Found in the Street by Patricia Highsmith Page A

probably want to work,” Susanne said.
    Jack did. The two were going to take off after lunch.
    â€œOh, something in the mailbox downstairs, Jack. I’d have brought it, but I haven’t the key now, you know.”
    â€œI got the mail this morning. Does it look important?” The mailbox had a flower-shaped design in its front through which one could see.
    â€œCan’t tell. White envelope. Want me to go down?”
    â€œNo, no, I’ll go.”
    Jack went down out of curiosity. The envelope had no stamp and was addressed in longhand to John M. Sutherland with street address and zip code. He was about to open it, when he saw Mrs. Farley on the sidewalk with her little two-wheel trolley full of groceries, so Jack carried it up the front steps for her, then up the first flight, because she lived on the second floor. Mrs. Farley was over seventy, and lived alone.
    â€œThat’s very kind of you, Mr. Sutherland! My, you’ve got strength!”
    â€œHuff! Puff! A pleasure, Mrs. Farley!” Jack grinned. He made sure she got the trolley into her apartment hall, then went up the stairs.
    The letter was from Ralph Linderman, Jack saw, and was handwritten. He began reading with a puzzled frown that deepened as he went on.
    Sat. a.m.
    Dear Mr. Sutherland,
    I think a letter to you is less of an intrusion than a telephone call and maybe also I can be clearer. This is about Elsie—I am sure you know her name by now—whom I saw coming out of your house with you yesterday. I do not know what went on between you. Elsie is a very impressionable young girl, very soft in the sense that her character is unformed. She can easily be led astray and it has already begun. She has recently—very recently—come to this big city, does not know how to protect herself, and I know she has already fallen into what by anybody’s standards would be called bad company. I believe the girl with whom she shares an apartment is a common prostitute, though very young also. Elsie has not much money and you know the temptations.
    You are a married man but many a married man has gotten in trouble, and not because he wanted to. Two things could happen. Elsie could try, in her ways, to get money from you, or one of the hoodlums she associates with could for some reason decide to attack you. Nothing is impossible in this huge city in which so many half­insane people live. I am thinking of the best interests of you and Elsie both. If I may say so, with no intrusion meant or offense meant, I think it is best if you and she do not see each other again.
    I would like to say a few more words to you on the subject, if you are willing to listen. If not, please take my words here as they are meant—kindly, constructively, hopefully.
    Yours sincerely,
    Ralph Linderman
    The old guy was full of wild imaginings, with a salacious slant to them. The letter made Jack feel uneasy, somehow menaced. It was on two sides of a sheet of typewriter paper, which most people didn’t have in the house, Jack thought. Was Ralph Linderman writing fiction in his spare time? Essays on morals? His handwriting was smallish, legible, all letters in each word connected.
    The thing to do was ignore it, Jack thought. Attention, more talk was just what the old guy wanted. But it irked Jack that Ralph Linderman seemed to be patroling the neighborhood, even to Jack’s very doorstep. Jack had no plan to ask Elsie to come and sit for him, but suppose he had? Who was this nut to make a fuss about it? Ralph Linderman had not put a return address on the envelope. Jack went to the telephone book and looked up Linderman. Rather to his surprise, since he hadn’t expected Linderman to have a private telephone, he found a Linderman, Ralph W., on Bleecker Street, where Elsie had said he lived. It gave a degree of respectability to Linderman, and Jack didn’t like even that.
    Jack had thought of telling Natalia that evening about Elsie and her