The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

The Cat-Woman Erle Stanley Gardner

The amazingly prolific Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) created countless series characters for the pulp magazines before he wrote his first Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933). He had studied law on his own and never got a degree, but passed the bar exam in 1911, practicing for about a decade. He made little money, so he started to write fiction, selling his first mystery to a pulp magazine in 1923. For the next decade, he published approximately 1.2 million words a year, the equivalent of a full-length novel every three weeks.

Mason, the incorruptible lawyer, went on to become the bestselling mystery character in American literature, with three hundred million copies sold of more than eighty novels (though Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer outsold him on a per-book basis). The books inspired the Perry Mason television series that starred Raymond Burr for nine hugely successful years (1957–1966), which had followed on the heels of the equally popular radio series that ran from 1943 to 1955.

Gardner found popular success with virtually everything he wrote, including the stories about Ed Jenkins, known as the Phantom Crook, whose adventures appeared in the prestigious Black Mask magazine. A master of disguise and con artist, Jenkins was a self-confessed “outlaw, desperado, and famous lone wolf.” He worked both as a detective and as a crook, frequently informing on his fellow criminals — always for the sole purpose of enriching himself.

“The Cat-Woman” was originally published in the February 1927 issue of Black Mask; it was first collected in Dead Men’s Letters (New York, Carroll & Graf, 1990).

Big Bill Ryan slid his huge bulk into the vacant chair opposite my own and began toying with the heavy watch chain which stretched across the broad expanse of his vest.

“Well,” I asked, showing only mild annoyance, for Big Ryan had the reputation of never wasting time, his own or anyone else’s.

“Ed, I hear you’ve gone broke. I’ve got a job for you.”

He spoke in his habitual, thin, reedy voice. In spite of his bulk his mouth was narrow and his tone shrill. However, I fancied I could detect a quiver of excitement underlying his words, and I became cold. News travels fast in the underworld. He knew of my financial setback as soon as I did, almost. My brokers had learned my identity — that I was a crook, and they had merely appropriated my funds. They were reputable business men. I was a crook. If I made complaint the courts would laugh at me. I’ve had similar experiences before. No matter how honest a man may appear he’ll always steal from a crook — not from any ethical reasons, but because he feels he can get away with it.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked Ryan, not affirming or denying the rumor concerning my financial affairs.

His pudgy fingers seemed to be fairly alive as he twisted and untwisted the massive gold chain.

“It’s just a message,” he said, at length, and handed me a folded slip of paper.

I looked it over. It was a high class of stationery, delicately perfumed, bearing a few words in feminine handwriting which was as perfect and characterless as copper plate.

I scowled over at Ryan and shook my head. “I’ve walked into all the traps I intend to, Ryan.”

His little, pig eyes blinked rapidly and his fingers jammed his watch chain into a hard knot.

“The message is on the square, Ed. I can vouch for that. What the job will be that opens up I can’t tell. You’ll have to take the responsibility of that; but there won’t be any police trap in that apartment.”

I looked at the note again. The ink was dark. Evidently the words had been written some little time ago. The message did not purport to be to anyone in particular. Big Ryan was a notorious fence, a go-between of crooks. Apparently he had been given the note with the understanding that he was to pick out the one to whom it was to be delivered. The note would clear his skirts, yet he must be in on the game. He’d have to get in touch with the writer after he made a delivery of the note so that the time of the appointment would be known.

I reached a decision on impulse, and determined to put Ryan to the test. “All right, I’ll be there.”

I could see a look of intense relief come over his fat face. He couldn’t keep back the words. “Bully for you, Ed Jenkins!” he shrilled. “After I heard you were broke I thought I might get you. You’re the one man who could do it. Remember, two hours from now,” and, with the words, he pulled out his turnip watch and carefully checked the time. Then he heaved up from the chair and waddled toward the back of the restaurant.

I smiled to myself. He was going to telephone “H. M. H.” and I filed that fact away for future reference.

Two hours later I stepped from the elevator on the sixth floor of the Reedar Arms Apartments, took my bearings and walked directly to the door of 624. I didn’t pause to knock but threw the door open. However, I didn’t walk right in, but stepped back into the hallway.

“Come in, Mr. Jenkins,” said a woman’s voice.

The odor of incense swirled out into the hall, and I could see the apartment was in half-light, a pink light which came through a rose-colored shade. Ordinarily I trust the word of no man, but I was in desperate need of cash, and Big Bill Ryan had a reputation of being one who could be trusted. I took a deep breath and walked into the apartment, closing the door after me.

She was sitting back in an armchair beneath a rose-shaded reading lamp, her bare arm stretched out with the elbow resting on a dark table, the delicate, tapering fingers holding a long, ivory cigarette holder in which burned a half-consumed cigarette. Her slippered feet were placed on a stool and the light glinted from a well-proportioned stretch of silk stocking. It was an artistic job, and the effect was pleasing. I have an eye for such things, and I stood there for a moment taking in the scene, appreciating it. And then I caught the gaze of her eyes.

Cat eyes she had; eyes that seemed to dilate and contract, green eyes that were almost luminous there in the half-light.

I glanced around the apartment, those luminous, green eyes studying me as I studied the surroundings. There was nothing at all in the apartment to suggest the personality of such a woman. Everything about the place was suggestive merely of an average furnished apartment. At the end of the room, near the door of a closet, I saw a suitcase. It merely confirmed my previous suspicion. The woman had only been in that apartment for a few minutes. She rented the place merely as a meeting ground for the crook she had selected to do her bidding. When Big Bill Ryan had picked a man for her, he had telephoned her and she had packed her negligee in the suitcase and rushed to the apartment.

She gave a little start and followed my gaze, then her skin crinkled as her lips smiled. That smile told me much. The skin seemed hard as parchment. She was no spring chicken, as I had suspected from the first.

The cat-woman shrugged her shoulders, reached in a little handbag and took out a blue-steel automatic which she placed on the table. Then she hesitated, took another great drag at the cigarette and narrowed her eyes at me.

“It is no matter, Mr. Jenkins. I assure you that my desire to conceal my identity, to make it appear that this was my real address, was to protect myself only in case I did not come to terms with the man Ryan sent. We had hardly expected to be able to interest a man of your ability in the affair, and, now that you are here, I shan’t let you go, so there won’t be any further need of the deception. I will even tell you who I am and where I really live — in a moment.”

I said nothing, but watched the automatic. Was it possible she knew so little about me that she fancied I could be forced to do something at the point of a pistol?

As though she again read my mind, she reached into the handbag and began taking out crisp bank notes. They were of five-hundred-dollar denomination, and there were twenty of them. These she placed on the table beside the gun.

“The gun is merely to safeguard the money,” she explained with another crinkling smile. “I wouldn’t want you to take the cash without accepting my proposition.”

