Elizabeth Daly 
The House Without the Door [EPUB ebook] 

Gamadge hunched up his shoulders against the rawness of the November air and peered from under his hat-brim at the little archway with its ornamental lantern. He asked: “But why does she live in a dump like this? Two hundred thousand dollars, and lives in a dump like this.”
“Dump! My good fellow! We’ve made a very nice thing of it. It has atmosphere.”
“That’s what you brokers tell the clients, is it?” Mr. Gamadge was not in his usual state of amiability. He glanced about him, without taking his chin out of the depths of his upturned collar. His gloved hands were crammed into the pockets of his overcoat. His eyes were screwed up, full of resentment. “You get deaf people here, I suppose?”
“Deaf? Deaf? What do you mean by deaf?”
“Your tenants like to listen to the Third Avenue L?”