
of Americans had been around there lately. But Gary's friends had been sending their letters by V-mail,
which didn't require stamps. Besides, Gary couldn't place a friend named Paul, first name or last, and
whoever this Paul was, his particular message resembled double-talk.
Of course Gary's apartment had been sublet during his absence, which was something to be considered;
besides, he'd been accumulating a lot of circulars advertising the latest Delancey stamp bargains, all from
the "Mart Where Philatelists Meet", which happened to be this side-street store. Since the letters from
Paul bore the funny looking stamps, the thing formed a link in Gary's mind, though what to do about it
was another question.
Invading Delancey's Stamp Mart didn't exactly appall Gary; he'd figured in too many Ranger raids,
including the one that had shipped him home on a hospital ship, to worry about meeting a problem
directly. But the question was to find the problem. Delancey's business was buying and selling stamps,
not guessing who had mailed them. Gary didn't know just how to approach them.
Besides, there was the blonde who questioned most of the customers who entered the place. Judging
from Gary's observations through the window, she brushed anyone off fast unless they wanted to buy
stamps. Moreover, she was already prejudiced against Gary, for she had been giving him some
necessarily narrow looks between two frames that displayed the complete issues of Basutoland and a
batch of over-sized air-post stamps from Salvador.
She was rather a nice looking girl, but serious. She had a regular formula with customers: she frowned
when they asked for certain stamps; then smiled when she managed to find them. But so far Gary had
received only the frown, amplified by a glare from blue eyes and a determined tightening of the girl's lips.
"Two strikes," muttered Gary to himself. "Two strikes--and out!"
The final phrase came when the frowning blonde stepped to the window and turned out the lights as she
began to gather the display frames to put them in the big safe that stood near the back of the stamp shop.
Gary had watched her do this yesterday at the closing hour of six o'clock, which was why he hadn't
walked in and asked about the Solomon stamps.
Only then the girl hadn't turned out the window lights first.
It was plain why she'd done so this time. With the window darkened, the lights in the shop proper
reflected merely the pane, thus obliterating Gary's face. From his side, Gary could now see his own
reflection, thanks to the glow of street lamps, and it didn't look half-bad.
Those features were toughened perhaps, but not enough to frighten blondes. At least Gary's face hadn't
scared the European girls when he'd met them after beachhead landings. Recollection of that fact gave
Gary a happy notion. After all, he didn't have to claim that he was a stamp collector in order to turn this
blonde's frown into a smile.
He'd tell her who and what he really was, a discharged war veteran, but he wouldn't have to state that
he'd been engaged in the European invasion. When he produced the envelopes bearing the orange
stamps from the British Solomons, the blonde would presume that he'd been fighting on the opposite side
of the world and had received them from some correspondent that he'd met there.
That at least would open the way to further inquiries that would explain who had been using Gary's name
and why. But it would have to wait until tomorrow, because now Delancey, a wan man who looked as
though he had just crawled from a sack-full of stamps, was locking the door to close the mart for the
night.