The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith

In Round Figures

Lester Leith rolled over in bed and grinned at the ceiling. In the lazy flexing of his well-oiled muscles there was something of the litheness of a stretching panther.

The electric clock on the dresser marked the hour of ten-thirty.

Leith stretched forth a silk-sheathed arm and rang for his valet. Almost instantly a door swung upon silent hinges and a huge form made an awkward bow.

“You rang, sir?”

“My bath, Scuttle.”

“Yes, sir.”

The door closed as silently as it had opened. But the square-shouldered valet had oozed into the room between the opening and closing of the door. On ponderous tiptoes he set about the tasks of the morning. The bath water roared into the great tub. The clothes closet disclosed an assortment of expensive clothes, from which the heavy hands of the servant picked suitable garments.

Propped up in bed, smoking a cigarette, Lester Leith regarded the man through lazy-lidded eyes.

“Scuttle, you remind me of something, but I can’t quite place what it is. Do you suppose you could help?”

The coal-black eyes of the valet glinted into smoldering fires of antagonism. He half-turned his head so that Lester Leith might not surprise the expression of enmity on his face.

“No, sir. I’ve reminded you of so much, sir. First it was of a reincarnated pirate, and you disregarded my real name to call me Scuttle. Then—”

Leith held up a well manicured hand. “I have it, Scuttle!”

“Yes, sir?”

“A locomotive, Scuttle; a big, black, shiny, powerful locomotive, but running on rubber tires.”

“On rubber tires!”

“Quite right, Scuttle. It’s the way you have of oozing about the room.”

The man straightened. The broad shoulders snapped back. For a quick half-instant the sweeping black mustache bristled with aggressiveness. Then the servant sighed.

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir. The bath is to be just a little warmer than lukewarm, sir?”

“Quite.”

The valet used the pretext to ease his huge body into the bathroom. He closed the door, turned, straightened, and the air of servility evaporated from his personality. His black, beady eyes glittered defiance. His hamlike hand knotted into a fist. For seconds he stood quivering with rage.

Lester Leith, lying back on the bunched pillows, chuckled softly and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. It was as though he took a fiendish delight in flicking this man on the raw.

The valet took a deep breath, regained control of himself, shut off the bath and oozed into the bedroom.

“The bath is ready, sir.”

Lester Leith yawned, stretched, paused with one pajamaed leg thrust over the edge of the bed.

“Scuttle, how long’s it been since we checked the crime clippings?”

A look of eagerness flashed over the heavy face of the giant servant.

“Some time, sir. There have been several interesting crimes recently.”

“Crimes the police haven’t been able to solve?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you think I’d be interested?”

“I know it, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because of the very valuable loot which the police haven’t been able to trace yet.”

“Tut, tut, Scuttle, how often must I tell you that my interest in crime is purely academic? That’s why I never make personal investigations. I only study the reports published in the newspapers. Scuttle, get out the clippings and I’ll glance over them.”

And Leith slipped from his pajamas and into the lukewarm tub while the valet opened a drawer and thumbed out an assortment of newspaper clippings dealing with various unsolved crimes. By the time Leith had rubbed himself into a glow, attired himself in faultless flannels, and poured coffee from the electric percolator, the valet had arranged the crime clippings and took up a recital in a husky monotone.

“There was the affair of Mrs. Maybern’s diamonds, sir. Missing.”

“Robbery?”

“Yes, sir; she had been at a night club, dancing with one of the most attractive...”

“Pass it, Scuttle. It’s probably blackmail.”

“Very well, sir. How about the Greenwell murder?”

“Motive, Scuttle?”

“Robbery and, perhaps, revenge.”

“Pass it, Scuttle. Is there, by any chance, a crime with a dash of imagination, with a touch of the bizarre, Scuttle?”

The heavy thumb of the police spy ran through the clippings.

“There’s one, sir, but it’s a cold trail.”

“Tut, tut, Scuttle. You mustn’t get the idea I’m seeking to trail these criminals. My interest is purely academic. Let’s have the cold trail.”

“The Demarest reception, sir.”

“Mrs. De Lee Demarest?”

“The same, sir.”

“Her reception was quite an affair, Scuttle. Seems to me we received an elaborately engraved invitation, did we not? The body of the invitation was engraved, the name scrolled in by hand. Rather on the ornate side.”

“Yes, sir. And you perhaps remember reading of what happened, sir? The gems, the cash, all looted clean — the most carefully planned robbery in the past five years, sir.”

Lester Leith poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, creamed and sugared it, lit a fresh cigarette, and sat back in the chair. There was a flickering gleam of real interest in his eyes.

“I never read the newspapers, Scuttle. You should know that. The crime news is all that interests me, and I have you to clip that. But a robbery of that nature interests me. It’s a wonder our zealous friend Sergeant Ackley didn’t suspect me of the job. Being a society robbery, I presume his first thoughts would be of me. And I suppose the robbers were attired in evening clothes, Scuttle?”

Scuttle, the police spy, refrained from telling Leith that he had been suspected of having a hand in that affair, that all that prevented a severe grueling at headquarters was that the police spies could account for every minute of Leith’s time on the day in question.

“No, sir, they were not in evening clothes. In fact, it’s quite a story.”

“Tell it to me, Scuttle.”

“It began with a Mrs. Pensonboy Forster—”

“What a ponderous name, Scuttle! She sounds like a mountain of respectability. One feels instantly that one should know Mrs. Pensonboy Forster, yet I don’t remember having heard of her.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed the valet. “That’s the very point. It was the name that enabled her to get into the reception.”

“Tell me, Scuttle, was she fat?”

“Was she fat? Why, the woman was a mountain! She weighed three hundred and fifty pounds if she weighed an ounce. And she had a cold, fishy eye that sent chills through everyone she looked at.”

Lester Leith pushed back the empty coffee cup, blew a smoke ring.

“Scuttle, I am going to like this case. Tell me more.”

“Well, sir, you remember the elaborate invitations. They were printed by Garland. That is, the engraving was done by him. The names were lettered in by some artist that Mrs. De Lee Demarest secured. I understand he charged two thousand dollars.”

“Never mind the charge, Scuttle. Mrs. Demarest has plenty of money. Give me the facts.”

“Well, sir, the invitations were most distinctive. Each guest had one, and the invitation was in the form of a card, to be presented at the entrance. This Mrs. Pensonboy Forster drove up in a magnificent car, was assisted to the ground, sailed up the stairs, and presented an invitation. The police have it now, sir. It seems to be most regular in form, but the lettering of the name shows little distinctive mannerisms which prove it was not done by the artist engaged by Mrs. Demarest.”

“In other words, Scuttle, the invitation was a forgery.”

“Precisely so, sir. But the woman who presented it was so substantial, so portly, so — er — so fat, sir, that she was admitted without too close a scrutiny of the invitation.”

“But how could a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound woman pull a holdup and get away with it? Her escape, Scuttle, would be quite a problem, even for a resourceful brain.”

“She fainted, sir.”

“Fainted!”

“Yes, sir. And, of course, there’s the key to the whole scheme.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The fat woman fainted, and fell downstairs, from the top to the very bottom, sir.”

Lester Leith sighed. “What then?”

“Well, sir, you see the reception was in the nature of an announcement party. The daughter of Mrs. Demarest had been married in Europe, and the marriage was kept secret. There was quite a romance.”

Lester Leith sighed again, patiently.

The valet flushed.

“It all fits together, if you’ll just listen, sir. The marriage was performed in Europe. It was announced at the reception, given in honor of the husband. And there were presents displayed, sir. They were grouped in one of the front rooms and two detectives were employed to watch them. And, of course, the guests wore plenty of gems, sir.

“Therefore, when the woman fainted and fell downstairs, she fell right into the front room where the detectives were guarding the presents. They tried to lift her onto a couch, sir... but three hundred and fifty pounds! They just couldn’t do it. She was a mountain of flesh, and she groaned frightfully.

“Then there was the clanging of an ambulance gong. Of course, everyone thought one of the other guests had summoned the ambulance, sir. It came to the curb with a big sign on the side: Proctor & Peabody — Emergency Ambulance. You know the type of car, sir. But on this one the sign was so big it was almost an advertisement.”

Lester Leith nodded.

“They carried this fat woman away in the ambulance, Scuttle?”

The valet shook his head.

“Three stretcher bearers, all clad in white, came into the room. They tried to lift the woman and failed, and they sent out for the driver.”

“Then what?”

“Then it happened, sir. The guests were all bunched together. The detectives were bending over the woman, trying to get her on the stretcher. The ambulance men were at very strategic positions. Then the woman sat upright and conked the detectives on the bean!”

“Conked, Scuttle?”

