The Flaw in the Sapphire
Dennis Muldoon spends his days canvassing Philadelphia for cast-off clothing on behalf of his father’s second-hand shop, until he breaks with the trade, moves to New York, and sets his heart on a job in a publishing house. Short of cash, he buys a paper dickey, one of the three-layer false shirt fronts sold on Baxter Street to the shabby-genteel, and discovers a story printed in minute type on the back of each layer. It concerns Rodman Raikes, a miser nicknamed the Fist, and the stranger the boarders next door call the Sepoy, who claims to collect sapphires, produces a spectacular one, and leaves Raikes watching his hoarded coin turn into heaps of coal. Every installment breaks off pointing to the next dickey, so Dennis has to keep buying shirt fronts to find out how it ends.
