There was sound behind me; Griggs entered the smoke room, his poker face turned toward mine.
“Is there something I can do, Mr. Connors?” he asked quietly.
I slipped the card into my pocket and said: “No, thanks. Nothing.”
He nodded, smiling mechanically, went over to one of the tables and straightened out a matchbox, looked momentarily toward a spot on the floor. It seemed to me that it was the spot from which I had lifted the card, but I could not be positive. In the corridor his footfalls died.
I got the card from my pocket and read it the third time. It hadn’t changed any, and it meant about the same thing.
Three or four voices came to me, repeating in hoarse unison:
“California— California— CALIFORNIA!”
From the deck above there were cheers, some of them feminine in tone. A laun