“Yes, sir. That is, tapped them with a heavy object. In this case it was the barrel of a gun. The detectives went to the mat, sir, and the woman swung the business end of the gun toward the guests. The ambulance men got guns out and herded the guests against the wall. They piled all the jewelry and cash on the stretcher, took the most expensive of the gifts, piled them on the stretcher, loaded the stretcher in the ambulance and all drove away.”

Lester Leith sighed, a long drawn sigh of utter satisfaction.

“Scuttle, it is perfect!”

“Yes, sir. The loot was worth two hundred thousand — perhaps more.”

Lester Leith nodded. “Yes, indeed, Scuttle. It would be. Of course, the success of the whole scheme depended on the fat woman. They couldn’t lift her. They couldn’t do a thing with her. And a fat woman who has fainted is such an awkward thing to handle. A gentleman is supposed to scoop the delicate form of a lady into iron-muscled arms and convey her to a couch. But in this case it would take a block and tackle.”

The valet nodded.

“Yes, indeed, Scuttle. It was artistic. I presume they telephoned the police at once, Scuttle?”

“Yes, sir, and that’s the peculiar part of it, sir. You see the ambulance was distinctive. It couldn’t have escaped discovery, sir. It had the sign painted right on its side — a very large sign, almost distastefully large. The police realized at once that the ambulance was the point they should concentrate on. They dispatched police cars to form a cordon about the district; but no ambulance left the district. That’s why the police feel certain the ambulance drove into a nearby garage.”

Lester Leith nodded. “The police, of course, telephoned Proctor & Peabody — to find out if an ambulance had been stolen?”

“Naturally.”

“And found out that none had. The ambulance was a complete imitation all the way through. Right?”

“How did you guess that, sir?”

“Simple, Scuttle. It’s as simple as the solution to the whole affair. The police simply failed to see the obvious thing, Scuttle.”

The valet teetered back and forth on his large feet.

“You mean to say you have deduced a solution to the crime — that, is, a knowledge of the identity of the parties who are guilty — from a mere recital of the facts?”

Leith shrugged his shoulders.

“Let us say, a tentative solution, Scuttle. Now, for instance, the social secretary of Mrs. Demarest?”

“Was instantly suspected of complicity, sir. She was taken to headquarters and grilled. It appears that she had been very careless with the engraved invitations. She’d shown them to several people in advance of mailing, although she had been instructed not to do so. And the list of engraved invitations sent out and those remaining in her hands didn’t tally. There were two unaccounted for. She said she had spilled ink on them and destroyed them, but didn’t tell Mrs. Demarest. She got the artist to fix new ones.”

Leith nodded again.

“You think it’s the social secretary who’s guilty?” asked the undercover man. “The police do. They’ve let her out, but they’re shadowing her.”

Lester Leith pursed his lips, blew a smoke ring, traced its perimeter with a well-manicured forefinger.

“Tell me, Scuttle. This social secretary. Is she very thin, perhaps?”

“No, sir. She’s rather inclined to beauty of figure, sir. She has wonderful curves, and her eyes are quite expressive. She’s the sort of a girl the newspapers like to photograph. Her name is Louise Huntington. There’s her picture, sir.”

Lester Leith stared at the newspaper picture of a beautiful girl. The face was smiling, happy. The well-turned limbs were crossed in such a manner as to show a tantalizing expanse of silken hose.

“Taken before the accusation?”

“So I believe, sir. I understand she was all broken up over the affair. She seems to think she’ll never be able to get another position.”

“Mrs. Demarest discharged her?”

“Of course, sir. She would, you know.”

“Yes, indeed, Scuttle, she would.”

“Was there anything else about the crime you wished to know, sir?”

Lester Leith did not answer for several minutes. He blew a succession of smoke rings.

“No,” he said, at length, “nothing else,” and then he chuckled.

“Something amuses you, sir?”

“Yes, Scuttle.”

“May I ask what it is, sir?”

“Yes, indeed. I was thinking how perfectly ludicrous you would seem teaching a fat woman how to faint.”

The valet’s mouth opened and closed several times before his tongue got traction on the words that he sought to utter.

“Me! Teaching a fat woman how to faint! Good lord, sir, what an idea!”

“It is an idea, isn’t it, Scuttle? Do you know, I think I should get a deep mattress to place on the floor. Then I’d have her fall over there in the corner.”

“But... but... sir... I don’t understand. Who is this fat woman, and where do we get her?”

“Ah, Scuttle, there you’ve placed your finger upon the point I wished to discuss. We advertise for her, of course. I would suggest a more mature woman, one who is about forty years of age, Scuttle. Experience has taught me that women of that age have adjusted themselves to the wear and tear of life. In short, Scuttle, such a woman would be much more likely to wear tights.”

“Wear tights, sir!”

“Precisely. I would suggest green tights particularly if you are able to get a blonde. The advertisement should be worded something like this:

“Know something about horses! Have you gone stark, raving crazy, sir?”

“I think not, Scuttle. Evidently you have failed to consider certain elements of the Demarest robbery.”

“Yes, sir. Such as?”

“Such as the fact that a woman who weighs three hundred and fifty pounds and deliberately falls downstairs, knowing in advance she won’t be hurt, must have had some circus or stage training. Then, when you add the fact that she is rather handy with a gun... well, Scuttle, the answer is obvious. She has probably done work with a Wild West show.”

“I’m not sure I follow you, sir.”

“She fainted and fell, Scuttle. Yet they all knew — that is, those on the inside of the scheme — that she wouldn’t be hurt.”

“How do you reason that, sir?”

“Because the conking of the detectives was an important part of the scheme. The reasonable time to conk them was when they were bending over to assist the lady to a stretcher, and the person who could most effectively start the conking process was the woman herself.”

The police spy stroked his mustache with what was intended to be a thoughtfully meditative gesture. But his washboarded forehead and twisted lips gave evidence of deep perplexity.

“And you want to put in an advertisement, get a fat woman?”

“Precisely.”

“Because you think the same woman might answer the ad?”

Lester Leith shrugged his shoulders.

The valet pressed the point.

“Yet that’s why you mentioned horses. A circus woman would know horses. You must admit that.”

Lester Leith smiled. “Skip along, Scuttle, and insert that want ad. We should start getting replies almost at once.”

“But what’s the idea of teaching her how to faint?”

“That, Scuttle, is one of the things I must keep absolutely secret. It’s between the lady and myself.”

“But you don’t even know who she is yet... Is it that you want to see from the way she acts if she’s accustomed to faint? Is that it? A trap?”

Lester Leith glanced at his watch.

“Do you know, Scuttle, there are times when your reasoning powers absolutely surprise me?”

The valet flushed. “Is that so, sir?”

“Absolutely,” remarked Lester Leith in a tone of finality. “And, may I add, Scuttle, that this is not one of those times.”

Scuttle inserted the ad, but not until he had made an appointment with Sergeant Ackley. Scuttle, known as Beaver on the force, walked from the newspaper offices to find the sergeant, parked in his official red roadster, waiting for him.

“Well, Beaver, you got him working on that Demarest affair. That’s fine! We’ll tail along and let him lead us to the culprits, if he solves the crime. And then we’ll nab both him and them. If he misses fire, nothing will be lost.”

Beaver grunted.

“I got him started all right; but no one knows where he’ll finish. He gets my goat with his Scuttling me this and his Scuttling me that.”

“There, there, Beaver,” soothed Ackley. “It won’t be but a short time more and then we’ll have the goods on him. When we do, you can start in working him over. I promise you fifteen minutes alone in the cell with him. If he resists an officer that’ll just be too bad.”

“There won’t be enough left of him to arraign in court.”

Ackley nodded.

“Now tell me about the set-up,” he said, fitting a cigar to his lips with that perfect precision which characterizes a man who is about to enjoy some very welcome information.

“Well, I did just as you told me. When he called for the crime clippings I spoke of a couple of things I knew he wouldn’t be interested in, then I pulled that Demarest affair and he fell for it right away. He’s got an idea that’s very logical, too.

“He says the fat woman had to be a tumbler from a circus, probably a Wild West show, and he pointed out reasons that are ironclad. Then he wants me to insert an ad for a fat woman of about the age of this Mrs. Pensonboy Forster. He says I’ve got to teach her how to faint.”

Sergeant Ackley’s lips snapped the cigar to an abrupt angle.

“Teach her how to faint!” he exclaimed through clenched teeth. “What does he want to do that for?”

The undercover man assumed an air of sophisticated wisdom.

“Tut, tut, sergeant. It’s simple.”

Sergeant Ackley’s big hand ripped the cigar from his mouth. He hurled it to the pavement with such force that the wrapper cracked into fragments.

