The Horror Expert by Frank Belknap Long

The heat had been oppressive all night, but now the streets were glistening, washed clean by rain, and there was a holiday freshness in the air. The rain had stopped, but the taxi moving slowly down Fifth Avenue in the wake of the storm was still wet and gleaming and had the same washed-clean look.

The woman who sat staring out of the cab window at the cluster of pedestrians waiting to cross 42nd Street had dressed at leisure, eaten a light breakfast of orange juice, toast and three-minute eggs, glanced briefly at the morning headlines, and descended in a private elevator through a tall, gray house in the East Eighties without manifesting the slightest outward strain.