The doorman took one look at the figure that lurched into his tidy foyer and moved to return the straying lunatic to the streets. Stuyvesant pushed down the impulse to deck another Brit and summoned his most charming, lop-sided smile, assuring the man that he did, in fact, have an appointment with Mr. Carstairs, although he’d had a little accident, if he could just phone..?
Without turning his back on the disheveled American, the man went back to his desk to pick up his telephone. He spoke, listened, grunted, and hung up.
“If you’ll just wait a minute.”
It was less time than that when a weedy specimen with freckles and twitchy hands came through the connecting door, and stopped dead. He looked at Stuyvesant, and at the doorman (who gave him a What-did-I-say? shrug) then stood back, holding the door.
“Mr. Carstairs?” Stuyvesant asked. “His secretary,” the man replied. “The Major is expecting you.”