“Where do you get that tut-tut stuff? And what gave you the idea you can drool over me with that air of superiority Leith puts on? Have you been battin’ around him so long you think you’re one of those masterminds? Because, if you have, I’ll bust you so flat you’ll make wrapping for a picnic sandwich, you bull-necked, fat-headed, cinder-eyed—”

Beaver made haste to mollify the sergeant.

“No, no. I didn’t mean it that way. You got your nerves worked up. What I meant to say was that I’ve put two and two together from workin’ with him so long. Gimme a chance to explain, will you?”

The sergeant took another cigar from his pocket.

“Well, get busy,” he growled. “You tut-tut me again and you’ll go back to pavements.”

“Yes, sergeant, but remember I’ve lived with that drawling stuff so long I can’t help using some of it. It’s unconscious... but let’s look at the case. I gotta be gettin’ back. He’ll have more fool things for me to do.

“You see, he figures that one of the fat women who answers his ad will be either someone who has had circus experience, or, perhaps, the very one who pulled the faint on the Demarest job.”

Sergeant Ackley’s lip curled.

“What a boob you are, Beaver. It ain’t nothing like that at all. In the first place, they made a good haul on the Demarest job. The woman who pulled that stunt is sittin’ pretty right now. She’s out of the picture, and as for finding anybody who’d know her and squeal, that’s foolish. If any of the profesh knew her they’d have tipped us off by this time.

“No. It’s something else, something deeper. I have an idea he’s going to lift the idea and train this fat dame to pull the same stunt for him. It’s just the sort of a stunt he’d have thought up. Wonder is that he didn’t. Maybe he was back of it all the time.”

The spy shook his head. “I’ll keep you posted. But it’s some funny scheme. Remember, he don’t ever rob anybody except thieves. I wish to thunder he’d tip his hand just once! Too bad he smelled out that dictograph we had planted — makes it hard for me to report. But I’ll keep you in touch with the situation. How about planting a woman to answer his ad?”

“No. There ain’t a woman in the department who could answer the description. All of our lures are the vamping type.”

Lester Leith was up early the next morning to receive applications for the position mentioned in his want ad. There were six of them, no more. Some of them were, perhaps, in the three-hundred-pound class, but there were only two who seemed to come anywhere near three hundred and fifty pounds.

Leith made his selection with a judgment that was almost intuitive. He jabbed his forefinger at a woman who stood in a corner.

“Name?”

“Sadie Crane.”

“Come in,” he said.

The woman was about forty. She weighed well into the three hundreds, yet there was about her a certain feminine attraction. Her figure was wadded with fat, yet gave the suggestion of curves. Her eyes were bright. Her flabby lips twisted in a perpetual smile.

“Side show?” she asked, as soon as she had entered the room where Lester Leith indicated a specially constructed armchair.

The police spy, hovering near the doorway, listened intently.

“Not exactly a side show. You’ve been in one?”

“Sure. When I started putting on fat I dieted for a while. After I passed two hundred pounds I decided I’d better go the other way and make some money out of it. So I made up for lost time on the sweets... and here I am. Been in side shows from Keokuk to breakfast and back.”

“Married?”

She shook her head. A tender light came in her eyes. “Widow. I married the Human Skeleton out of Selig’s Super Shows. He was at Denver. Poor Jim, he caught cold the second week we’d been married, and he went quick.”

Lester Leith bowed his head gravely, silent comment upon the match-like man who had been the love of this mountain of flesh.

“You’d wear tights?”

“No.”

Lester Leith gravely regarded the tip of a smoldering cigarette.

“Perhaps your modesty—”

“Modesty, heck!” she interrupted. “It ain’t modesty. I’ve showed my figure from Maine to California, from Mexico to Canada, and I’ve showed more skin area than any other woman in the world. I’ll wear some professional clothes I’ve got, a jacket and shorts. That’s the way I used to sit in the side shows. That’s the way I’m willing to work.”

Lester Leith nodded.

“That is reasonable. The salary will be twenty-five dollars a day. You will have to learn how to faint.”

The fat woman leaned over and looked at Leith earnestly. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“Fainting. You’ll have to learn to drop over to one side, or flat on your back in a faint. You’ll have to learn to take the fall without hurting yourself. We’ll have mattresses and sofa pillows to break the fall at first. Later on we’ll gradually take them away and you can fall on the floor.”

She sighed. “Living around a side show for fifteen years, I’ve naturally seen lots of freaks — but you’re a new type.”

“But you’re willing?”

“Sure, I’m willing. Only I don’t want to take any exercise that’s going to get rid of any fat. This fat is my stock in trade. At my present weight I’m an attraction. If I should drop a hundred pounds or so I wouldn’t be anything but a fat mommer.”

Lester Leith motioned to the valet.

“Will you please explain to the other applicants that their services are not wanted, Scuttle? And you’d better get their names and addresses. That will make them feel better. Tell them the position is temporarily filled.”

The valet nodded, took pencil and paper, and oozed through the door.

Lester Leith glanced significantly at the grinning fat girl who reclined in the specially constructed chair.

“You can keep your mouth shut?”

“Like a clam.”

“Now is a good time to begin.”

“From now on, Mr. Leith, you don’t hear anything out of me except clam-talk.”

Leith reached for a checkbook. “I will advance your salary for the first week.” He wrote and signed a check.

“You’ll be expected to be available at all times. And I’d prefer to have you keep off the streets. So I’ve arranged to rent the adjoining apartment. It’s all furnished, ready for you to move in. Your living expenses are, of course, to be paid by me.”

The fat hand folded along the tinted oblong of paper. The twinkling eyes regarded the figures.

“Two hundred and fifty bucks!”

Lester Leith nodded. “I like round figures.”

She caught the point, stretched out her legs and let her eyes drift over her form.

“When that guy with the mustache comes back, get him to give me a pull, and I’ll get out of this chair an’ go look the apartment over. Better order two quarts of whipping cream and lots of candy. I drink pure cream. Seems to agree with my stomach. The candy I eat for a pick-up. A fat person has lots of body to keep fed.”

The door opened. The valet appeared with a list of addresses.

“Got them all, Scuttle?”

“All five of them, sir.”

“Pass them over. And you might help Mrs. Crane out of the chair.”

The undercover man approached the chair, heaved and tugged. Slowly the inertia of the thickly folded flesh was overcome and the woman got her thick legs under the fat body. Her eyes and lips were smiling.

“Cheer up, big boy, you’re goin’ to have lots of this to do.”

“Show Mrs. Crane into the adjoining apartment, Scuttle — and arrange to have half a gallon of whipping cream delivered every day. And order a twenty-five pound case of assorted chocolates.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then I’ll want a social secretary, Scuttle. I think I’ll go into the side-show business — not in a commercial way, but as a social activity.”

“That’ll be great,” beamed Sadie Crane. “Gimme a week an’ I can put on twenty pounds. It’ll seem good to get back into the game. You goin’ to get a human skeleton?”

“Perhaps. Have you any suggestions?”

“I’d like to help pick’m. Poor Jim was sort of sandy complexioned. If you could find another like him—”

Lester Leith nodded. “You shall have the sole selection.”

The woman waddled slowly from the room.

The valet escorted her to the corridor. As he closed the door and indicated her apartment entrance, he leaned forward and lowered his voice.

“Find out just what he wanted?”

The fat woman’s lips mouthed a succession of words, but no sound came from the throat.

The police spy puckered his forehead.

“Huh?” he said.

The puffy lips again went through the motions of speaking — silent words that conveyed no intelligence.

“What’s the idea?” he asked.

She gurgled a laugh that rippled the folds of her loose garments.

“Clam-talk,” she said.

And with ponderous dignity she opened the door of the apartment and side-swayed herself through the entrance.

Lester Leith, stretched before the wide open windows, listened to the distant voice of the city as it droned through the hot afternoon.

“I think, Scuttle, that we’ll give Miss Louise Huntington a position. I regard her discharge as being rather an unwarranted act on the part of Mrs. De Lee Demarest. The salary, Scuttle, will be twice her former one. I have asked her to call, in a telegram which I dispatched in your absence.”

The valet gulped.

“Think she can tell you anything about the robbery?”

Lester Leith regarded the man with cold eyes.

“I should hardly ask her, Scuttle. There’s a knock at the door. You might answer it. I believe Miss Huntington is answering the telegram in person.”

The police spy regarded his employer with smoldering eyes.

“You’ve got some clue on that Demarest affair. I believe that slick mind of yours has doped out a solution. You’re just sittin’ back an’ laughin’ at the police, and getting ready to hijack the swag—”

“The door, Scuttle!”

The big valet caught himself, gulped, turned and pussyfooted to the outer door.

