(Please remember, the original was written in 1929, so bear with men wearing hats, making nickel phone calls, and ladies wearing silk stockings and step-ins and using typewriters instead of computers.)
The woman Essie escorted in was a knockout. She was tall and pliantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. Eyes that were a true cobalt-blue.
She wore two shades of blue that had been selected because of those eyes. The hair curling from under her blue hat was darkly red, her full lips more brightly red. White teeth glistened in the crescent her timid smile made. Essie said, "Mr. Shovel this is Miss Wenderly."
Essie's voice underlined the Miss...subtly...but taking a shot at Shovel in a manner known only to them. A shared inside joke.
Shovel was unruffled, he rose and bowing, indicated the oaken armchair beside his desk. He was quite six feet tall. The steep rounded slope of his shoulders made his body seem almost conical- no broader than it was thick- and kept his freshly pressed grey coat from fitting very well.
Miss Wenderly murmured, "Thank you," softly. She sat on the edge of the oak seat, and crossed fantastic legs. Shovel missed not a thing. He sank into his swivel chair, made a quarter turn to face her, and make looking up her skirt easier, and smiled politely. His smile did not make his lips separate, but did make his face grow longer.
The silence grew longer, broken only by the tippity-tap-tap of Essie's typing from the outer office. Shovel was content to eye her stocking covered thigh, and wait.
Miss Wenderly watched the ashes from many hand-rolled cigarettes idly blow across the blotter on Shovel's desk, and her eyes rabbited around the room.
They were uneasy. She scooted to the very edge of her chair, one foot flat on the floor, the other crossed, she did not seem to know that she was exposing her thigh almost to the point where her garter belt attached to her stocking. Her hands in dark gloves clasped a flat dark handbag in her lap.
He decided enough was enough, and asked, "Now what can I do for you, Miss Wenderly?"
She caught her breath and looked at him. She swallowed and said hurriedly: "Could you--? I thought I - that is- " Then she tortured her lower lip with glistening teeth and said nothing. Only her eyes spoke now, pleading.
Shovel smiled and nodded as if he understood her, but pleasantly, as if nothing serious were involved. He said, "Suppose you tell me about it, from the beginning, and then we'll know what needs doing. Better to begin as far back as you can."
Miss Wenderly began a long involved tale involving her younger sister, who had run off from New York with a married man, fled here to California, and Miss Wenderly wanted to find her before their parents returned from Europe.
