“Tanner?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Brian Cudahy. I called you last night-”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Come in.” He seated himself in the rocking chair. “Coffee?”

“If it’s no trouble.”

I made instant coffee in the kitchen and brought back two cups. He was looking all over the apartment. I suppose it’s a little unusual. People have said that it looks more like a library than an apartment. There are four rooms besides the kitchen and the bath, and in each room the walls are done in floor-to-ceiling bookcases, almost all of which are full. Beyond that, there’s rather little in the way of furniture. I’ve a large bed in one room, a very large writing desk in another, a few chairs scattered here and there, and a small dresser in still another room, and that’s about all. I don’t find the place unusual at all, myself. When one is a compulsive reader and researcher and when one has a full twenty-four hours a day at his disposal, not having to allot eight for sleep and eight for work, one certainly ought to have plenty of books on hand.

“Is the coffee all right?”

“Oh!” He looked up, startled. “Yes, of course. I…uh…I’m going to need your help. Mr. Tanner.”

He was about twenty-four, I guessed. Clean-cut, bright-faced, short-haired, with an air of incipient success about him. He looked like a student but not at all like a scholar. An increasing number of such persons pursue graduate degrees these days. Industry considers a bachelor’s degree indispensable and, by a curious extension, regards master’s degrees and doctorates as a way of separating the men from the boys. I don’t understand this. Why should a Ph.D. awarded for an extended essay on color symbolism in the poetry of Pushkin have anything to do with a man’s competence to develop a sales promotion campaign for a manufacturer of ladies’ underwear?

“My thesis is due the middle of next month,” Cudahy was saying. “I can’t seem to get anywhere on it. And I heard that you…you were recommended as-”