CHAPTER SEVENOffensive
At a little after ten o’clock on the following morning David Malcolm stood in the vestibule of a converted private house, pushing a bell marked Iverson.
It was a handsome house, whose original owner must have had taste as well as money; a delicate iron balcony ran across the first story front, the superintendent’s basement was hedged off from the street by well-kept shrubs, and the vestibule in which Malcolm stood was tiled with lozenges of black and white marble. There seemed to be only four tenants, one to a floor, and by the arrangement of the bells and mailboxes Iverson was apparently one flight up.
The door clicked, and Malcolm went in. He climbed well-carpeted stairs to a narrow landing. A voice asked: “That the cleaner and valet?”
“No, I’m calling on Mr. I