I nodded. As far as possible I would let her do the talking.

“Mr. Jenkins, or Ed, as I shall call you now that we’re acquainted, you have the reputation of being the smoothest worker in the criminal game. You are known to the police as The Phantom Crook, and they hate, respect, and fear you. Ordinarily you are a lone wolf, but because you are pressed for ready cash, I think I can interest you in something I have in mind.”

She paused and sized me up with her cat-green eyes. If she could read anything on my face she could have read the thoughts of a wooden Indian.

“There are ten thousand dollars,” she said, and there was a subtle, purring something about her voice. “That money will be yours when you leave this room if you agree to do something for me. Because I can trust you, I will pay you in advance.”

Again she stopped, and again I sat in immobile silence.

“I want you to break into a house — my own house — and steal a very valuable necklace. Will you do it?”

She waited for a reply.

“That is all you wish?” I asked, killing time, waiting.

She wrinkled her cheeks again.

“Oh yes, now that you speak of it, there is one other thing. I want you to kidnap my niece. I would prefer that you handle the entire matter in your own way, but I will give you certain suggestions, some few instructions.”

She paused waiting for a reply, and I let my eyes wander to the cash piled on the table. Very evidently she had intended that the actual cash should be a strong point in her argument and it would disappoint her if I didn’t look hungrily at it.

“How long shall I hold your niece captive?”

She watched me narrowly, here eyes suddenly grown hard.

“Ed Jenkins, once you have my niece you can do anything with her or about her that you want. You must keep her for two days. After that you may let her go or you may keep her.”

“That is all?” I asked.

“That is all,” she said, and I knew she lied, as she spoke.

I arose. “I am not interested, but it has been a pleasure to have met you. I appreciate artistry.”

Her face darkened, and the corners of her upper lip drew back, the feline snarl of a cat about to spring. I fancied her hand drifted toward the automatic.

“Wait,” she spat, “you don’t know all.”

I turned at that, and, by an effort, she controlled herself. Once more the purring note came into her voice.

“The necklace you will steal is my own. I am the legal guardian of my niece and I will give you my permission to kidnap her. What is more, I will allow you to see her first, to get her own permission. You will not be guilty of any crime whatever.”

I came back and sat down in the chair.

“I have the necklace and it is insured for fifty thousand dollars,” she said in a burst of candor. “I must have the money, simply must. To sell the necklace would be to cause comment of a nature I cannot explain. If I secrete the necklace I will be detected by the insurance company. If the notorious Ed Jenkins breaks into my house, steals my necklace, kidnaps my niece, the insurance company will never question but what the theft was genuine. You will, of course, not actually take the necklace. You will take a paste copy. The insurance company will pay me fifty thousand dollars, and, when occasion warrants, I can again produce the necklace.”

I nodded. “You intend then that I shall be identified as the thief, that the police shall set up a hue and cry for me?”

She smiled brightly. “Certainly. That’s why I want you to kidnap my niece. However, that should mean nothing to you. You have a reputation of being able to slip through the fingers of the police any time you wish.”

I sighed. I had enjoyed immunity from arrest in California because of a legal technicality; but I was broke and in need of cash. All honest channels of employment were closed to me, and, after all, the woman was right. I had been able to laugh at the police.

I reached forward and took the money, folded the crisp bills and put them in my pocket.

“All right. I will accept. Remember one thing, however, if you attempt to double-cross me, to play me false in any way, I will keep the money and also get revenge. Whatever your game is you must keep all the cards on the table as far as my own connection with it is concerned. Otherwise...?”

I paused significantly.

“Otherwise?” she echoed, and there was a taunt in her voice.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Otherwise you will be sorry. Others have thought they could use Ed Jenkins for a cat’s-paw, could double-cross him. They never got away with it.”

She smiled brightly. “I would hardly give you ten thousand dollars in cash unless I trusted you, Ed. Now that we’ve got the preliminaries over with we may as well get to work and remove the stage setting.”

With that she arose, stretched with one of those toe stretching extensions of muscles which reminded me of a cat arising from a warm sofa, slipped out of the negligee and approached the suitcase. From the suitcase she took a tailored suit and slipped into it in the twinkling of an eye. She threw the negligee into the suitcase, took a hat from the closet, reached up and switched out the light.

“All right, Ed. We’re ready to go.”

She had her own machine in a nearby garage, a long, low roadster of the type which is purchased by those who demand performance and care nothing for expense of operation. I slipped into the seat and watched her dart through the traffic. She had skill, this cat-woman, but there was a ruthlessness about her driving. Twice, pedestrians barely managed to elude the nickeled bumpers. On neither occasion did she so much as glance backward to make sure she had not given them a glancing blow in passing.

At length we slowed up before an impressive house in the exclusive residential district west of Lakeside. With a quick wriggle she slipped out from behind the steering wheel, vaulted lightly to the pavement and extended her long, tapering fingers to me. “Come on, Ed. Here’s where we get out.”

I grinned as she held the door open. Whatever her age she was in perfect condition, splendidly formed, quick as a flash of light, and she almost gave the impression of assisting me from the car.

I was shown into a drawing-room and told to wait.

While the cat-woman was gone I looked about me, got the lay of the land, and noticed the unique furnishings of the room. Everywhere were evidences of the striking personality of the woman. A tiger rug was on the floor, a leopard skin on the davenport. A huge painted picture hung over the fireplace, a picture of a cat’s head, the eyes seeming to have just a touch of luminous paint in them. In the semi-darkness of the nook the cat’s eyes blazed forth and dominated the entire room. It was impossible to keep the eyes away from that weird picture; those steady, staring eyes drew my gaze time after time.

At length there was the rustle of skirts and I rose.

The cat-woman stood in the doorway. On her arm was a blonde girl attired in flapper style, painted and powdered, and, seemingly, a trifle dazed.

“My niece, Jean Ellery, Ed. Jean, may I present Mr. Ed Jenkins. You folks are destined to see a good deal of each other so you’d better get acquainted.”

I bowed and advanced. The girl extended her hand, a limp, moist morsel of flesh. I took it and darted a glance at the cat-woman. She was standing tense, poised, her lips slightly parted, her eyes fixed upon the girl, watching her every move.

“Hullo, Ed, Mr. Jenkins. I understand you’re goin’ to kidnap me. Are you a cave-man or do you kidnap ’em gently?”

There was a singsong expression about her voice, the tone a child uses in reciting a piece of poetry the import of which has never penetrated to the brain.

“So you want to be kidnapped, do you, Jean?”

“Uh, huh.”

“Aren’t you afraid you may never get back?”

“I don’t care if I never come back. Life here is the bunk. I want to get out where there’s somethin’ doin’, some place where I can see life. Action, that’s what I’m lookin’ for.”

