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riding the Up escalator to the second floor, when Tony shouted, “Look! A red moustache and sunglasses!”
    “And a black tie!” Tina pointed to a man in a tan raincoat moving past them on the Down escalator.
    Mrs. Carillon spun about in time to see the back of the head of a tall, thin man with brown hair. “Leon!”
    No one moved.
    “Fire on the second floor,” Tina shouted, “everybody turn around and go down! Fire!”
    Now they moved. Panic spread quickly as Tina’s words were echoed by the near-hysterical passengers on the Up escalator. “Fire, fire, turn around!” People pushed and shoved, trying to step down as the stairs moved up.
    “We’re not getting anywhere,” cried Mrs. Carillon as she saw Noel heading for the front door.
    “Hurry! One, two, one, two!” Tony shouted, counting a pace faster than the rate of the moving stairs.
    The crowd began surging downward. Unfortunately, a shopper couldn’t manage her footing at the landing. She fell on the rising step and almost rode back up the escalator on her belly; but the next person fell on her, and the next and the next.
    “Jump, Mrs. Carillon, jump!” Tony shouted, as he and Tina crawled over the scrambled pile of struggling shoppers.
    Mrs. Carillon took a flying leap across the heap of people, landed on her knees, picked herself up, and started running for the door. “Leon, Noel!”
    Suddenly, she was jerked to an abrupt halt. “Let me go, let me go!” she screamed, pummeling a pudgy man in rimless glasses whose cuff button was caught in her fishnet bag.
    “I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry,” he stammered, nervously trying to undo his button.
    Mrs. Carillon couldn’t wait. She turned toward the door and started running again, lurching the ensnared man off his feet and dragging him backward, his arm still linked to the fishnet bag, his legs high in the air, the seat of his pants skidding along the floor. It never occurred to Mrs. Carillon, as she pushed and shoved her way through the crowd, to let go of her bag.
    “Oof!” The pudgy man’s head hit the bottom of a counter, bringing him to a painful stop. The fishnet bag tore, propelling Mrs. Carillon into a skinny, little man with a ratlike face. He was no match for Mrs. Carillon, who fell on top of him to the crash of broken glass and the stifling odor of heavy perfume.
    “Fire, fire!”
    The heap of people at the bottom of the escalator had untangled themselves and were running wildly for the door, shouting their warning to the other customers.
    The first woman in the frantic mob tripped and fell on top of Mrs. Carillon and the rat-faced man, the next one fell on her, and once again, the next and the next. The crush of bodies and the strong perfume were too much for Mrs. Carillon. She fainted.
    The Chase
    Tina and Tony ran down Lexington Avenue, dodging shoppers and strollers, every now and then catching a glimpse of the man in the tan raincoat. He crossed Fifty-eighth Street and turned left—no, right. There were two tan raincoats.
    Tony couldn’t make up his mind which way to go.
    “You go right; I’ll go left,” Tina said. “Meet you back at Bloomingdale’s.”
    Tina lost her man in the tan raincoat one block later, but Tony kept up his chase, down Fifty-seventh Street, in and out of Hammacher Schlemmer’s, to Third Avenue, left. He almost caught up with him at Fifty-ninth Street, but the traffic light changed. Tony climbed up the light standard for a better view; the tan raincoat disappeared into the back entrance of Bloomingdale’s. The Walk sign flashed on. Tony dashed across the street and into the store.
    There he was, in Men’s Pajamas.
    “Mr. Carillon!” Tony grabbed the raincoat just in case Noel had any ideas of escaping again.
    The tall man looked down at Tony, his puzzled smile half-hidden by a bushy black moustache.
    “Sorry,” Tony said.
    The Bearded Beggar
    Tony found Tina at the front entrance of the store. She was wearing her “miserable” expression.
    “We’re