“Mr. Lester Leith?” asked a remarkably sweet voice.

Lester Leith himself came to the entrance hall and greeted the young woman.

“Miss Huntington?”

“Yes. I received your telegram. I’d like a position most awfully right now, but it’s only fair to tell you the police are hounding my footsteps. There was even a shadow following me here.”

She was beautiful, both of face and figure, but there was a sad-eyed expression to the face which spoke of recent worries.

Lester Leith smiled. “Please sit down. A police shadow is rather annoying, but not the least bit of an impediment to such activities as you’d have in my employ. Tell me, do you know anything about side shows?”

“Side shows?”

“Yes.”

“My gracious! No!”

“That’s fine. I always like a social secretary to start with no preconceived notions. Have you, perhaps, a good memory for names?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Could you recall the names of the invited guests to Mrs. De Lee Demarest’s reception?”

“I think so.”

“That will be fine. I’d like to have engraved announcements of the side show sent to the same list of names — and there’ll be some cards to have printed. Fattest Human in the World. And Skelo, the Human Match. You understand, Miss Huntington, that the side show would be educational, but quite entertaining. And then I’d want to exhibit the most perfectly matched diamond necklace in the city.”

The late social secretary of Mrs. De Lee Demarest regarded Lester Leith with eyes that were pools of suspicion.

“Are you trying to kid me?”

“No. I am serious.”

“Is this job on the level?”

“You are to be the sole judge of that. I shall give you a week’s salary in advance. You may quit at any time.”

The girl settled back in the chair and crossed her knees in the position in which the newspaper photographer had snapped her. She was beautiful, judged by any standards, and something about Lester Leith’s tone caused the sadness of her eyes to vanish into a twinkle of humor.

“If you’re on the up-and-up I’m going to like this job,” she said. “Maybe, after you get to know me better, you’ll tell me what it’s about.”

Leith nodded gravely.

“I am telling you now. I think the Garland Printery will do excellent work on the invitations.”

The police spy bent forward, his eyes lighting up.

“The same company that engraved the Demarest invitations!” he blurted.

“The same, Scuttle. Miss Huntington, does the Garland Printery do hand lettering as well as printing and engraving?”

The girl was studying his eyes with eyes that were singularly searching.

“So I understand.”

“Very well. You might get in touch with Mr. Garland. You placed your order with him personally in the Demarest affair?”

She nodded assent.

“Your salary is twice what it was in your former position. I’d like to have you take one of the vacant apartments in this building, so you’ll be available. I have already made arrangements with the owner. The rent is paid. It’s only necessary to select your apartment.”

Her voice was tonelessly level.

“There’ll be only one key?”

Lester Leith smiled. “At the end of a week you may know me better.”

The puzzled eyes swept his face.

“That still won’t be very well — a side show, a human skeleton, a fat woman, the most perfectly matched diamond necklace in the city — are you crazy?”

And then something in the lazy drawl of Lester Leith’s voice and in the idea of a side show brought laughter to the lips of the girl.

“I think,” she said at length, “I’m beginning to get the idea.”

A hot week of dreary monotony passed.

Sadie Crane, attired in vivid silk shorts and a scanty jacket, practiced fainting. She did it with perspiring good nature, the valet looking on, tugging at her arms as she arose from each fall.

Double mattresses were placed in the corner to cushion her falls. The eager eyes of the valet followed her every motion.

Louise Huntington tapped at a typewriter, addressing envelopes. Lester Leith came and went, his comings marked by casual comments of appreciation, his goings marked by police surveillance.

The police found out nothing. The strange routine of the apartment proceeded uninterrupted. The human skeleton, picked by Mrs. Crane, flitted in and out, surveying the tumbling performance with mournful eyes. He spent his evenings squiring the fat woman. Between the two was a fast friendship. He was a chronic pessimist. The woman preserved the unruffled calm of a jovial disposition and an indestructible optimism.

The mattresses became dented with deep furrows where the falling body banged itself a dozen times an hour. The face of the valet became haggard. His surreptitious reports to Sergeant Ackley were interspersed with querulous complaint.

The woman achieved skill at falling sidewise, rolling on her back, straightening her muscles and becoming rigid, an immovable mountain of flesh.

“Will you tell me why you’re doing that?” asked Arthur Spinner, the human skeleton.

She turned toward him a flushed face on which the sweat had left shining streaks. The clacking of the typewriter in the corner abruptly ceased, proof of the interest of Miss Huntington in the question. Scuttle paused with a handkerchief halfway to his forehead, his ears attuned for the reply.

The fleshy throat convulsed with muscular effort. The smiling fat lips mouthed a silent reply.

“More clam-talk!” rasped the human skeleton.

Sadie Crane laughed. The tapping fingers of the social secretary once more sought the keys, and Scuttle groaned.

It was at that moment that Lester Leith inserted his latchkey, entered the apartment, and surveyed the strange assortment of humanity. His eyes were glinting. In his right hand he carried a black bag.

“Ladeez and gentllllemen!” he intoned. “Step forward and observe the most perfectly matched diamond necklace in the city. Note the purity and fire of the stones. Note the wonderful workmanship of the clasp. Observe one hundred thousand dollars in scintillating, sparkling, coruscating gleams of imprisoned fire!”

The two freaks crowded forward. The police spy raised himself so that his coal-black eyes could gaze over the heads of the others. Louise Huntington regarded the opened bag with open mouth and wide eyes.

The black bag lay wide open. White cotton backed a necklace which seemed to snatch pure fires from the air and send them out in glittering brilliance.

It was Louise Huntington who broke the silence.

“I’m quitting my job,” she said.

Lester Leith arched his eyebrows.

“Personal reasons, or anything that might be remedied by an increase in salary?”

“Personal. If anything should happen to that necklace, I’d go to jail for the rest of my life. The police suspect me of one robbery already — and, of course, there’s the added fact that you’re as mad as a March hare.”

Leith indicated an inner room where he had fitted up a combined den and study.

“Perhaps,” he said gravely, “the time has come for us to talk,” and he led the girl into the room, and closed the door.

There ensued nothing save the rumble of cautious tones. Scuttle’s ear, plastered against the doorknob, heard nothing. Yet the effect of that conversation was magical.

The girl came from the room, smiling, vivacious. She went back to her typewriter with eager fingers. From time to time she glanced at Lester Leith as he busied himself with hat, coat, and stick. The moment Leith slammed the corridor doors, the valet pounced upon the typewriting girl.

“What...”

She kept her fingers busy on the machine. Her smiling lips parted in a most tantalizing manner, and then she began to form words which carried no sound.

The valet scowled in anger.

“Clam-talk,” said the girl, and lowered her eyes to the work in the machine.

The rippling laugh that floated across the room came from Sadie Crane, the “fattest woman in the world.”

Two days later the valet spy took it upon himself to question Lester Leith.

“The fat woman faints almost perfectly. I’ve eliminated the mattress, sir, and she makes — er — perfect landings.”

“Very good, Scuttle.”

“And what, may I ask, sir, is holding up our — er — circus side show?”

Lester regarded him with judicial gravity, then lowered his voice.

“Scuttle, can you keep a secret?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Promise?”

“On my word of honor, sir.”

“Very well, Scuttle, I am waiting for another ambulance robbery.”

“Another ambulance robbery!”

“Precisely. You see, Scuttle, if my theory is correct, there will be another robbery within a few days in which an ambulance will figure. The ambulance will bear a large sign painted upon it, identifying it with Proctor & Peabody. It will make the ambulance so distinctive that it will seem impossible for it to vanish.

“Acting upon that theory, the police will comb the neighborhood in a house-to-house, garage-to-garage canvass. And that’s all the good their search will do. The ambulance will have vanished as completely as though it had never existed.”

“And then?”

“Then, Scuttle, we’ll have our circus side show.”

And Lester Leith, possessing himself of a polished cane, hat, and gloves, strolled out for an afternoon constitutional in the park.

The valet, after taking due precautions against being followed, oozed to a drugstore, telephoned Sergeant Ackley, and arranged for an appointment in an out-of-the-way parking station. Here he crawled into the red roadster and unburdened himself of many conjectures, reports, surmises, and facts.

Sergeant Ackley mouthed a cigar with a tempo which gradually increased until he whipped a damp newspaper from the rear of the car. “Haven’t seen the Record, have you, Beaver?”

“No, why?”

Sergeant Ackley handed it over. Across the top of the front page was a screaming headline.

Phantom Ambulance Again Figures in Crime.

“Good gosh!” ejaculated the spy. “How did he dope that out?”

Sergeant Ackley’s eyes were narrowed. He spoke with the manner of one who weighs his words carefully.