With the words she turned her head and let her vacant, blue eyes wander to the cat-woman. Having spoken her little piece, she wanted to see what mark the teacher gave her. The cat-woman flashed a glance of approval, and the doll-faced blonde smiled up at me.

“All right, Jean,” she said. “You run along. Mr. Jenkins and I have some things to discuss.”

The blonde turned and walked from the room, flashing me what was meant to be a roguish glance from over her shoulder. The cat-woman curled up in a chair, rested her head on her cupped hands, and looked at me. There in the half-light her eyes seemed as luminous as those of the cat in the painting over the fireplace.

“Tomorrow at ten will be about right, Ed. Now, here are some of the things you must know. This house really belongs to Arthur C. Holton, the big oil man, you know. I have been with him for several years as private secretary and general house manager. Tomorrow night our engagement is to be announced and he is going to present me with the famous tear-drop necklace as an engagement present. I will manage everything so that the presentation takes place at about nine-thirty. Just before ten I will place the necklace on my niece to let her wear the diamonds for a few minutes, and she will leave the room for a moment, still wearing the diamonds.

“Really, I’ll slip the genuine necklace in my dress and put an imitation around my niece’s neck. She will leave the room and an assistant will bind and gag her and place her in a speedy roadster which I have purchased for you and is to be waiting outside. Then you must show your face. It won’t look like a kidnapping and a theft unless I have some well-known crook show himself for a moment at the door.

“You can pretend that you have been double-crossed in some business deal by Mr. Holton. You suddenly jump in the doorway and level a gun at the guests. Then you can tell them that this is merely the first move in your revenge, that you will make Mr. Holton regret the time he double-crossed you. Make a short speech and then run for the machine. I have a little cottage rented down on the seashore, and I have had Jean spend several days there already, under another name, of course, and you can go there as Jean’s husband, one who has just returned from a trip East. You will be perfectly safe from detection because all the neighbors know Jean as Mrs. Compton. You will pose as Mr. Compton and adopt any disguise you wish. But, remember; you must not stop and open the luggage compartment until you reach the cottage.

She spilled all that and then suddenly contracted her eyes until the pupils seemed mere slits.

“That may sound unimportant to you, Ed, but you’ve got to play your part letter perfect. There is a lot that depends on your following instructions to the letter. In the meantime I will give you plenty of assurance that I will shoot square with you.”

I sat there, looking at this cat-woman curled up in the chair before the crackling fire, and had all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing right in her face. I’ve seen some wild, farfetched plots, but this had anything cheated I had ever heard of.

“Think how it will add to your reputation,” she went on, the singing, purring note in her soothing tone.

I yawned. “And you can double-cross me and have me arrested ten minutes later, or tip the police off to this little cottage you have reserved for me, and I’ll spend many, many years in jail while you laugh up your sleeve.”

She shook her head. “What earthly reason would I have for wanting to have you arrested? No, Ed, I’ve anticipated that. Tomorrow we go to a notary public and I’ll execute a written confession of my part in the affair. This confession will be placed in safekeeping where it will be delivered to the police in the event you are caught. That will show you how my interests are the same as your own, how I cannot afford to have you captured. This paper will contain my signed statement that I have authorized you to steal the jewels, and my niece will also execute a document stating the kidnapping is with her consent. Think it over, Ed. You will be protected, but I must have that insurance money, and have it in such a way that no one will suspect me.”

I sat with bowed head, thinking over the plan. I had already digested everything she had told me. What I was worrying about was what she hadn’t told me.

I arose and bowed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

She nodded, her green eyes never leaving my face.

“Meet me at the office of Harry Atmore, the lawyer, at eleven and ask for Hattie M. Hare. He will see that you are protected in every way. I guarantee that you won’t have any cause for alarm about my double-crossing you.”

Apparently there was nothing more to be gained by talking with this woman and I left her.

I had ten thousand dollars in my pocket, a cold suspicion in my mind and a determination to find out just what the real game was. I didn’t know just how deep Big Ryan was mixed in this affair — not yet I didn’t, but I proposed to find out. In the meantime I wasn’t taking any chances, and I slipped into my apartment without any brass band to announce my presence.

At first I thought everything was in proper order, and then I noticed something was missing. It was a jade handled, Chinese dagger, one that I had purchased at a curio store not more than a month ago. What was more, the Chinaman who sold it to me had known who I was. That dagger could be identified by the police as readily as my signature or my fingerprints.

I sat down by the window in my easy chair and thought over the events of the evening. I couldn’t see the solution, not entirely, but I was willing to bet the cat-woman wouldn’t have slept easily if she had known how much I was able to put together. Right then I could have dropped the whole thing and been ten thousand dollars ahead; but there was big money in this game that was being played. I couldn’t forget how Big Bill Ryan had twisted and fumbled at his watch chain when he had delivered that note to me. He was a smooth fence, was Big Ryan, and he wouldn’t have let his fat fingers get so excited over a mere thirty or forty thousand dollar job. There was a million in this thing or I missed my guess.

At last I figured I’d checked things out as far as I could with the information I had, and rolled in.

At eleven on the dot I presented myself at the office of Harry Atmore. Atmore was a shyster criminal lawyer who charged big fees, knew when and where to bribe, and got results for his clients. I gave the stenographer my name, told her that I had an appointment, and was shown into the private office of Henry Atmore, attorney-at-law.

Atmore sat at a desk, and his face was a study. He was trying to control his expression, but his face simply would twitch in spite of himself. He held forth a flabby hand, and I noticed that his palm was moist and that his hand trembled. To one side of the table sat the cat-woman and the blonde. Both of them smiled sweetly as I bowed.

Atmore got down to business at once. He passed over two documents for my inspection. One was a simple statement from Hattie M. Hare to the effect that I had been employed by her to steal the Holton, “tear-drop” necklace, and that we were jointly guilty of an attempt to defraud the insurance company. The other was a statement signed by Jean Ellery to the effect that I had arranged with her to kidnap her, but that she gave her consent to the kidnapping, and that it was being done at her request.

I noticed that the Hare statement said nothing about the kidnapping, and the other said nothing about the necklace. I filed those facts away for future reference.

“Now here’s what we’ll do, Jenkins,” Atmore said, his moist hand playing with the corners of some papers which lay on his desk, “we’ll have both of these statements placed in an envelope and deposited with a trust company to be held indefinitely, not to be opened, and not to be withdrawn. That will prevent any of the parties from withdrawing them, but if you should ever be arrested the district attorney, or the grand jury could, of course, subpoena the manager of the trust company and see what is in the envelope. The idea of these statements is not to give you immunity from prosecution, but to show you that Miss Hare is as deep in the mud as you are in the mire. She can’t afford to have you arrested or to even let you get caught. Of course, if you should get arrested on some other matter we’re relying on you to play the game. You’ve never been a squealer, and I feel my clients can trust you.”

