Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 21, No. 114, May 1953

It takes a thief by Arthur Miller[1]

Another story, this time in a lighter vein, by the brilliant author of the internationally acclaimed play, “Death of a Salesman”... a story that presents a problem no citizen of this country, or any country in the world, need worry about — providing, of course, he or she is a good citizen...

Some people are laughing in our neighborhood these nights, but most of us are just waiting, like the Sheltons. It is simply unbelievable, it came out so right.

Here is this man, Mr. Shelton, a middle-aged man with what they call a nice family and a nice home. Ordinary kind of businessman, tired every night, sits around on Sundays, pinochle and so on. The point is, he’s been doing all right the past few years. Automobiles. His used cars were shipped to California, Florida — wherever the war plants were springing up. Did fine. Then the war ended. The new cars started coming through and then the strikes made them scarce. But people wanted them very badly. Very, very badly. He did fine. Very, very fine.

One night not long ago he and his wife decided to take in a night club, and she put on her two diamond rings, the bracelet, and some of her other frozen cash, and they locked up the house — the children are all married and don’t live home any more — and they were off for a trip to the city.

Nobody knows what they did in the city, but they stayed out till 3 in the morning. Late enough for Shelton to get a headful. The drive home was slow and careful because the car was one of his brand-new ones and he couldn’t see too well in his condition. Nevertheless, when he put the key in the front-door lock he was able to notice that the door swung open at a touch, whereas it usually took some jiggling of the latch. They went in and turned on the living-room lights, and then they saw it.

The drawer of the desk was lying on the floor, and the rug was littered with check stubs and stationery. The Sheltons rushed into the dining room and saw at once that the sterling-silver service was gone from the massive serving table. Shelton clutched at his heart as though he were going to suffocate, and Mrs. Shelton thrust her fingers into her hair and screamed. At this stage, of course, there was only the sensation that an alien presence had passed through their home. Perhaps they even imagined that the thief was still there. In wild fright they ran to the stairs and up to their bedroom, and Shelton tripped and fell over a bureau drawer that the thief had left on the threshold. Mrs. Shelton helped him up and made him lie down on the colonial bed and she massaged his heart while they both looked anxiously toward the closet door, which stood open.

When he had caught his breath, he pushed her aside and went into the closet and turned on the light. She crowded in beside him as soon as she saw the terrible expression on his face. The safe. The little steel safe that had always stood in the corner of the closet covered with dress boxes and old clothes, the safe was looking up at them from the corner with its door open. Shelton simply stood there panting. It was Mrs. Shelton who got to her knees and felt inside.

Nothing. Nothing was left. The safe was empty. Mrs. Shelton, on her knees in the closet, screamed again. Perhaps they felt once more the presence, the terrifying presence of the thief, for they rushed one behind the other down the stairs, and Shelton picked up the telephone.

The instrument shook in his hand as he bent over close to the dial and spun it around. Mrs. Shelton moved up and down beside him, clasping and unclasping her hands and weeping. “Oh, my God!”

“Police!” Shelton roared into the telephone as soon as he heard the operator’s calm voice. “My house has been robbed. We just got home and—”

His voice caught Mrs. Shelton just as she was about to dig her fingers into her hair again. For an instant she stood perfectly still, then she turned suddenly and swung her arm out and clapped her hand over Stelton’s mouth. Infuriated, he attempted to knock her hand away. Then his eyes met hers. They stood that way, looking into each other’s eyes; and then Shelton’s hand began to shake violently and he dropped the telephone with a loud bang onto the marble tabletop and collapsed into a high-backed, Italian-type chair. Mrs. Shelton replaced the telephone on its cradle as the operator’s anxious voice flowed out of it.

They were both too frightened to speak for a few minutes. The same thing was rushing through their heads and there was no need to say what it was. Only a solution was needed, and neither of them could find it. At last Mrs. Shelton said, “You didn’t give the operator the name or address. Maybe—”

“We’ll see,” he said, and went into the living room and stretched out on the couch.

Mrs. Shelton went to the front windows and drew the shades. Then she came back to the couch and proceeded to walk up and down beside it, her breasts rising and falling with the heavy rhythm of her breathing.

Nothing happened for nearly an hour. They even made a pass at undressing, just as though he had not shouted frantically into the telephone that his house had been robbed. But they were hardly out of their clothes when the doorbell rang. In dressing gown and slippers Shelton went down the stairs with his wife behind him. In the presence of strangers he always knew how to look calm, so much so that when he opened the door and let the two policemen in, he appeared almost sleepy.

