CHAPTER THREE
Gamadge Buys A BookGamadge went out into a thin, icy snowfall, and along streets piled high at the curbs with Thursday’s snow. He crossed a deserted avenue, waited long for a bus, and when it came waded to it. Dismounting in the lower forties, he ploughed westward with his collar up, his hatbrim down, and his hands sunk in his pockets.
He went into a converted brownstone house where J. Hall occupied the second floor. J. Hall’s show window was bare but impressive, with its reticent display of open folios, a map, a set of faded small octavos in red morocco gilt, and a framed copperplate engraving, dusky and mellow. Gamadge climbed dark stairs and opened a half-glass door, on which gold letters said merely: J. Hall. Books.
He entered a large front room which had once been som