I nodded casually. It was plain he was merely speaking a part. His plan had already been worked out.

“I have one suggestion,” I said.

He inclined his head. “Name it.”

“That you call in a notary public and have them acknowledge the confessions.”

The lawyer looked at his client. He was a beady-eyed, sallow-faced rat of a man. His great nose seemed to have drawn his entire face to a point, and his mouth and eyes were pinched accordingly. Also his lip had a tendency to draw back and show discolored, long teeth, protruding in front. He was like a rat, a hungry, cunning rat.

The cat-woman placed her ivory cigarette holder to her vivid lips, inhaled a great drag and then expelled two streams of white smoke from her dilated nostrils. She nodded at the lawyer, and, as she nodded, there was a hard gleam about her eyes.

“Very well,” was all she said, but the purring note had gone from her voice.

Atmore wiped the back of his hand across his perspiring forehead, called in a notary, and, on the strength of his introduction, had the two documents acknowledged. Then he slipped them in one of his envelopes, wrote “Perpetual Escrow” on the back, signed it, daubed sealing wax all over the flap, and motioned to me.

“You can come with me, Jenkins, and see that I put this in the Trust Company downstairs.”

I arose, accompanied the lawyer to the elevator and was whisked down to the office of the Trust Company. We said not a word on the trip. The lawyer walked to the desk of the vice-president, handed him the envelope, and told him what he wanted.

“Keep this envelope as a perpetual escrow. It can be opened by no living party except with an order of court. After ten years you may destroy it. Give this gentleman and myself a duplicate receipt.”

The vice-president looked dubiously at the envelope, weighed it in his hand, sighed, and placed his signature on the envelope, gave it a number with a numbering machine, dictated a duplicate receipt, which he also signed, and took the envelope to the vaults.

“That should satisfy you,” said Atmore, his beady eyes darting over me, the perspiration breaking out on his forehead. “That is all fair and above board.”

I nodded and started toward the door. I could see the relief peeping in the rat-like eyes of the lawyer.

At the door I stopped, turned, and clutched the lawyer by the arm. “Atmore, do you know what happens to people who try to double-cross me?”

He was seized with a fit of trembling, and he impatiently tried to break away.

“You have a reputation for being a square shooter, Jenkins, and for always getting the man who tries to double-cross you.”

I nodded.

There in the marble lobby of that trust company, with people all around us, with a special officer walking slowly back and forth, I handed it to this little shyster.

“All right. You’ve just tried to double-cross me. If you value your life hand me that envelope.”

He shivered again.

“W-w-w-what envelope?”

I gave him no answer, just kept my eyes boring into his, kept his trembling arm in my iron clutch, and kept my face thrust close to his.

He weakened fast. I could see his sallow skin whiten.

“Jenkins, I’m sorry. I told her we couldn’t get away with it. It was her idea, not mine.”

I still said nothing, but kept my eyes on his.

He reached in his pocket and took out the other envelope. My guess had been right. I knew his type. The rat-like cunning of the idea had unquestionably been his, but he didn’t have the necessary nerve to bluff it through. He had prepared two envelopes. One of them had been signed and sealed before my eyes, but in signing and sealing it he had followed the mental pattern of another envelope which had already been signed and sealed and left in his pocket, an envelope which contained nothing but blank sheets of paper. When he put the envelope with the signed confession into his coat pocket he had placed it back of the dummy envelope. The dummy envelope he had withdrawn and deposited in his “perpetual escrow.”

I took the envelope from him, broke the seals, and examined the documents. They were intact, the signed, acknowledged confessions.

I turned back to the shyster.

“Listen, Atmore. There is a big fee in this for you, a fee from the woman, perhaps from someone else. Go back and tell them that you have blundered, that I have obtained possession of the papers and they will expose you, fire you for a blunderer, make you the laughing stock of every criminal rendezvous in the city. If you keep quiet about this no one will ever know the difference. Speak and you ruin your reputation.”

I could see a look of relief flood his face, and I knew he would lie to the cat-woman about those papers.

“Tell Miss Hare I’ll be at the house at nine forty-five on the dot,” I said. “There’s no need of my seeing her again until then.”

With that I climbed into my roadster, drove to the beach and looked over the house the cat-woman had selected for me. She had given me the address as well as the key at our evening interview, just before I said good night. Of course, she expected me to look the place over.

It was a small bungalow, the garage opening on to the sidewalk beneath the first floor. I didn’t go in. Inquiry at a gasoline station showed that the neighbors believed Compton was a traveling salesman, away on a trip, but due to return. The blonde had established herself in the community. So much I found out, and so much the cat-woman had expected me to find out.

Then I started on a line she hadn’t anticipated.

First I rented a furnished apartment, taking the precaution first to slip on a disguise which had always worked well with me, a disguise which made me appear twenty years older.

Second, I went to the county clerk’s office, looked over the register of actions, and found a dozen in which the oil magnate had been a party. There were damage suits, quiet title actions, actions on oil leases, and on options. In all of these actions he had been represented by Morton, Huntley, & Morton. I got the address of the lawyers from the records, put up a good stall with their telephone girl, and found myself closeted with old H. F. Morton, senior member of the firm.

He was a shaggy, grizzled, gray-eyed old campaigner and he had a habit of drumming his fingers on the desk in front of him.

“What was it you wanted, Mr. Jenkins?”

I’d removed my disguise and given him my right name. He may or may not have known my original record. He didn’t mention it.

I shot it to him right between the eyes.

“If I were the lawyer representing Arthur C. Holton I wouldn’t let him marry Miss Hattie Hare.”

He never batted an eyelash. His face was as calm as a baby’s. His eyes didn’t even narrow, but there came a change in the tempo of his drumming on the desk.

“Why?” he asked.

His tone was mild, casual, but his fingers were going rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tummy-tum-tummy-tum-tum.

I shook my head. “I can’t tell you all of it, but she’s in touch with a shyster lawyer planning to cause trouble of some kind.”

“Ah, yes, Mr... er... Jenkins. You are a friend of Mr. Holton?”

I nodded. “He doesn’t know it though.”

“Ah, yes,” rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; “what is it I can do for you in the matter?”

“Help me prevent the marriage.”

Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum.

“How?”

“Give me a little information as a starter. Mr. Holton has a great deal of property?”

At this his eyes did narrow. The drumming stopped.

“This is a law office. Not an information bureau.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Miss Hare will have her own personal attorney. If the marriage should go through and anything should happen to Mr. Holton another attorney would be in charge of the estate.”

He squirmed at that, and then recommenced his drumming.

