We followed the man as he pulled open first the outer wooden door and then the inner metal grate of the plush elevator. Taking a seat on the little cubicle’s velvet-pillowed bench just to tick the old doorman off (successfully), I studied the polished mahogany and brass around me, wondering what poor soul had to spend half his life keeping it in that shape. If it was the old man in front of us, I allowed as he had good reason for his cantankerousness. Closing the grate and then the door again, the man put on a pair of worn, stained leather gloves and then gave a hard tug on the elevator’s greased cable-which came up through the floor and ran on through the ceiling in one corner-to set the thing into motion. We began a gentle glide up to the fifth floor, where Mr. Moore occupied the apartments that faced the park on the building’s north side.

When the grate and door clattered open again, Cyrus and I followed Miss Howard down a beige-painted hall that was interrupted at various points by still more polished wood doors. Arriving at Mr. Moore’s, Miss Howard knocked and then made like she was waiting for Mr. Moore to open up. Turning to the doorman, who was continuing to watch us carefully, she said, “It’s late, Stevenson. We mustn’t keep you up.”

The doorman nodded reluctantly, closed the elevator up again, and headed back down.

As soon as he was gone, Miss Howard put an ear to the door, then looked at me with those green eyes dancing. “All right, Stevie,” she whispered. “You’re on.”

Reformed as I may have become since moving in with Dr. Kreizler two years earlier, I still carried some of the tools of my old trade with me, as they could, on occasion, come in handy. Among these was my little set of picks, with which I proceeded to make short work of the fairly simple tumblers inside the lock in Mr. Moore’s door. With a gentle little click the door popped ajar, and Miss Howard beamed with delight.

“You really have got to teach me that,” she murmured, patting my back silently and pushing the door farther open. “Now, then-here we go.”

Mr. Moore had decorated his apartments with as much of his grandmother’s furniture as his family would let him get away with, as well as with some fine English country pieces what Dr. Kreizler had helped him select. So the place had a kind of split character about it, feeling in some spots like an old lady’s house and in others like a rugged bachelor flat. There were some seven rooms in all, arranged in a kind of crazy order that wouldn’t have made much sense in a regular house. In a stealthy little file we made our way down the darkened main hall, being careful to stay on the runner carpet all the while, and as we did we began to come across various articles of men’s and women’s clothing. Miss Howard frowned when she saw all this, and her frown only got deeper when, as we got close to the bedroom door, we began to hear giggling and laughter coming from inside. Drawing up in front of the door, Miss Howard balled one hand into a fist and made ready to give it a good rap-but then the door suddenly opened, and out popped a woman.

And this was, I can say now with even more appreciation than I could then, a woman. With long golden hair that hung down to her waist and robed in only a coverlet that she clasped with one hand at her side, she had a set of stems on her what started in a pair of slender ankles and didn’t seem to end till somewhere up around the ceiling-and the ceilings in that building were high, mind you. She was still giggling as she came out, and we could hear Mr. Moore inside the room, pleading with her to come back.

“I will, John, I will,” the woman said melodiously through rich red lips. “But you must give me a moment.” She closed the door again, turned toward the bathroom what was situated down at the end of the hall-and then caught sight of us.

She didn’t say anything, just gave us a sort of puzzled little smile. Miss Howard smiled back, though I could see it was a struggle for her, and then held one finger to her lips, urging the woman to be quiet. The woman aped the same gesture, giggled once more-she was obviously drunk-and then continued, without any further word of explanation from or to us, on her way to the bathroom. At that Miss Howard smiled much more genuinely-not to mention a little wickedly-and opened the bedroom door.

The dim light from the hall didn’t let us see much more than a jumbled mass of sheets on a very large bed, though it was clear there was a person under the mass. Cyrus and I stayed by the door, but Miss Howard just strode right on up to the bedside, standing there like she was waiting for something. Pretty soon the mass under the sheets started to move, and then the top half of Mr. Moore’s naked body appeared, his short hair tousled, his handsome face a picture of happiness. His eyes were closed, and in a kind of childlike way he reached out and put his arms around Miss Howard’s waist. She didn’t look too happy about it, but she didn’t move, either; and then, feeling her dress, Mr. Moore mumbled:

“No, no, Lily, you can’t get dressed, you can’t leave, this night can’t ever end…”

That brought out the derringer. To this day I can’t tell you where it was that Miss Howard managed to keep it so that it was always out of sight yet always so available; but in a flash it was in front of Mr. Moore’s closed eyes and smiling face. The smile disappeared and the eyes popped open, however, when Miss Howard pulled back the hammer.

“I think, John,” she said evenly, “that even through the sheets I could clip off both your testicles with one shot-so I advise you to unhand me.”

Mr. Moore darted away from her with a shriek, then covered himself completely with the sheet like a kid who’d just been caught abusing himself.

“Sara!” he shouted, half in fear and half in anger. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? And how the hell did you get in here?”

“The front door,” Miss Howard answered simply, as the derringer disappeared into the folds of her dress again.

“The front door?” Mr. Moore bellowed. “But the front door’s locked, I’m sure I-” Looking to the doorway, Mr. Moore caught sight first of Cyrus and then of me-and that was all he needed to see. “Stevie! So!” Patting his hair down onto his head and trying to compose himself, Mr. Moore stood, still covered in his sheet, and drew up to the fullest height he could manage. “I would have thought, Taggert, that the bonds of male honor would have prevented you from playing a part in a scheme like this. And what have you done with Lily?”

“She’s in the bathroom,” Miss Howard answered. “Didn’t seem at all disappointed to see us. You must be losing your touch, John.”

Mr. Moore only frowned and looked to the doorway again. “I shall direct my comments to you, Cyrus. Knowing you to be a person of integrity, I can assume that there is some good reason for your being here.”

Cyrus nodded, with the ever-so-slightly-patronizing smile that often came onto his face when he spoke to Mr. Moore. “Miss Howard says there is, sir,” he answered. “That’s good enough for me. You’d better ask her about it.”

“And supposing I don’t wish to speak to her?” Mr. Moore grunted.

“Then, sir, you’ll be a long time getting an explanation…”

Faced with no other option, Mr. Moore paused, shrugged his shoulders, then plopped down onto the bed again. “All right, Sara. Tell me what’s so all-fired important that it’s got you breaking and entering. And for God’s sake, Stevie, give me a cigarette.”

As I lit up a stick and handed it to Mr. Moore, Miss Howard moved around in front of him. “I have a case, John.”

Mr. Moore let out a big, smoky sigh. “Splendid. Do you demand the front page, or will the inside of the paper do?”

“No, John,” Miss Howard said earnestly. “I think this is real. I think it’s big.”

Her tone took a good bit of the sarcasm out of Mr. Moore’s voice. “Well-what is it?”