The question of his having hung up without giving his name was cleared away first: He had been too excited to give that detail to the operator. The officers then went about inspecting the premises. That completed, Shelton and his wife sat in the living room with them and gave a detailed description of the seven pieces of jewelry that had been taken from the safe, and the silver service, and the old Persian lamb coat, and the other items, all of which were noted in a black-covered pad that one policeman wrote in. When Shelton had closed the door behind the two officers, he stood thinking for a while, and his wife waited for his word. Finally he said, “We’ll report the jewelry to the insurance company tomorrow.”

“What about the money?”

“How can I mention the money?” She knew there was no answer to that one, but it was hard, nevertheless, to give up $91,000 without a complaint.

In bed they lay without moving. Thinking. “What’ll we do,” she asked, “if they find the crook and he’s still got the money?”

A long time later, Shelton said, “They never catch thieves.”

Eight days passed, in fact, before Shelton’s opinion was proved wrong. The telephone rang at dinnertime. He covered the mouthpiece with his palm and turned to his wife. “They want me to come down and identify the stuff.” There was a quavering note in his voice.

“What about the money?” she whispered.

“They didn’t mention the money,” he said, questioning her with his eyes.

“Maybe tell them you’re too sick to go now.”

“I’ll have to go sometime.”

“Try to find out first if they found the money.”

“I can’t ask them, can I?” he said angrily, and turned again to the telephone and said he would be right over.

He drove slowly. The new, purring engine, the $1900 car for which he could easily get 4,000 cash carried him effortlessly toward the police station. He drove slumped in the scat. As though to rehearse, he kept repeating the same sentence in his mind: I am simply a dealer, I am simply a dealer; I keep that much cash on hand to buy cars with. It sounded all right, businesslike. But was it possible they were that dumb? Maybe. They were just plain cops. Plain cops might not realize that 91,000 was too much to have in a safe for that purpose. And still, it was possible they would not stumble on the truth at all, not know that cash in a home safe was probably not entered on any ledger or income-tax form. Cops did not know much about big money, he felt. And yet — $91,000. Oh! $91,000! His insides grew cool at the thought of it. Not 20,000, or 40,000, not even 75,000, but $91,000. His retirement, his whole future ease, his very sureness of gait lay entirely in that money. It had become a tingling sensation for him, a smell, a feeling, a taste — $91,000 cash money in his safe at home. He had even stopped bothering to read the papers in the past year. Nothing that happened in the world could touch him while he had $91,000 in his closet.

There were three policemen sitting in the room when he entered. He identified himself, and they asked him to sit down. One of them went out. The remaining two were in shirtsleeves and seemed to be merely waiting around. In a little while a gray-haired man entered, followed by a detective who carried a cheap canvas zipper bag which he set on a desk near the door. The detective introduced himself to Shelton, and asked him to repeat his description of the jewelry. Shelton did so in some detail, answering more specific questions as they occurred to the detective.

The gray-haired man had slumped into a chair. Now he sat staring at the floor. Shelton slowly realized, as he described the jewelry, that this was the thief; for the man seemed resigned, very tired, and completely at home in the situation.

The detective went at last to the desk and opened the zipper bag and laid out the jewelry for Shelton to inspect. Shelton glanced at it and said it was his, picking up a wedding ring which had his name and his wife’s engraved on the inside.

“We’ll have the coat for you by tomorrow and maybe the silver, too,” the detective said, idly arranging the jewelry in a pattern on the desk as he spoke. Shelton felt that the detective was getting at something from the way he played with the jewelry. The detective completed the pattern on the desk and then turned his broad, dark face toward Shelton and said, “Is there anything else you lost?”

Shelton’s hand, of its own accord, moved toward his heart as he said, “That’s all I can remember.”

The detective turned his whole body now and sat easily on the edge of the desk. “You didn’t lose any money?”

The gray-haired thief raised his head, a mystified look clouding his face.

“Money?” asked Shelton. And yet he could not help adding, “What money?” Just curiously.

“We found this on him,” the detective said, reaching into the bag and taking out five rolled-up wads of money wrapped in red rubber bands. Shelton’s heart hurt him when he saw the rubber bands, because they, more than any of the other items, were peculiarly his. They were the rubber bands he always used in his office.

“There’s $91,000 here,” the detective said.