“Nevertheless, I cannot divulge the confidential affairs of my client. This much is common knowledge. It is street talk, information available to anyone who will take the trouble to look for it. Mr. Holton is a man of great wealth. He owns much property, controls oil producing fields, business property, stocks, bonds. He was married and lost his wife when his child was born. The child was a boy and lived but a few minutes. Mr. Holton created a trust for that child, a trust which terminated with the premature death of the infant. Miss Hare has been connected with him as his secretary and general household executive for several years. Mr. Holton is a man of many enemies, strong character, and few friends. He is hated by the working class, and is hated unjustly, yet he cares nothing for public opinion. He is noted as a collector of jewels and paintings. Of late he has been influenced in many respects by Miss Hare, and has grown very fond of her.

“How do you propose to prevent his marriage, and what do you know of Miss Hare?”

I shook my head.

“I won’t tell you a thing unless you promise to give me all the information I want, and keep me posted.”

His face darkened. “Such a proposition is unthinkable. It is an insult to a reputable attorney.”

I knew it, but I made the stall to keep him from finding out that I had all the information I wanted. I only wanted a general slant on Holton’s affairs, and, most of all, I wanted a chance to size up his attorney, to get acquainted with him so he would know me later.

“Stick an ad in the personal columns of the morning papers if you want to see me about anything,” I said as I made for the door.

He watched me meditatively. Until I had left the long, book-lined corridor, and emerged from the expensive suite of offices, I could still hear his fingers on the desk.

Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tummy-tum-tummy-tum-tum.

I went to a hotel, got a room and went to sleep. I was finished with my regular apartment. That was for the police.

At nine-forty-five I sneaked into the back door of Holton’s house, found one of the extra servants waiting for me, and was shown into a closet near the room where the banquet was taking place. The servant was a crook, but one I couldn’t place. I filed his map away for future reference, and he filed mine.

Ten minutes passed. I heard something that might or might not have been a muffled scream, shuffling footsteps going down the hall. Silence, the ringing of a bell.

I stepped to the door of the banquet room, and flung it wide. Standing there on the threshold I took in the scene of hectic gaiety. Holton and the cat-woman sat at the head of the table. Couples in various stages of intoxication were sprinkled about. Servants stood here and there, obsequious, attentive. A man sat slightly apart, a man who had his eyes riveted on the door of an ante-room. He was the detective from the insurance company.

For a minute I stood there, undiscovered.

The room was a clatter of conversation. The detective half arose, his eyes on the door of the ante-room. Holton saw me, stopped in the middle of a sentence, and looked me over.

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

I handed it out in bunches. “I’m Ed Jenkins, the phantom crook. I’ve got a part of what I want. I’ll come back later for the rest.”

The detective reached for his hip, and I slammed the door and raced down the corridor. Taking the front steps in a flying leap I jumped into the seat of the powerful speedster, noticed the roomy luggage compartment, the running engine, the low, speedy lines, slammed in the gear, slipped in the clutch, and skidded out of the drive as the detective started firing from the window.

I didn’t go direct to the beach house.

On a dark side-road I stopped the car, went back and opened up the luggage compartment and pulled out the bound and gagged girl. She was one I had never seen before, and she was mad. And she was the real Jean Ellery or else I was dumb.

I packed her around, parked her on the running board, took a seat beside her, left on the gag and the cords, and began to talk. Patiently, step by step, I went over the history of the whole case, telling her everything. When I had finished I cut the cords and removed the gag.

“Now either beat it, go ahead and scream, or ask questions, whichever you want,” I told her.

She gave a deep breath, licked her lips, wiped her face with a corner of her party gown, woefully inspected a runner in the expensive stockings, looked at the marks on her wrists where the ropes had bitten, smoothed out her garments and turned to me.

“I think you’re a liar,” she remarked casually.

I grinned.

That’s the way I like ’em. Here this jane had been grabbed, kidnapped, manhandled, jolted, forced to sit on the running board of a car and listen to her kidnapper talk a lot of stuff she naturally wouldn’t believe, and then was given her freedom. Most girls would have fainted. Nearly all of ’em would have screamed and ran when they got loose. Here was a jane who was as cool as a cucumber, who looked over the damage to her clothes, and then called me a liar.

She was a thin slip of a thing, twenty or so, big, hazel eyes, chestnut hair, slender figure, rosebud mouth, bobbed hair and as unattainable as a girl on a magazine cover.

“Read this,” I said, and slipped her the confession of the cat-woman.

She read it in the light of the dash lamp, puckered her forehead a bit, and then handed it back.

“So you are Ed Jenkins— Why should auntie have wanted me kidnapped?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s what I want to know. It’s the one point in the case that isn’t clear. Want to stick around while I find out?”

She thought things over for a minute.

“Am I free to go?”

I nodded.

“Guess I’ll stick around then,” she said as she climbed back into the car, snuggling down next to the driver’s seat. “Let’s go.”

I got in, started the engine, and we went.

A block from the beach house I slowed up.

“The house is ahead. Slip out as we go by this palm tree, hide in the shadows and watch what happens. I have an idea you’ll see some action.”

I slowed down and turned my face toward her, prepared to argue the thing out, but there was no need for argument. She was gathering her skirts about her. As I slowed down she jumped. I drove on to the house, swung the car so it faced the door of the garage and got out.

I had to walk in front of the headlights to fit the key to the door of the garage, and I was a bit nervous. There was an angle of this thing I couldn’t get, and it worried me. I thought something was due to happen. If there hadn’t been so much money involved I’d have skipped out. As it was, I was playing my cards trying to find out what was in the hand of the cat-woman.

I found out.

As though the swinging of the garage door had been a signal, two men jumped out from behind a rosebush and began firing at the luggage compartment of the car.

They had shotguns, repeaters, and they were shooting chilled buckshot at deadly range through the back of that car. Five times they shot, and then they vanished, running like mad.

Windows began to gleam with lights, a woman screamed, a man stuck his head out into the night. Around the corner there came the whine of a starting motor, the purr of an automobile engine, the staccato barks of an exhaust and an automobile whined off into the night.

I backed the speedster, turned it and went back down the street. At the palm tree where I’d left the flapper I slowed down, doubtfully, hardly expecting to see her again.

There was a flutter of white, a flash of slim legs, and there she was sitting on the seat beside me, her eyes wide, lips parted. “Did you get hurt?”

I shook my head and jerked my thumb back in the direction of the luggage compartment.

“Remember, I wasn’t to stop or open that compartment until I got to the beach house,” I said.

She looked back. The metal was riddled with holes, parts of the body had even been ripped into great, jagged tears.

“Your beloved auntie didn’t want you kidnapped. She wanted you murdered. Right now she figures that you’re dead, that I am gazing in shocked surprise at the dead body of a girl I’ve kidnapped, the police on my trail, the neighborhood aroused. Naturally she thinks I’ll have my hands full for a while, and that she won’t be bothered with me any more, either with me or with you.”

The girl nodded.

