“Cranks, wouldn’t you say, Miss Kerstenberg?” he asked her when he’d finished. “Hardly legitimate clients, eh?”

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Blake,” she replied, inflexibly unpresumptuous. She rolled a sheet of letterhead stationery into her typewriter. “Do you want the Hopkinson mailing to go out this afternoon?”

“What? Oh, I guess so. I mean, of course. By all means this afternoon, Miss Kerstenberg. And I want to see it for a double-check before you mail it.”

He strode into his own office and huddled behind the desk. The whole business had upset him very much. His first big rental possibility. And that little man—Bohu was his name?—and that bulging pocket—

Not until quite late in the afternoon was he able to concentrate on his work. And that was when he got the phone call.

“Blake?” the voice crackled. “This is Gladstone Jimm.”

“Yes, Mr. Jimm.” Blake sat up stiffly in his swivel chair. Gladstone was the oldest of the Sons.

“Blake, what’s is this about your refusing to rent space?”

“My what? I beg your pardon, Mr. Jimm, but I—”

“Blake, two gentlemen just walked into the home office. Their names are Tooley and Booley. They tell me they tried unsuccessfully to rent the thirteenth floor of the McGowan Building from you. They tell me that you admitted the space was vacant, but that you consistently refused to let them have it. What’s this all about, Blake? Why do you think the firm appointed you resident agent, Blake, to turn away prospective tenants? I might as well let you know that none of us up here in the home office like this one little bit, Blake.”

“I’d have been very happy to rent the thirteenth floor to them,” Blake wailed. “Only trouble, sir, you see, there’s—”