Caught up in my performance, I suppose I let the phone ring more than a dozen times, but what matter? No one answered it, and I hung up and returned to the living room. “Well, thanks again for the business,” I told him, returning my legal pad to my attaché case. “If you do decide to add a floater to your insurance coverage, I can give you my appraisal in writing if they require it. And I can adjust the figure higher or lower for that purpose, as you prefer.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“And do let me know if you ever decide to get rid of the books.”

“I certainly will.”

He led me to the door, opened it for me, walked into the hall with me. The indicator showed the elevator to be on the ground floor. I let my finger hover over the button but avoided pressing it.

“I don’t want to keep you,” I said to Onderdonk.

“It’s no trouble,” he said. “But wait, is that my phone? I think it is. I’ll just say goodbye now, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

We shook hands quickly and he hurried back inside his apartment. The door drew shut. I counted to ten, darted across the hall, yanked open the fire door and scampered down four flights of stairs.

CHAPTER Three

At the eleventh-floor landing, I paused long enough to catch my breath. This didn’t take long, perhaps because of all those half-hour romps in Riverside Park. Had I known running would be such a help in my career I might have taken it up years ago.

(How did four flights of stairs get me from Sixteen to Eleven? No thirteenth floor. But you knew that, didn’t you? Of course you did.)

The fire door was locked from the stairs side. Another security precaution; tenants (and anyone else) could go down and out in case of fire or elevator failure, but they could only leave the stairs at the lobby. They couldn’t get off at another floor.