“I didn’t say so before, but I’ve been afraid of Aunt Hattie for a long time. It’s an awful thing to say about one’s own aunt, but she’s absolutely selfish, selfish and unscrupulous.”

I drove along in silence for a while.

“What are you going to do?” asked the kid.

“Ditch this car, get off the street, hide out for a few days, and find out what it’s all about. Your aunt tried to double-cross me on a deal where there’s something or other at stake. I intend to find out what. She and I will have our accounting later.”

She nodded, her chin on her fist, thinking.

“What are you going to do?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Heaven knows. If I go back I’ll probably be killed. Having gone this far, Aunt Hattie can’t afford to fail. She’ll have me killed if I show up. I guess I’ll have to hide out, too.”

“Hotel?” I asked.

I could feel her eyes on my face, sizing me up, watching me like a hawk.

“I can’t get a room in a hotel at this hour of the night in a party dress.”

I nodded.

“Ed Jenkins, are you a gentleman?”

I shook my head. “Hell’s fire, no. I’m a crook.”

She looked at me and grinned. I could feel my mouth soften a bit.

“Ed, this is no time to stand on formalities. You know as well as I do that I’m in danger. My aunt believes me dead. If I can keep under cover, leaving her under that impression, I’ll stand a chance. I can’t hide out by myself. Either my aunt or the police would locate me in no time. You’re an experienced crook, you know all the dodges, and I think I can trust you. I’m coming with you.”

I turned the wheel of the car.

“All right,” I said. “It’s your best move, but I wanted you to suggest it. Take off those paste diamonds and leave ’em in the car. I’ve got to get rid of this car first, and then we’ll go to my hideout.”

An hour later I showed her into the apartment. I had run the car off the end of a pier. The watchman was asleep and the car had gurgled down into deep water as neatly as a duck. The watchman had heard the splash, but that’s all the good it did him.

The girl looked around the place.

“Neat and cozy,” she said. “I’m trusting you, Ed Jenkins. Good night.”

I grinned.

“Good night,” I said.

I slept late the next morning. I was tired. It was the girl who called me.

“Breakfast’s ready,” she said.

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes.

“Breakfast?”

She grinned.

“Yep. I slipped down to the store, bought some fruit and things, and brought you the morning papers.”

I laughed outright. Here I had kidnapped a girl and now she was cooking me breakfast. She laughed, too.

“You see, I’m about broke, and I can’t go around in a party dress. I’ve got to touch you for enough money to buy some clothes, and it’s always easier to get money out of a man when he’s well-fed. Aunt Hattie told me that.”

“You’ve got to be careful about showing yourself, too,” I warned her. “Some one is likely to recognize you.”

She nodded and handed me the morning paper.

All over the front page were smeared our pictures, hers and mine. Holton had offered a reward of twenty thousand dollars for my arrest. The insurance company had added another five.

Without that, I knew the police would be hot on the trail. Their reputation was at stake. They’d leave no stone unturned. Having the girl with me was my best bet. They’d be looking for me alone, or with a girl who was being held a prisoner. They’d hardly expect to find me in a downtown apartment with the girl cooking me breakfast.

I handed Jean a five-hundred-dollar bill.

“Go get yourself some clothes. Get quiet ones, but ones that are in style. I’m disguising myself as your father. You look young and chic, wear ’em short, and paint up a bit. Don’t wait, but get started as soon as we eat.”

She dropped a curtsey.

“You’re so good to me, Ed,” she said, but there was a wistful note in her voice, and she blinked her eyes rapidly. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, either,” she added. “You don’t have to put up with me, and you’re being a real gentleman...”

That was that.

I was a little nervous until the girl got back from her shopping. I was afraid some one would spot her. She bought a suit and changed into that right at the jump, then got the rest of her things. She put in the day with needle and thread, and I did some thinking, also I coached the girl as to her part. By late afternoon we were able to buy an automobile without having anything suggest that I was other than an elderly, fond parent and the girl a helter-skelter flapper.

“Tonight you get educated as a crook,” I told her.

“Jake with me, Ed,” she replied, flashing me a smile. Whatever her thoughts may have been she seemed to have determined to be a good sport, a regular pal, and never let me see her as other than cheerful.

We slid our new car around where we could watch Big Bill Ryan’s place. He ran a little café where crooks frequently hung out, and he couldn’t take a chance on my having a spotter in the place. One thing was certain. If he was really behind the play he intended to have me caught and executed for murder. He knew me too well to think he could play button, button, who’s got the button with me and get away with it.

We waited until eleven, parked in the car I’d purchased, watching the door of the café and Big Ryan’s car. It was crude but effective. Ryan and the cat-woman both thought I had been left with the murdered body of Jean Ellery in my car, a car which had to be got rid of, a body which had to be concealed, and with all the police in the state on my track. They hardly expected I’d put in the evening watching Big Ryan with the kid leaning on my shoulder.

At eleven Ryan started out, and his face was all smiles. He tried to avoid being followed, but the car I’d purchased had all sorts of speed, and I had no trouble in the traffic. After that I turned out the lights and tailed him into West Forty-ninth Street. I got the number of the house as he stopped, flashed past once to size it up and then kept moving.

“Here’s where you get a real thrill,” I told the girl as I headed the car back toward town. “I’ve a hunch Harry Atmore’s mixed up in this thing as a sort of cat’s-paw all around, and I want to see what’s in his office.”

We stopped a block away from Atmore’s office building. I was a fatherly-looking old bird with mutton chop whiskers and a cane.

“Ever done any burglarizing?” I asked as I clumped my way along the sidewalk.

She shook her head.

“Here’s where you begin,” I said, piloted her into the office building, avoided the elevator, and began the long, tedious climb.

Atmore’s lock was simple, any door lock is, for that matter. I had expected I’d have to go take a look through the files. It wasn’t necessary. From the odor of cigar smoke in the office there’d been a late conference there. I almost fancied I could smell the incense-like perfume of the cat-woman and the aroma of her cigarettes. Tobacco smoke is peculiar. I can tell just about how fresh it is when I smell a room that’s strong with it. This was a fresh odor. On the desk was a proof of loss of the necklace, and a memo to call a certain number. I looked up the number in the telephone book. It was the number of the insurance company. That’s how I found it, simply looked up the insurance companies in the classified list and ran down the numbers.

The insurance money would be paid in the morning.

That house on West Forty-ninth Street was mixed up in the thing somehow. It was a new lead, and I drove the kid back to the apartment and turned in. The situation wasn’t ripe as yet.

Next morning I heard her stirring around, getting breakfast. Of course it simplified matters to eat in the apartment; but if the girl was going to work on the case with me she shouldn’t do all the housework. I started to tell her so, rolled over, and grabbed another sleep. It was delicious lying there, stretching out in the warm bed, and hearing the cheery rattle of plates, knives and forks, cups and spoons. I had been a lone wolf so long, an outcast of society, that I thrilled with a delicious sense of intimacy at the idea of having Jean Ellery puttering around in my kitchen. Almost I felt like the father I posed as.

