At White City Investigations, invisibility was a sacred condition, whole darn floors of office buildings being given over to its art and science—resources for disguise that outdid any theatrical dressing room west of the Hudson, rows of commodes and mirrors extending into the distant shadows, acres of costumes, forests of hatracks bearing an entire Museum of Hat History, countless cabinets stuffed full of wigs, false beards, putty, powder, kohl and rouge, dyes for skin and hair, adjustable gaslight at each mirror that could be taken from a lawn party at a millionaire's cottage in Newport to a badlands saloon at midnight with just a tweak to a valve or two.
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Okay, okay! I get it, Pynchon! I understand what you meant by "a keen sympathy for the invisible" now! This follow-up sentence explaining the "invisibility" line just goes on and on, as if Pynchon knew I personally was going to be confused by what he meant by "a keen sympathy for the invisible" and would have to wade deep into the minutia of clarification.
"A keen sympathy for the invisible" just means Lew Basnight could really blend in to a crowd. He could eavesdrop anywhere unnoticed. He was a master of disguise and demeanor.
Pynchon loves long paragraphs like this that list lots and lots of things for the reader to visualize. Usually he throws in a bunch of things that the reader probably needs to look up. But not this time! It's all pretty standard costumes, props, and make-up.
I don't know if Pynchon is referencing any specific "millionaire's cottage" in Newport that a detective agency might have cause to investigate (in general, of course, the reference is just because it's where the richest tycoons had vacation homes and the rich are always good for a scandal or two) but I'm pretty sure the "badlands saloon" is Nuttal & Mann's Saloon in Deadwood where Wild Bill Hickok was murdered. Or maybe, again, just a general reference to a place that was likely to host an unguessable number of scandalous incidents.
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