Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/90

evening, for I let my maid go to the movies and I had a deal to do. I suppose he went along Amsterdam Avenue, he was always strolling up and down Amsterdam or Columbus, poor man, getting ideas for his literature I guess. He came back about nine o'clock I should say, because I heard the door about then. Just a few minutes before he came in there was a man came to the door with a tin of tobacco for him, which he said Mr. Digby had ordered sent around, and I took it up and put it on his table, there it is now, poor man, Carter's Mixture."

Mrs. Barlow pointed to the tin of Cartesian Mixture that stood on the table. Evidently it had only just been opened, for it was practically full.

"Yes," said Dulcet. "Here's his pipe lying on the floor under his chair." He picked up the briar and glanced at it. "Only just begun to smoke it, for the tobacco is hardly burned. He must have been smoking when he. . . . There wasn't anything else you can think of?"

The woman dried her eyes with her apron. "There was just one other thing I noticed, but I suppose it's silly. But I took note of it special, because I thought I had heard it before, lately. While he was out, and a little before the man