The office boy took it with unveiled sarcasm in his eyes and in
the corners of his mouth. He disappeared through one of the five
doors, almost immediately reappeared at another, closed it
mysteriously behind him and went to a third door. He threw it
open and stood aside. ``At the end of the hall,'' he said.
``The door with Mr. Loeb's name on it. Knock and walk right
in.''

Feuerstein followed the directions and found himself in a dingy
little room, smelling of mustiness and stale tobacco, and lined
with law books, almost all on crime and divorce. Loeb, Lynn,
Levy and McCafferty were lawyers to the lower grades of the
criminal and shady only. They defended thieves and murderers;
they prosecuted or defended scandalous divorce cases; they packed
juries and suborned perjury and they tutored false witnesses in
the way to withstand cross-examination. In private life they
were four home-loving, law-abiding citizens.

Loeb looked up from his writing and said with contemptuous
cordiality: ``Oh --Mr. Feuerstein. Glad to see you--AGAIN.
What's the trouble--NOW?''

At ``again'' and ``now'' Feuerstein winced slightly. He looked
nervously at Loeb.

``It's been--let me see--at least seven years since I saw you,''
continued Loeb, who was proud of his amazing memory. He was a
squat, fat man, with a coarse brown skin and heavy features. He
was carefully groomed and villainously perfumed and his clothes
were in the extreme of the loudest fashion. A diamond of great