had received a mink stole out of thin air and didn't speak to her
husband for ten days when he gave it to the Community Drive. He wouldn't
do a thing like that again! There was another sergeant--not
Fitzgerald--who'd found a set of four new white-walls tires on his
doorstep, and was ostracized by his teen-age offspring when he turned
them into the police Lost and Found. Fitzgerald gave his gifts to an
orphanage, with a fine disregard of their inappropriateness. But he
gloomily suspected that a great many of his friends were weakening. The
presents weren't bribes. Big Jake not only didn't ask acknowledgments of
them, he denied that he was the giver. But inevitably the recipients of
bounty with the morning milk felt less indignation about what Big Jake
was doing and wasn't getting caught at.

At Headquarters, Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald found a memo. A memo was
routine, but the contents of this one were remarkable. He scowled at it.
He made phone calls, checking up on the more unlikely parts of it. Then
he went to make the regular investigation.

When he reached his destination he found it an unpretentious frame
building with a sign outside: "Elite Cleaners and Dyers." There were no
plate-glass windows. There was nothing show-off about it. It was just a
medium-sized, modestly up-to-date establishment to which lesser
tailoring shops would send work for wholesale treatment. From some place
in the back, puffs of steam shot out at irregular intervals. Somebody
worked a steampresser on garments of one sort or another. There was a
rumbling hum, as of an oversized washing-machine in operation. All
seemed tranquil.

The detective went in the door. Inside there was that peculiar,
professional-cleaning-fluid smell, which is not as alarming as gasoline
or carbon tetrachloride, but nevertheless discourages the idea of
striking a match. In the outer office a man wrote placidly on one
blue-paper strip after another. He had an air of pleasant
self-confidence. He glanced up briefly, nodded, wrote on three more
blue-paper strips, and then gathered them all up and put them in a
particular place. He turned to Fitzgerald.

"Well?"

Fitzgerald showed his shield. The man behind the counter nodded again.

"My name's Fitzgerald," grunted the detective. "The boss?"

"Me," said the man behind the counter. He was cordial. "My name's Brink.
You've got something to talk to me about?"

"That's the idea," said Fitzgerald. "A coupla questions