“He’s smarter than the devil, Beaver — there’s no getting around that. From the very first time you told him about the Demarest robbery he knew the answer. You can gamble on that. He wouldn’t have tied up all that money in the preparation he’s making if he hadn’t been certain.

“Every time he’s worked on a case, he’s been able to get something from the newspaper clippings that the police missed completely. I’ve tried to figure out what it could be this time, but it beats me.”

Beaver grunted.

“Well, I’ve still got the original clippings. I’ll sit up tonight and study ’em. And I’ll study the account of this last robbery in the Record. Maybe I can find out what he had in his mind.”

“Think you’re brighter than I am, eh, Beaver?”

“No. It ain’t that. It’s just that I thought maybe—”

“Well, forget it. I’ve covered that ground thoroughly. But we’ll do one thing. We’ll start shadowing this guy as though he was studded with diamonds in platinum settings. Eventually he’ll lead us to the chaps we want. Then, maybe, we’ll hook them for robbery and him for hijacking.”

Beaver nodded slowly.

“And there’s just a chance I can pump some information out of him. He’s been acting sort of confidential lately. Gimme that paper and I’m going to be the one to break the news to him. That’ll give me a break. He’ll see those headlines, an’ maybe he’ll talk.”

Scuttle was sitting facing the door when Lester Leith returned, and he thrust the folded paper forward before Leith had even deposited his hat and stick.

“There you are, sir.”

“Where am I, Scuttle?”

“Right there on the front page. The mysterious ambulance figures in another robbery. This time it was shorter, quicker action. They got away with a bag from a bank messenger. The traffic police were notified by a prearranged signal. But the ambulance disappeared. The police have narrowed it down to a district of not more than forty square blocks. They’re making an intensive search of that district.”

Lester Leith took the paper from his valet, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it, unread, into the black cavern of the cold fireplace.

“Well, gang, we’re ready to start.”

“But aren’t you interested in the account of the ambulance, sir?”

Leith shook his head.

“Scuttle, cover both depots, find out every train that leaves after ten o’clock this evening and before eleven thirty. Get me a drawing room on each one of those trains where such accommodations are available. You might mention when you get the tickets that they are for a woman whose weight is somewhat above the average. Scuttle, I want no slip-up in the reservations.”

The valet’s eyes glinted with the light that comes into a cat’s eyes when the cat hears the faint sound of motion just back of a mouse hole.

“Yes, sir. Where shall I get the tickets to, sir?”

“Any place, Scuttle, just so it’s at least four hundred miles away. Pick out various cities, depending upon the direction in which the train’s going.”

“Yes, sir, but there might be fifteen or twenty such trains, sir. It’s the time when most of the crack trains leave.”

“I would estimate the number at somewhere around that figure, Scuttle. Please get me a drawing room on each one of the trains.”

The valet sighed. “Yes, sir.”

“And at precisely nine-two tonight I shall have an errand for you to do, a most important errand.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I shall want you to take these diamonds, the best matched necklace in the city, and show them to an artist in order to have a black and white drawing made. I shall want you to take Mrs. Crane with you. I shall want Mrs. Crane to have a suitcase all packed, ready to travel.”

Sadie Crane regarded him for a minute with a puzzled frown. But she said no word.

The valet fairly oozed eagerness.

“Yes, sir. Your instructions will be obeyed to the letter. At nine-two, sir? May I ask why you fix that particular minute?”

Lester Leith lit a cigarette, blew a smoke ring.

“Because, Scuttle, that happens to be the exact time I wish you to be at the place I am going to send you.”

And Lester Leith walked into his den, stretched himself out in an easy chair, and sent spiraling clouds of blue smoke drifting upward from the end of his cigarette. His eyes followed those twisting spirals of smoke with deep concentration.

Only Louise Huntington, the social secretary, showed no concern or excitement. Her face did not even change expression.

The valet took advantage of the first opportunity to get a telephone. In a guarded tone he apprised Sergeant Ackley of the latest developments.

“What’s this fat woman look like?” asked Ackley. “If she’s going to make a trip we’d better be ready to tail her.”

The undercover man chuckled.

“She tips the beam at three hundred and fifty. If you can’t find that sort of a woman in a drawing room on a train, one of us is crazy.”

“Can that line of chatter,” snapped Sergeant Ackley, “and remember you’re making an official report. We won’t try to tail you. You just go wherever he sends you, but contact the office as soon as you can reach a telephone, and keep us posted. Better rush back now — he’ll be giving that fat dame secret instructions.”

Scuttle laughed again, louder, more jubilantly.

“Sarge, I’ve got my rod, and I’ve got my bracelets. If that lump of tallow can pull anything on me you can start me back to the pavements tomorrow.”

It was precisely seventeen minutes after nine o’clock in the evening. Three faces bent over a glittering necklace of diamonds. There was the heavy face of Scuttle, the valet; the jovial, good-natured face of Sadie Crane, the professional fat woman. And, in addition, there was the sharp, keenly thoughtful face of Stanley Garland, sole owner and proprietor of the Garland Printery.

“Well,” said Garland, “what’s he want done?”

“A black and white drawing,” replied Scuttle.

Garland laughed. “I am an engraver. I have been a sign painter. I have done some art work. But will you tell me why any man should think an artist needed a real diamond necklace to copy from? If there is anything that is sketched entirely different from life it is a diamond. After all, my friends, art is mimicry. And when it comes to sketching light, one must use symbols. And a diamond is imprisoned light.”

And Stanley Garland stood back and snapped his bony fingers, twisted the little cluster of waxed hairs that adhered to his upper lip, and gazed at his two visitors with obvious superiority.

Scuttle shrugged his heavy shoulders.

“I’m obeyin’ orders. He said to take the necklace to you an’ get a receipt. He said for the woman to take a few things and put them in a suitcase and be ready to travel. She’s taking the ten o’clock Flyer.

“Now if you can put any of that stuff together and make sense out of it you can do more than I can. But the wages I get every month come from this chap, Leith, and when he says do something I do it.”

Stanley Garland bristled.

“But I am an artist! I do unique illustrations for place cards. And I take orders from no one. I execute commissions, yes! But orders, NO!”

The fat woman placed a round hand upon the shoulder of the irate printer.

“Aw, be a sport! Give him a break.”

“And a receipt for the diamonds,” reminded Scuttle.

Stanley Garland looked at the diamonds once more.

“Where did he get them? I have heard about this perfectly matched necklace. I did the engraving for the invitations to his side show. But I have heard nothing of the history of this necklace. Who owns it? Where did it come from? What jeweler matched it? Was it purchased or borrowed?”

The undercover man stared gloomily.

“Now, brother, you’re askin’ real questions. We’ve had fifty men trying to find out the same thing for ten days, and they haven’t uncovered a thing.”

“Humph!” said Stanley Garland.

Sadie Crane waddled her impatient bulk across the office that had been fitted up at one end of the printing establishment. She carried her suitcase in her left hand — a suitcase packed under specific instructions from Lester Leith. It contained her professional costume — the jacket and the silk shorts — nothing else.

She walked to the door that opened into the printery — a door that opened inward. She put the suitcase down on the printery side of this door. Beyond gleamed the polished metal of huge presses, the dim perspective of the darkened printery.

Lester Leith had given her a sketch of the floor plan of the establishment. He seemed perfectly familiar with every detail. How Lester Leith had known these things she did not ask. She understood, generally, that Stanley Garland had a uniform method of impressing customers who called in the evening to consult with him upon important assignments. He had the lighting of the office just so, the dim perspective of the printery showing just so, behind the open door, and he always snapped his fingers and twisted his mustache and proclaimed he was an artist.

Lester Leith had advised her of all these things in detail. It was, of course, possible that he had secured the information from Louise Huntington, who had brought several orders to the office of the printery.

Now Stanley Garland made an exclamation of impatience.

“Take back the diamonds. I will tell him when I see him how foolish he is to send such a model. But you can tell him that, having once seen them, Stanley Garland can make a perfect...”

He broke off. There was the sound of a knob upon the outer door, turning very softly, very slowly.

The undercover man shot out a guarding hand to the diamonds.

The outer door swung slowly open.

The white face of Louise Huntington appeared in the crack. Scuttle recognized her, and the hand that had been at his hip relaxed slightly. But the hand that had held the diamond necklace remained in place.

“Hello, dearie!” said roly-poly Sadie Crane.

The girl acknowledged the salutation with a nod.

“Well,” snapped Garland, “come in — if you’re coming in.”

“Are you alone?” asked Scuttle, suspiciously.

She nodded her head, came in, and kicked the door shut behind her. Then her right arm, coming slowly up, disclosed the glint of businesslike, blue steel.

