so I get a hint.”
Mrs. Lipanti paused at the door. “Did I tell you about the man who was asking after you this afternoon?”
Again? “A sort of tall, old man in a long, black overcoat?”
“With the most frightening way of staring into your face and talking under his breath. Do you know him?”
“Not exactly. What did he want?”
“Well, he asked if there was a Sam Weaver living here who was a lawyer and had been spending most of his time in his room for the past week. I told him we had a Sam Weber—your first name is Sam?—who answered to that description, but that the last Weaver had moved out over a year ago. He just looked at me for a while and said, ‘Weaver, Weber—they might have made an error,’ and walked out without so much as a goodbye or excuse-me. Not what I call a polite gentleman.”
Thoughtfully Sam walked back to the child. Strange how sharp a mental picture he had formed of this man! Possibly because the two women who had met him thus far had been very impressionable, although to hear their stories the impression was there to be received.
He doubted there was any mistake: the man had been looking for him on both occasions; his knowledge of Sam’s vacation from foolscap this past week proved that. It did seem as if he weren’t interested in meeting him until some moot point of identity should be established beyond the least shadow of a doubt. Something of a legal mind, that.
The whole affair centered around the “Bild-A-Man” set, he was positive. This skulking investigation hadn’t started until after the gift from 2353 had been delivered—and Sam had started using it.