"Why the SOS?" Mallow voiced this question as he entered Gray's hotel room early the following evening.
"I'm in a predicament and I hope you can help me," the latter explained. "I'm trying to remember something and I can't. I have a cold spot in my head."
Mallow deposited his bag with a sigh of relief. "Glad it's no worse. Anybody can cure a cold in the head."
"Sit down and light up while I tell you about it." In a few sentences Gray made known the story of Ozark Briskow's infatuation, and the reason for his own interest therein. "The woman is of the common 'get-rich-quick' variety," he concluded, "and she won't do."
"She didn't pull the family estate and her father's slaves and the orange grove on you, did she?"
"Oh no. She used that on Buddy and he believes it implicitly--so implici