“Those diamonds,” she said, “are stolen. Put up your hands!” Sheer surprise held the figures in that room motionless.

“Stolen!” exclaimed Scuttle.

The girl nodded down the barrel of the shaking gun.

“Don’t point that gun this way. You might let it go off,” said Scuttle, moving toward her.

“P-p-put up your hands!” said the girl. “I shall shoot!”

“Nonsense!” snapped Scuttle and took the gun from the quivering hand. “You fool! You might have killed somebody.”

The girl flung herself against his shoulder and began to sob.

“No, no. I couldn’t have. The gun wasn’t loaded!”

The undercover man snapped back the breech of the weapon, laughed, and tossed it on the table.

“She’s right. It wasn’t loaded.”

Stanley Garland regarded the valet with speculative eyes.

“You are brave, my friend. You advanced in the face of a threatening weapon in the hands of a hysterical woman.”

“Bosh!” disclaimed Scuttle. “I’ve had experience with ’em. She wouldn’t have shot, even if the gun had been loaded, but she might have jiggled her hand so bad the trigger got pulled. That was the danger.”

“Nevertheless, it was brave.”

Scuttle turned to the girl.

“Come on, Louise, kick through. What was the big idea?”

The girl sobbed, straightened, dried her eyes.

“Well, thank God, that’s over with,” she said.

Scuttle let his beady eyes bore into hers.

“Look here, you didn’t think that necklace was stolen at all. You had orders from Lester Leith, now, didn’t you?”

The girl hesitated, gulped, and nodded.

“Yes, I did. He told me to take this empty gun, come here and hold you up, on the pretext that the gems were stolen and that I thought you were all accomplices. Then I was to get the gems and go back into the printery... and then comes the funny part... I was to throw the stones out of the window and hide in the printery until Sergeant Ackley came.”

Scuttle stiffened with astonishment,

“Sergeant Ackley!”

“Yes, I was to telephone him just before I came in here, telling him what I was to do. But I wasn’t to tell anyone what I had done with the gems. I was to let them search me, and search the printery. I think Mr. Leith wanted Ackley to think the stones were hidden somewhere in the printery, and that I was a thief. I guess he wanted a search made.”

Scuttle sat down in a chair.

“I’ve seen that goof pull some fool schemes, but this is the worst of the lot. You telephoned Ackley?”

“Yes, of course.”

“He said he’d be here in fifteen minutes.”

Sadie Crane glanced at a huge watch that was strapped around her fat wrist.

“I gotta be goin’. I gotta catch that train.”

“You got a cab waiting?” asked Louise.

The fat woman nodded. “A special cab with a wide door, dearie.”

“I saw it outside,” said the girl in a toneless voice.

“What I don’t understand...” began Scuttle, and stopped as a cold circle of metal touched his neck.

He rolled his eyes backward, saw the snapping orbs of Stanley Garland, the thin lips, the shrewd features.

“You are a brave man,” said Garland, “and I do not take chances with you. Get them up, quickly! And this gun is loaded!”

The undercover man read the expression in those snapping eyes, and his hands shot up in the air, instantly, and without hesitation.

The exploring hands of Stanley Garland fished in Scuttle’s hip pockets, found the service revolver, the handcuffs.

“Ah!” he purred, “a trap, perhaps. You are a special officer, eh? Well, my special officer, we shall give you a taste of your own medicine. How would you like to feel the bite of your own handcuffs, eh?”

And the printer clicked the handcuffs on Scuttle’s wrists. Then he turned to the women — the beautiful social secretary, whose sobs had dried as though by magic, and the professional fat woman who regarded the whole proceeding with bubbling good nature.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “A move and you will be dead.”

And he scooped up the necklace which had been described as the most perfectly matched diamond necklace in the city, and darted through the door into the printery. He slammed that door shut, and there was the click of a bolt.

Scuttle regarded his handcuffed wrists in impotent fury.

“Well, of all things!” said Louise Huntington. “Now what do you think of that?”

Sadie Crane looked at her watch.

“I gotta make that train, an’ I got to have my shorts an’ my jacket. I promised him I would, an’ he’s been just like a brother to me! And now that sneaky-eyed cuss has gone and locked the door on my suitcase!”

Suddenly the roar of a revolver sounded from the printery. A call for help. That call was in the unmistakable voice of Lester Leith.

Then came the sounds of a struggle, of articles turning over with a crash. Type, piles of paper, chairs, tables, marble slabs, crashed to the floor. Then — silence.

“If you could just lean against that door right,” suggested Scuttle to the three-hundred-and-fifty-pound woman, “I have an idea I could kick the lock and—”.

He never finished. The bolt shot back and Lester Leith appeared on the threshold. His clothes were torn. His collar was ripped off. There was dust on his expensive evening suit. His hat was gone.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

Scuttle regarded him with black, accusing eyes.

“That’s what I want to know.”

Lester Leith slumped in a chair. For once his calm control of himself and the situation seemed to have slipped from his grasp.

“I thought Garland was guilty of those Demarest and other ambulance robberies. I got Louise to pretend those gems were stolen, thinking Garland might fall into my trap when he heard the police were coming. I felt I could hide in the printery, watch him as he escaped, and that he might direct me to the hiding place of the Demarest loot.

“It worked like a charm, but when I tried to arrest him, he fought with the skill of a professional. And he had an extra gun on him. I took one away. He had another.”

“Mine,” admitted Scuttle.

Lester Leith regarded him reproachfully.

“Scuttle, I’m surprised. You shouldn’t go around armed. That was where my plans went awry. He had that extra gun. I escaped being shot by a miracle — but, Sadie, you must get that train!”

She nodded.

“But my suitcase was locked up in the other room.”

“Get it,” said Lester Leith, “and get started! If you miss the train, my whole side show will be ruined.”

The fat woman waddled toward the printery door.

“Did you really telephone Ackley?” asked Scuttle of Louise Huntington.

She shook her head.

“That was just the story I was to tell.”

Scuttle washboarded his forehead.

“This is all too deep for me. But I’ll get him right now.”

He awkwardly worked the telephone, and got Sergeant Ackley on the wire. While he was talking with the sergeant, Sadie Crane waddled out of the room, her face streaming perspiration with the effort for speed.

Her heavy steps sounded on the short flight of stairs outside the door. Then there was the grinding of gears and her cab rolled away.

It was at that moment Scuttle finished his conversation and dropped the receiver back on the hook.

“There’s more to this than appears on the surface,” he said, fastening his coal-black eyes on Leith. “Ackley says he had you tailed and you slipped the shadow.”

Leith nodded ruefully. He took a cigarette from the torn pocket of his dinner jacket and put it to his lips.

“Admitted, Scuttle. This is one time I made the mistake of actually trying to solve a crime riddle instead of taking only an academic interest in it. Is Sergeant Ackley coming?”

“Right now,” snapped the undercover man.

“I’ll tell him all about it when he gets here,” said Lester Leith. “I’m all out of breath now.”

It was but a matter of minutes before the wailing siren of the police car outside was followed by rapid steps, and Sergeant Ackley at the head of a determined knot of blue-coated men, thrust his way into the room.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

Beaver, the undercover agent, winked warningly at his superior.

“Take off these handcuffs and I’ll tell my story first,” he said.

Sergeant Ackley fitted a key to the cuffs, clicked them open.

“Shoot,” he said.

Beaver, still keeping in the character of Scuttle, the valet, told his story; told it from the standpoint of a puzzled servant who didn’t know what it was all about, but wanted the police to know the facts.

When he had finished, Sergeant Ackley turned to the social secretary.

“Now you.”

The girl hesitated.

“Tell the truth, Louise,” said Lester Leith.

“All of it?” she asked.

“All of it,” said Lester Leith.

“Well, it started after I got my employment at Mr. Leith’s place. Things just didn’t seem right, and I was going to quit. Then Mr. Leith told me I was under suspicion in connection with the Demarest affair — which I knew already, of course. And he thought he knew who was really guilty.

“He told me if I would do just as he instructed he felt confident he could trap the criminal into exposing his guilt. Naturally, I agreed to remain on and follow his orders.

“Then, tonight, Mr. Leith told me to take an empty gun, go here and try to hold up Scuttle, telling him the necklace was stolen. He said Scuttle would take the gun away from me, and that I was to be sure and tell him I had notified you to come here and that the circumstances of your coming were such that you’d search the place.

“If Scuttle didn’t take the gun away from me, I was to take the diamond necklace, run into the printery, and toss the stones out of the window.”

Sergeant Ackley frowned.

Scuttle interposed a comment.

“Lester Leith, of course,” he said significantly, “being concealed in the printery all the time. When it reached that stage he’d have interfered.”

“I didn’t know anything about that,” said the girl.