I got up, bathed, shaved, put on my disguise and walked out into the kitchen. The girl was gone. My breakfast was on the table, fruit, cream, toast in the toaster, coffee in the percolator, all ready to press a button and eat. The morning paper was even propped up by my plate.

I switched on the electricity, and wondered about the girl. Anxiously I listened for her step in the apartment. She was company, and I liked her. The kid didn’t say much, but she had a sense of humor, a ready dimple, a twinkle in her eyes, and was mighty easy to look at.

She came in as I was finishing my coffee.

“Hello, Ed. I’m the early bird this morning, and I’ve caught the worm. That house out on Forty-ninth Street is occupied by old Doctor Drake. He’s an old fellow who used to be in San Francisco, had a breakdown, retired, came here, lost his money, was poor as could be until three months ago, and then he suddenly blossomed out with ready money. He’s retiring, crabbed, irascible, keeps to himself, has no practice and few visitors.”

I looked her over, a little five-foot-three flapper, slim, active, graceful, but looking as though she had nothing under her chic hat except a hair bob.

“How did you know I wanted to find out about that bird; and how did you get the information?”

She ignored the first question, just passed it off with a wave of the hand.

“The information was easy. I grabbed some packages of face powder, went out in the neighborhood and posed as a demonstrator representing the factory, giving away free samples, and lecturing on the care of the complexion. I even know the neighborhood gossip, all the scandals, and the love affairs of everyone in the block. Give me some of that coffee, Ed. It smells good.”

I grinned proudly at her. The kid was there. It would have been a hard job for me to get that information. She used her noodle. A doctor, eh? Big Ryan had gone to see him when he knew he would have the insurance money. The aunt wanted the girl killed. The engagement had been announced. Then there was the matter of my jade-handled dagger. Those things all began to mill around in my mind. They didn’t fit together exactly, but they all pointed in one direction, and that direction made my eyes open a bit wider and my forehead pucker. The game was drawing to the point where I would get into action and see what could be done along the line of checkmating the cat-woman.

A thought flashed through my mind. “Say, Jean, it’s going to be a bit tough on you when it comes time to go back. What’ll you tell people, that you were kidnapped and held in a cave or some place? And they’ll have the police checking up on your story, you know?”

She laughed a bit and then her mouth tightened. “If you had been one of the soft-boiled kind that figured you should have married me or some such nonsense I wouldn’t have stayed. It was only because you took me in on terms of equality that I remained. You take care of your problems and I’ll take care of mine; and we’ll both have plenty.”

“That being the case, Jean,” I told her, “I’m going to stage a robbery and a burglary tonight. Are you coming?”

She grinned at me.

“Miss Jean Ellery announces that it gives her pleasure to accept the invitation of Ed Jenkins to a holdup and burglary. When do we start?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Some time after eight or nine. It depends. In the meantime we get some sleep. It’s going to be a big night.”

With that I devoted my attention to the paper. After all, the kid was right. I could mind my own business and she could mind hers. She knew what she was doing. Hang it, though, it felt nice to have a little home to settle back in, one where I could read the papers while the girl cleaned off the table, humming a little song all the while. All the company I’d ever had before had been a dog, and he was in the hospital recovering from the effects of our last adventure. I was getting old, getting to the point where I wanted company, someone to talk to, to be with.

I shrugged my shoulders and got interested in what I was reading. The police were being panned right. My reputation of being a phantom crook was being rubbed in. Apparently I could disappear, taking an attractive girl and a valuable necklace with me, and the police were absolutely powerless.

Along about dark I parked my car out near Forty-ninth Street. I hadn’t much that was definite to go on, but I was playing a pretty good hunch. I knew Big Ryan’s car, and I knew the route he took in going to the house of Dr. Drake. I figured he’d got the insurance money some time during the day. Also I doped it out that the trips to the house of Dr. Drake were made after dark. It was pretty slim evidence to work out a plan of campaign on, but, on the other hand, I had nothing to lose.

We waited there two hours before we got action, and then it came, right according to schedule. Big Bill Ryan’s car came under the street light, slowed for the bad break that was in the gutter at that point, and then Big Ryan bent forward to shift gears as he pulled out of the hole. It was a bad spot in the road and Bill knew it was there. He’d driven over it just the same way the night I’d followed him.

When he straightened up from the gearshift he was looking down the business end of a wicked pistol. I don’t ordinarily carry ’em, preferring to use my wits instead, but this job I wanted to look like the job of somebody else anyway, and the pistol came in handy.

Of course, I was wearing a mask.

There wasn’t any need for argument. The gun was there. Big Bill Ryan’s fat face was there, and there wasn’t three inches between ’em. Big Bill kicked out the clutch and jammed on the brake.

There was a puzzled look on his face as he peered at me. The big fence knew every crook in the game, and he probably wondered who had the nerve to pull the job. It just occurred to me that he looked too much interested and not enough scared, when I saw what I’d walked into. Big Bill had the car stopped dead before he sprung his trap. That was so I couldn’t drop off into the darkness. He wanted me.

The back of the car, which had been in shadow, seemed to move, to become alive. From beneath a robe which had been thrown over the seat and floor there appeared a couple of arms, the glint of the street light on metal arrested my eye; and it was too late to do anything, even if I could have gotten away with it.

There were two gunmen concealed in the back of that car. Big Bill Ryan ostensibly was driving alone. As a matter of fact he had a choice bodyguard. Those two guns were the best shots in crookdom, and they obeyed orders.

Big Bill spoke pleasantly.

“I hadn’t exactly expected this, Jenkins, but I was prepared for it. You see I credit you with a lot of brains. How you found out about the case, and how you learned enough to intercept me on this little trip is more than I know. However, I’ve always figured you were the most dangerous man in the world, and I didn’t take any chances.

“You’re a smart man, Jenkins; but you’re running up against a stone wall. I’m glad this happened when there was a reward out for you in California. It’ll be very pleasant to surrender you to the police, thereby cementing my pleasant relations and also getting a cut out of the reward money. Come, come, get in and sit down. Grab his arms, boys.”

Revolvers were thrust under my nose. Grinning faces leered at me. Grimy hands stretched forth and grabbed my shoulders. The car lurched forward and sped away into the night, headed toward the police station. In such manner had Ed Jenkins been captured by a small-time crook and a couple of guns. I could feel myself blush with shame. What was more, there didn’t seem to be any way out of it. The guns were awaiting orders, holding fast to me, pulling me over the door. Ryan was speeding up. If I could break away I’d be shot before I could get off of the car, dead before my feet hit ground. If I stayed where I was I’d be in the police station in ten minutes, in a cell in eleven, and five minutes later the reporters would be interviewing me, and the papers would be grinding out extras.

