ATDTDA (2): Summary pp. 36 - 38

[Tim Strzechowski]

The Chicago World's Fair is an "appropriate form of 'ground leave'" for the Chums of Chance because of its otherworldly quality; the Inconvenience is fully able to conduct its surveillance of the Fair grounds from above because the aeroship blends in seamlessly with the other fantastical entertainments of the Fair.
 
Lew Basnight, the "spotter" from White City Investigations, arrives at dawn the next day bearing telescopic gear that he "broke ... in on the Ferris wheel" (36), and he and the Chums discuss the fact that he's never heard of them, having instead read about the "Wild West, African explorers, the usual adventure stuff" in his youth (37).
 
The narrative detours briefly into a flashback, showing us that Lew entered the detective business "by way of a sin he was supposed to have committed," but "couldn't remember what he'd done, or hadn't done, or even when."  Average citizens react to him beligerently, women cast glares at him, and various people offer peculiar advice to him, and -- seemingly unable to grasp what everyone else around him knows about his "sin" -- Lew goes to Chicago.
 
A close business associate follows him to the city and accosts him in the street, his young wife Troth, intending to persuade him to return home, travels to Chicago only to chastise him.  As they walk the streets of an unsavory neighborhood, he makes it clear that he "can't remember" what it is he's supposed to have done.  She tells him to "go back to one of your other wives" and, hailing a cab, leaves him.