Sergeant Ackley nodded his approval.

“Good point, Scuttle. I was just about to make it myself when you interrupted.”

The sergeant turned to Lester Leith.

“And now we’ll hear your story. It looks very much as though you’d finally stubbed your toe, my supercilious friend.”

Leith raised a hand in a gesture of deprecation.

“Tut, tut, my dear sergeant, you must learn not to jump at conclusions. Wait until you hear my story. The law requires that a man shall have a hearing before being judged guilty, you know.”

“You’ll have your chance, fast enough,” said Sergeant Ackley, “and just remember that anything you say can be used against you.”

Lester Leith nodded, made some shift to straighten his torn and rumpled garments.

“You’ll pardon my appearance, sergeant?”

“Oh, most certainly,” said the sergeant, with an exaggerated air of nicety.

Lester Leith lit a fresh cigarette.

“Thank you, sergeant. You see, I was interested in the Demarest affair. Of course you know of my penchant for studying the newspaper accounts of crime. And the newspaper clippings of the Demarest robbery pointed to what was, at least to my mind, an obvious clue.”

Sergeant Ackley hitched well forward in his chair.

“Yes, I thought so. What was the clue?”

“The ambulance, sergeant. You see, the ambulance figured as an integral part of the scheme. It had the words Proctor & Peabody painted on it, and everyone agreed that those words were painted quite prominently, too prominently to be in good taste.

“Now Proctor & Peabody run a line of ambulances and of hearses. It is impossible that a car could have their name lettered on it and escape detection. After the Demarest affair the roads were blocked within a given district and all cars within that district subjected to close scrutiny. Yet the ambulance vanished. Now I had a theory about that, but I couldn’t be absolutely certain. I determined to wait for a short time and see if the ambulance wasn’t used again. It was such a good idea and it worked so easily in the Demarest robbery that I felt certain the criminals would use it again.

“You know the answer. It was used, and most effectively. Once more the ambulance vanished from the face of the earth. But by that time I was certain of my theory.

“You see, the invitation presented by Mrs. Pensonboy Forster when she secured admission to the Demarest affair was forged. The engraving was forged perfectly, but the art work — the hand lettering of each guest’s name, added later to the engraved invitation — the lettering showed discrepancies.

“You suspected the social secretary because the forgery of the engraving was so perfect that you felt the invitations must have been left where they would be accessible to the forger. But you overlooked the fact that the lettering was not so faithfully copied.

“Therefore, I came to the conclusion that the person who forged the invitation for Mrs. Pensonboy Forster had had access to the blank engraved invitation, but not to the completed invitation. Yet he was an artist or he wouldn’t have drawn in the name as cleverly as he did.

“And the ambulance affair also pointed to an artist. You see, sergeant, an ambulance legitimately bearing the name of Proctor & Peabody, displayed quite prominently, could never have escaped detection. But a signpainter-artist could easily have lettered the name on flexible curtains which could have been adjusted to a specially-made delivery truck, and made it look like an ambulance.

“The curtains could be snapped on, and the truck changed into an ambulance. They could instantly have been taken off, and the ‘ambulance’ would revert to a commercial truck.

“That suggested a business establishment with a light delivery truck. It suggested a criminal with access to engraving facilities, with access to the Demarest invitations. It suggested a criminal who was also an artist and a sign painter.

“You see, now, sergeant, how the finger of suspicion pointed to Stanley Garland. He had but to fill in an extra, blank invitation with some of his own hand lettering, and his accomplice was passed into the Demarest reception. The rest was easy. His accomplices could be men who were actually employed in the printery. They changed the truck into an ambulance, looted the place, changed the ambulance back into a truck, and went through the police cordon with no difficulty whatever. The police recognized the truck with the sign of the Garland Printery upon it, and raised not so much as a question.”

Sergeant Ackley heaved a great sigh.

“It sounds reasonable,” he admitted, “and yet it’s so obvious, why didn’t we think of that? Go on.”

The clubman shrugged his shoulders.

“The rest was easy, sergeant, too easy. I secured some kunzite made into a necklace. That stone has almost as much fire as a diamond. Against white cotton it will fool anyone who is not an expert. By a process of suggestion I made everyone think it was a very valuable diamond necklace. Then I had my valet bring it to Garland.

“I knew he would be tempted. So I arranged to speed up the affair a bit. I had Louise Huntington come in with an empty gun and claim the necklace was stolen, that she had the police on the way. And I primed her with a story to tell, after Scuttle had taken the gun away from her, that would appeal to the ears of Garland alone.

“It was a story that sounded foolish unless its object had been to make the police enter the place to search the printery. Of course, Garland saw the scheme immediately. He thought I was onto him, and that the police were on the way. He had to get away rapidly and take what loot he could with him, so he decided he might as well take this well-matched diamond necklace too.

“I, of course, was waiting in the printery, watching and listening, and I was armed. I waited until Garland had come into the place, had rushed to his secret hiding place, had given unmistakable proof of his guilt, and then I tried to arrest him.

“I made him throw up his hands. And then, when I had taken his gun away from him, he surprised me. He had a second weapon on him, one that, it now appears, he had taken away from my valet.

“He surprised me with that weapon. We struggled. He overpowered me and made his escape with the kunzite necklace and the cream of the loot from the Demarest affair. But I have no doubt he had to leave a lot of his plunder. We might look, sergeant?”

The sergeant was on his feet. “Come on, men. Take Leith with us. See that he has no chance to escape. I’m not entirely satisfied yet.”

They entered the printery, found a light switch, flooded the shop with light, and, instantly, the correctness of Leith’s reasoning was disclosed.

There was a secret panel in the wall. Inside it was a motley collection. There were rolled curtains of some fabrikoid material which were arranged with snaps to be fastened onto the side of a car. They bore in big letters Proctor & Peabody. There were gems, quantities of gold settings, and some coin. There remained none of the better class of stones or any of the currency. It appeared as though someone had scooped out about as much as could conveniently be carried.

Sergeant Ackley surveyed the secret hiding place, checked through the plunder which remained.

“It’s the stolen stuff all right,” he admitted. “There’s around fifty thousand dollars of bulky stuff here. The man must have escaped with around two hundred thousand dollars, in round figures, if we count both the currency and the stones together.”

Leith nodded.

“Too bad he got away,” he said.

Sergeant Ackley looked at the clubman long and earnestly. He stroked the angle of his jaw with a spade-like thumbnail, and the gray stubble gave forth little rasping noises.

“If your plan had worked, you’d have had him cornered here in the printery,” he said.

Lester Leith nodded.

“And he’d have had about two hundred thousand dollars on him. And you two men would have been here alone.”

Leith shrugged his shoulders. “Until I could have summoned the police, of course.”

“Of course!” echoed Sergeant Ackley, and there was no attempt to disguise the sarcasm of his voice. “And we have been on your trail for a year as a hijacker. Now suppose you had made the arrest and then signified to Garland that he could escape if he left the loot behind. And then suppose you had ruffled yourself all up and claimed you’d been in a struggle, and told the same story you now tell. You’d be just two hundred thousand dollars to the good.”

Lester Leith smiled faintly. “You wouldn’t accuse me of a crime in the presence of witnesses unless you had some ground for the accusation.”

“Certainly,” agreed the officer, his voice still dripping sarcasm. “I wouldn’t think of it for a moment. I was only mentioning that if the circumstances had been different, and if you had told the same story you now tell, the circumstances would appear the same as we now have them.

“Under the circumstances, I think I’ll make a complete search of your person, Leith, and I’ll have my men go through this printery with a fine-tooth comb, looking for a concealed package somewhere.”

“Certainly,” said Leith, repeating the word and tone of the officer. “I would like you to do that so I would be relieved of any suspicion.”

They searched him, and they found nothing. They searched the printery and they found nothing, and then there came a wild exclamation from the undercover man.

“Good God! The fat girl! She took the Flyer!”

Ackley frowned at him.

“Spill it, quick!”

“And her suitcase was in the printery! If she’d set it down there, and then Garland had locked the door and gone to his hiding place, and Leith had hijacked the stolen gems from him, and simply put them in the fat girl’s suitcase, and the fat girl had gone to the train, she wouldn’t have ever suspected the contents of the suitcase until...”

Sergeant Ackley gave a bellow of inarticulate rage.

“Get to the telephone! The idea of letting anything like that go on under your nose!”

“I was handcuffed,” reminded Scuttle.

“Seems to me,” remarked Lester Leith, “that, for a valet, you show a most official and officious type of mind. I’m afraid you might instill a suspicion into the head of our dear but overzealous sergeant.”

“Suspicion, hell!” yelled Ackley. “It’s a certainty. Here, let me at that telephone.”

