It was also close to my suite of offices, which was in a building just around the corner on Van Buren. Despite Binyon’s and the nearby Standard Club, the neighborhood was pretty borderline. Street level was a hodge-podge of hockshops and saloons and flophouses and winos in doorways; tenants in our building included a palm reader, a dentist, a probable abortionist and several shysters of the sort Mr. Foskett here wouldn’t likely meet in court.

But I’d started out with a one-room suite in trade for moonlighting as the building’s night watchman (living in my office) and now, a decade or so later, July of 1943 to be exact, we had most of the third floor, and the A-1 Detective Agency (of which I was self-appointed president) had three operatives and a one-woman secretarial pool.

When the war was over, the male work force would swell, and I could expand further, and move into bigger, better digs. I’d had some financial success and publicity over the years, and occasionally attracted an upper-class client like the Palm Beach attorney sitting across from me in a Binyon’s booth.

“I appreciate your willingness to meet for lunch,” Foskett said, “particularly at such short notice.”

“No inconvenience. I eat lunch here every day, anyway.”

“What would you recommend, by the way?”

“House specialty’s the finnan haddie. Stay away from the meat dishes-they’re good, but the servings are regular kid’s portions.”

He shook his head. “One of the sad realities of these dark times.” He smiled almost wickedly. “Perhaps you’d like a vacation with pay…to a tropical isle?”