Plot It Yourself

She nodded. She was a surprise. Simon Jacobs, now sixty-two, had been fifty-one when he had married in 1948, but she was no crone. There wasn’t a wrinkle showing, and there was no sign of gray in her soft brown hair. When I told her my name and I would like to speak with her husband, and she said he didn’t like to be disturbed when he was working and would I please tell her what I wanted, and I said I wasn’t selling anything, it was a business matter and might be to his advantage, she turned and went, leaving the door open. After a long moment he appeared, a good likeness to the photograph-thin and scrawny, with enough wrinkles for two, and, as Title House’s lawyer had said, hair like Mark Twain’s.

“Well, sir?” A thin high voice would have fitted him, but his was deep and full.

“My name’s Goodwin, Mr Jacobs.”

“So my wife said.”

“I’m on the staff of a magazine with national circulation. I won’t name it until I find out if you’re interested in an idea we are considering. May I come in?”

“That depends. I’m right in the middle of a story. I don’t want to be rude, but what’s the idea?”

“Well-we thought we might ask you to do an article for us. About how it feels to have a story you have written stolen by another author and turned into a best-seller. We thought Tlot It Yourself might be a good title for it. I’d like to tell you how we think it might be handled, and we can discuss-”

He shut the door in my face. You may think I’m not much of a detective, that an experienced snoop should have had sense enough to have it blocked with his foot, but in the first place it was totally unexpected, and in the second place you don’t block a door unless you’re on the offensive. So I merely put my thumb to my nose and wiggled my fingers, turned, and made for the stairs. When I got to the sidewalk I took a long, deep breath to let my insides know they could relax. Then I walked to Tenth Avenue, stopped a taxi, and told the driver 37th and Lexington.

That building, between Lexington and Third, was a house of a different colour. It may have been nearly as old as the 21st Street tenement, but it had used make-up. Its brick front was painted silver-gray with bright blue trim, the doorframe was aluminum, and there were evergreens in boxes. There were eight names on the panel in the vestibule, two tenants to a floor, with a grill to talk through and a receiver on a hook. I pushed the button opposite Rennert and put the receiver to my ear, and in a moment had a crackle and then a voice.