He grabbed the instrument and began to throw out a dragnet. The Flyer left at ten o’clock. He assigned men to cover the depot, the gatemen, the taxicabs, and soon the reports began to filter in.

The telephone announced that special officers, covering the train, had reported a very fat woman who had held a ticket to a drawing room. She was carrying a suitcase, and the suitcase was constantly in her hand. She had been escorted aboard the train with difficulty, the suitcase with her. She had almost jammed in the door of the drawing room. It had taken assistance to get her in.

Sergeant Ackley got into immediate action. He ordered the arrest of the woman at a suburban stop where the Flyer was scheduled to make its last stop for through passengers.

Lester Leith gazed at him reproachfully.

“If you arrest that woman you will be responsible for a grave injustice and subject yourself to a suit for false arrest,” he said.

“You admit you purchased the ticket on which she’s traveling?” asked Ackley, his eye on Scuttle.

Lester Leith clamped his lips shut.

“You have accused me of a crime. I could explain this whole affair in a few words. As it is, I shall say nothing until I have counsel present. But I want the witnesses to remember that I warned you against arresting this woman.”

Sergeant Ackley’s only comment was a sneer of triumph.

“You came so close to getting away with it, no wonder you’re sore. If I hadn’t thought of that fat woman, you’d have pulled one of the slickest jobs of all time.”

Ten minutes passed. The telephone shrilled its summons. A report came in from the suburban town. They had caught the train, arrested the woman, taken her from the drawing room. The suitcase she carried had been opened. It contained a green silk jacket and some shorts, rather a skimpy costume for a fat woman in a side show.

Ackley chewed a cigar meditatively.

“Have men stay on the train and search every inch of the drawing room. Bring the woman to the central station. I’ll meet you there.”

He turned and glowered about him.

“This party’s going to adjourn,” he said.

They went to the central station. After an hour a police car arrived with an angry fat woman. She was taken to a cell. Sergeant Ackley gave her a third degree. The woman told a straightforward story. She had never seen Lester Leith but twice in her life — once when she went to his office in response to a want ad, once when he had called upon her with a suitcase and a railroad reservation and employed her to take the suitcase on the train to the destination of the ticket.

She refused to admit she had been previously employed by Leith, or that his valet had taught her to fall in a faint; she denied ever having been in a side show.

Ackley called in Beaver to confront her.

It needed but a glance at the goggle eyes of the undercover man to give Ackley his answer.

“That’s not the one. I never saw her before... Yes I did, too. She was one of the unsuccessful applicants for the job Sadie Crane got.” Ackley’s jaw sagged.

“Then... she doesn’t even look like the other?”

“No. This one is blonde. The other was brunette. This one has black eyes, the other had hazel eyes. They’re both fat — that’s all.”

“And because I didn’t ask for a description I presume I’ll be on the carpet,” groaned Ackley.

They went back to the room where Lester Leith was being held.

“Where’s Sadie Crane?” rasped Ackley.

Leith blew a cloud of smoke in a lazy spiral.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t tell you.”

Beaver spoke up again.

“He had fifteen drawing-room reservations on night trains. Maybe she went on one of those other reservations.”

Ackley exploded into action.

“Beaver, you have the most infuriating habit of withholding important information!” he yelled, and got busy once more on the telephone.

Investigation disclosed a startling fact. Five of Leith’s drawing-room reservations had been filled. Each one with a woman of astonishingly ample proportions, each woman with a suitcase which never left her hand.

It was a stupendous job to intercept each train and interview each woman, search each suitcase — chartered airplanes, long-distance telephone calls, emergency stop signals on various railroads...

By morning several facts were apparent.

The railroad systems out of the city had been badly confused by a wholesale stopping of limited trains at various points en route. Five fat women had been taken from trains to automobiles. They were all yelling vehement threats of lawsuits. Five suitcases had been confiscated. Each suitcase contained exactly the same thing — a pair of green trunks and a jacket.

Sergeant Ackley finally threw up his hands in disgust.

He had disrupted railroads, irritated powerful officials. He had done it all on a suspicion alone, and he had subjected himself to several suits by irate fat women who, as Lester Leith pointed out, were more inconvenienced at being jammed into police automobiles than were thin women.

Also, as Lester Leith managed to point out, Ackley had done virtually nothing toward apprehending the man, Garland, who had escaped; nor had he acted diligently in rounding up Garland’s accomplices.

By the time Ackley had turned his attention to that angle of the case, the accomplices had vanished. There remained for him nothing but the glory of having solved the Demarest robbery, and he took unto himself every bit of that glory.

Three days later Ackley received a hurried call from Beaver.

“The apartment where Sadie Crane lived is occupied. No one knows who’s in it, but the milkman delivers three quarts of whipping cream every day.”

Sergeant Ackley gripped the receiver until the skin over his knuckles was pale. “I’m coming right over,” he said.

“Leith is in his apartment,” cautioned Beaver.

“Keep him there,” roared Ackley, and slammed down the telephone.

He made record time to Leith’s apartment house.

A hammering on the door of the apartment where Sadie Crane had lived was answered by a thin wisp of a man.

“Who are you?” demanded Ackley.

“I’m Spinner.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I married Sadie Crane.”

“Where’s your wife now?”

“In the sitting room, the last I saw of her.”

“Here?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sergeant Ackley picked the thin little man up bodily by the coat collar, set him to one side, and strode into the apartment.

He came to a spacious room, in the center of which, sitting in a specially made armchair, cheerfully knitting, was a mountain of flesh.

“You Sadie Crane?” he yelled.

She shook her head.

“Who are you, then?”

“Sadie Crane Spinner. I married Arthur Spinner yesterday.”

Sergeant Ackley took a deep breath, controlled the outburst that quivered on his lips.

“You were at the Garland Printery the night Scuttle was there?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You were to take the Flyer?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“At the request of Lester Leith?”

“Yes. He wanted me to take a suitcase with my things in it and put on a performance in some suburban town.”

“But you changed your plans at the last minute?”

“Oh, yes. You see, when I left the printery to take a cab to the depot, the cabbie had a note that had just been delivered. It was from Leith telling me not to catch the train. He’d changed his mind. He said to take the suitcase up to his apartment and leave it there and go back to my apartment and wait until I heard from him. So I did it. It suited me — I don’t like to ride on trains. The berths ain’t big enough.”

Sergeant Ackley’s eyes were bulging.

“You came here, and have been here all the time?”

“Certainly. Then I got married and had to give up the idea of traveling. I’ve got to take care of Arthur.”

“And your suitcase? What became of it?”

“Oh, Mr. Leith brought it back here the next morning. He said he’d changed his plans.”

Sergeant Ackley fitted the mental picture puzzle together.

“What was in the suitcase when he returned it?”

“My trunks and jacket.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.”

“What are you doing now?”

“On my honeymoon. Times are good. Lester Leith employed me at twenty-five dollars a day as a human elephant, my husband at the same figure as a walking skeleton. When his side show blew up he gave us a month’s pay in lieu of notice; and the apartment’s rented until the middle of the month and the rent paid. So we’re staying on here.”

“Well,” remarked Sergeant Ackley, “I’m a cock-eyed—”

The woman nodded cheerfully.

Sergeant Ackley strode into the apartment of Lester Leith. Scuttle let him in, flashed him a look of inquiry.

Ackley walked to the chair where Lester Leith was blowing spirals of cigarette smoke.

“Pretty clever, sending a woman to the only place I’d never look for her — right hack to her own apartment. I covered every train, arrested five fat women who were false alarms, covered every hotel and rooming house — and here she was all the time!”

Lester Leith shrugged.

“Of course. That’s where she would be if I were innocent of the crime you accused me of. But you thought I was guilty, so you looked in all the wrong places.”

Sergeant Ackley’s hands clenched.

“And you had only to take the loot from Garland, slip it in Sadie Crane’s suitcase, have her take it out of the printery for you, then come to this apartment — take it out right under our noses — and you cleaned up two hundred thousand dollars!”

Lester Leith coughed deprecatingly. “You wouldn’t want to accuse me of a crime without proof.”

“Two — hundred — thousand — dollars!”

Leith traced the perimeter of a smoke ring with his forefinger.

“And even if you had proof, you couldn’t convict me of any crime.”

“Why not?”

“Because any package which might have contained any loot would have also had my kunzite necklace mingled with it, and it’s no crime to recover your own stolen property. If any other property should have happened to be mingled with it, that would come under the legal head of commingled personal property.”

Sergeant Ackley scraped his jaw with his thumbnail.

“I’ll... be—”

“You will if you use profanity,” interrupted Lester Leith.

But Sergeant Ackley had already stormed to the door...