The thief was looking up at Shelton from his chair, an expression of wounded bewilderment drawing his brows together. The detective merely sat on the desk, an observer; the moment suddenly belonged only to Shelton and the thief.

Shelton stared at the money without any expression on his face. It was too late to think fast; he had no idea what sort of mind this stolid detective had and he dared not hesitate long enough to sound the man out. A detective, Shelton knew, is higher than a cop; is more like a businessman, knows more. This one looks smart, and yet maybe...

Shelton broke into a smile and touched one of the wads of bills that lay on the desk. (Oh, the 91,000; oh, the touch of it!) Sweat was running down his back; his heart pained like a wound. He smiled and stalled for lime. “That’s a lot of money,” he said softly, frantically studying the detective’s eyes for a sign.

But the detective was impassive, and said, “Is it yours?”

“Mine?” Shelton said, with a weak laugh. Longingly he looked at the solid wads. “I wish it were, but it isn’t. I don’t keep 91 thou—”

The thief, a tall man, stood up quickly and pointed to the money. “What the hell is this?” he shouted, amazed.

The detective moved toward him, and he sat down again. “It’s his. I took it out of the safe with the other stuff.”

“Take it easy,” the detective said.

“Where did I get it, then?” the thief demanded in a more frightened tone. “What’re you trying to do, pin another job on me? I only pulled one, that’s all! You asked me and I told you.” And, pointing directly up at Shelton’s face, he said, “He’s pullin’ something!”

The detective, as he turned to Shelton, was an agonizingly expressionless man who seemed to have neither pulse nor point of view. He simply stood there, the law with two little black eyes. “You’re sure,” he said, “that this is not your money?”

“I ought to know,” Shelton said, laughing calmly.

The detective seemed to catch the absurdity of it, and very nearly smiled. Then he turned to the thief and, with a nod of his head, motioned him outside. The two policemen walked out behind him.

They were alone. The detective, without a word, returned to the desk and put the jewelry back into the zipper bag. Without turning his head, he said that they would return the stuff to Shelton in the morning. And then he picked up one of the heavy wads, but instead of dropping it into the bag he hefted it thoughtfully in his palm and turned his head to Shelton. “Lot of dough,” he said.

“I’ll say,” Shelton agreed.

The detective continued placing the wads in the bag. Shelton stood a little behind him and to one side, watching as best he could for the slightest change in the man’s expression. But there was none; the detective might have been asleep but for his open eyes. Shelton wanted to leave — immediately. It was impossible to know what was happening in the detective’s head.

And yet Shelton dared not indicate his desperation. He smiled again, and shifted his weight easily to one foot and started to button his coat, and said — as if the question were quite academic — “What do you fellas do with money like that?”

The detective zipped the bag shut. “Money like what?” he asked evenly.

A twinge of pain shot through Shelton’s chest at the suspicious reserve in the detective’s question. “I mean, money that’s not claimed,” he amended.

The detective walked past him toward the door. “We wait,” he said, and opened the door.

“I mean, supposing it’s never claimed?” Shelton asked, following him, still smiling as though with idle curiosity.

“Hot money is never claimed,” the detective said. “Well just wait. Then we’ll start looking around.”

“I see.”

Shelton walked with the detective to the door of the precinct station, and he even talked amiably, and then they said a pleasant good night.

Staring at the pavement rolling under the wheels of his car, he could summon neither feeling nor thought. It was only when he opened the door of his house, the house that had once contained the fortune of his life, that his numbness flowed away, and he felt weak and ill.

“There must be a way to get it back,” she began.

“How?”

“You mean to tell me—?”

“I mean to tell you!” he shouted, and got to his feet. “What’ll I do, break into the station house?”

“But they’ve got laws against robbery!”

In reply, Shelton pulled his collar open and climbed the stairs and went to bed.

These days, Shelton rides to business very slowly. The few friends he has on the block have grown accustomed to the gray and haunted stare in his eyes. The children seem to quiet down as he guides his car through their street games.

Sometimes he goes by the police station, and passing it he slows down and peers through the car window at it, but he always continues on.

And when a police car rolls into the block on its ordinary tour, people can be seen stopping to watch until it passes his house. Nobody has said anything, of course, but we are wailing with Shelton for that awful moment when the white coupé pulls up at his door. And it must, of course.

Thirty days, maybe two months from now, it will, turn the corner and slow down, and gradually, ominously, come to a stop.

The house is very quiet these nights — almost silent. The shades are drawn, and it is seldom that you see anyone going in or out. The Sheltons are waiting.