Plot It Yourself

He shook his head. “Two objections. One, you need sleep. Two, Mr Rennert is not at home. As I said, his operation may have been solely on his own and he may have had no connection with X, but I haven’t ignored him. I rang his number twice this morning and twice this afternoon, and got no answer. At three o’clock Saul went there, and, getting no response to his ring, saw the building superintendent and asked when he had last seen Mr Rennert. Early last evening Mr Rennert told the building superintendent that he would leave today to spend the Memorial Day weekend in the country and would return on Monday. He didn’t say where in the country.”

“If we knew where we could ring him and warn him to keep away from poison ivy. It would be nice to hear his voice.”

“I agree. But we don’t.”

“I could scout around in the morning and probably find out. We have a lot of names of people he has borrowed money from.”

He vetoed it. He said he wanted me at hand, and a call might come at any time of the day or night from Saul Panzer or Fred Durkin or Orrie Cather or Dol Bonner or Sally Corbett that would require immediate action. Also Philip Harvey had phoned twice, and Cora Ballard once, to ask if he could be present at a meeting of the NAAD council on Monday, and they would probably phone again tomorrow, and he didn’t want to listen to them. That settled, he went up to bed. At eleven-forty-two Saul Panzer called, from a booth in Carmel, to say that he was on his way to relieve Orrie Cather. At twelve-eighteen Orrie called, also from Carmel, to report that the light had gone out a little before eleven in Alice Porter’s house, and presumably she was safe in bed. I mounted two flights to mine.