Emmett Ransford

Emmett Ransford is 34 and has never had to wake early in his life. Born into a family that made its fortune in upcountry mines, the only child of older parents, he grew up among governesses, private tutors and a riding horse he never learned to care for. He attended two expensive schools and finished neither. He says it was the world that didn't know what to do with him.

He lives in a red-brick mansion with a billiard room and a library nobody reads in. He spends his time on billiard games, tailors and complaints against the big-city clubs, which, he says, have always received him with facade smiles and closed doors. He keeps grudges the way others keep stamps, carefully and in order, and knows by heart every slight he has ever suffered.

He has the round, smooth face of a boy, rosy cheeks, wide light eyes and brown hair parted in the middle and polished with brilliantine. He wears an expensively cut tuxedo with a high starched collar and a gold signet ring on his pinky, which he turns when nervous. He alternates fits of rage with an almost childlike voice, and his forehead sweats even on a cold night.

He says he is just passing through the city, that the ship for Europe sails Wednesday and that his wife wanted to see the new revue, and he indulges her. When the conversation turns to the terrace maître d'maître d' The head of a restaurant's dining room, who assigns tables, greets guests and supervises the waiters., the white-haired German, he recalls that the man was seen shortly before eleven leaning over a table, speaking low, fists clenched, and that the waiters whispered the architect had fired him that afternoon.

Emmett knows his irritation always arrives before the explanation. It could be the impatience of a spoiled man who feels persecuted by everyone. It could be someone pushing the conversation away from himself, and fast. The detective will have to decide which.