It’s the simple things that are hard to beat. This thing was so blamed simple, so childish almost, and yet, there I was.

We flashed past an intersection, swung to avoid the lights of another car that skidded around the corner with screeching tires, and then we seemed to be rocking back and forth, whizzing through the air. It was as pretty a piece of driving as I have ever seen. Jean Ellery had come around the paved corner at full speed, skidding, slipping, right on the tail of the other machine, had swung in sideways, hit the rear bumper and forced Ryan’s car around and over, into the curb, and then she had sped on her way, uninjured. Ryan’s car had crumpled a front wheel against the curb, and we were all sailing through the air.

Personally, I lit on my feet and kept going. I don’t think anyone was hurt much, although Ryan seemed to make a nosedive through the windshield, and the two guns slammed forward against the back of the front seat and then pitched out. Being on the running board, I had just taken a little loop-the-loop through the atmosphere, gone into a tail spin, and pancaked to the earth.

The kid was there a million. If she had come up behind on a straight stretch there would have been lots of action. Ryan would have spotted her, and the guns would have gone into action. She’d either have been captured with me, or we’d both have been shot. By slamming into us from around a corner, however, she’d played her cards perfectly. It had been damned clever driving. What was more it had been clever headwork. She’d seen what had happened when I stuck the gun into Ryan’s face, had started my car, doubled around the block, figured our speed to a nicety, and slammed down the cross street in the nick of time.

These things I thought over as I sprinted around a house, through a backyard, into an alley, and into another backyard. The kid had gone sailing off down the street, and I had a pretty strong hunch she had headed for the apartment. She’d done her stuff, and the rest was up to me.

Hang it! My disguise was in my car, and here I was, out in the night, my face covered by a mask, a gun in my pocket, and a reward out for me, with every cop in town scanning every face that passed him on the street. Oh well, it was all in a lifetime and I had work to do. I’d liked to have handled Bill Ryan; seeing I couldn’t get him, I had to play the next best bet, Dr. Drake.

His house wasn’t far, and I made it in quick time. I was working against time.

I took off my mask, walked boldly up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

There was the sound of shuffling feet, and then a seamed, sallow face peered out at me. The door opened a bit, and two glittering, beady eyes bored into mine.

“What d’yuh want?”

I figured him for Doctor Drake. He was pretty well along in years, and his eyes and forehead showed some indications of education. There was a glittering cupidity about the face, a cunning selfishness that seemed to be the keynote of his character.

“I’m bringing the money.”

His head thrust a trifle farther forward and his eyes bored into mine.

“What money?”

“From Bill Ryan.”

“But Mr. Ryan said he would be here himself.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

I had made my play and the more I kept silent the better it would be. I knew virtually nothing about this end of the game. He knew everything. It would be better for me to let him convince himself than to rush in and ruin it trying to talk too much of detail.

At length the door came cautiously open.

“Come in.”

He led the way into a sort of office. The furniture was apparently left over from some office or other, and it was good stuff, massive mahogany, dark with years; old-fashioned bookcases; chairs that were almost antiques; obsolete text books, all of the what-nots that were the odds and ends of an old physician’s office.

Over all lay a coating of gritty dust.

“Be seated,” said the old man, shuffling across to the swivel chair before the desk. I could see that he was breaking fast, this old man. His forehead and eyes retained much of strength, indicated some vitality. His mouth was sagging, weak. Below his neck he seemed to have decayed, the loose, flabby muscles seemed incapable of functioning. His feet could hardly be lifted from the floor. His shoulders lurched forward, and his spine curved into a great hump. Dandruff sprinkled over his coat, an affair that had once been blue serge and which was now spotted with egg, grease, syrup, and stains.

“Where is the money?”

I smiled wisely, reached into an inner pocket, half pulled out a wallet, then leered at him after the fashion of a cheap crook, one of the smart-aleck, cunning kind.

“Let’s see the stuff first.”

He hesitated, then heaved out of his chair and approached a bookcase. Before the door he suddenly stiffened with suspicion. He turned, his feverish eyes glittering wildly in the feeble light of the small incandescent with which the room was redly illuminated.

“Spread out the money on the table.”

I laughed.

“Say, bo, the coin’s here, all right; but if you want to see the long green you gotta produce.”

He hesitated a bit, and then the telephone rang, a jangling, imperative clamor. He shuffled back to the desk, picked up the receiver in a gnarled, knotty hand, swept back the unkempt hair which hung over his ear, and listened.

As he listened I could see the back straighten, the shoulders straighten. A hand came stealing up the inside of the coat.

Because I knew what to expect I wasn’t surprised. He bent forward, muttered something, hung up the receiver, spun about and thrust forward an ugly pistol, straight at the chair in which I had been sitting. If ever there was desperation and murder stamped on a criminal face it was on his.

The only thing that was wrong with his plans was that I had silently shifted my position. When he swung that gun around he pointed it where I had been, but wasn’t. The next minute I had his neck in a stranglehold, had the gun, and had him all laid out for trussing. Linen bandage was available, and it always makes a nice rope for tying people up with. I gagged him on general principles and then I began to go through that bookcase.

In a book on interior medicine that was written when appendicitis was classified as fatal inflammation of the intestines, I found a document, yellow with age. It was dated in 1904 but it had evidently been in the sunlight some, and had seen much had usage. The ink was slightly faded, and there were marks of old folds, dog-eared corners, little tears. Apparently the paper had batted around in a drawer for a while, had perhaps been rescued at one time or another from a wastebasket, and, on the whole, it was genuine as far as date was concerned. It couldn’t have had all that hard usage in less than twenty-two years.

There was no time then to stop and look at it. I took out my wallet, dropped it in there, and then went back to the bookcase, turning the books upside down, shaking them, fluttering the leaves, wondering if there was something else.

I was working against time and knew it. Big Bill Ryan wouldn’t dare notify the police. He wouldn’t want to have me arrested at the home of Doctor Drake; but he would lose no time in getting the house surrounded by a bunch of gunmen of his own choosing, of capturing me as I sought to escape the house, and then taking me to police headquarters.

It was a matter of seconds. I could read that paper any time; but I could only go through that bookcase when I was there, and it looked as though I wouldn’t be in that house again, not for some time. At that I didn’t have time to complete the search. I hadn’t covered more than half of the books when I heard running steps on the walk, and feet came pounding up the steps.

As a crook my cue was to make for the back door, to plunge out into the night, intent on escape. That would run me into the guns of a picked reception committee that was waiting in the rear. I knew Big Ryan, knew that the hurrying impatience of those steps on the front porch was merely a trap. I was in a house that was surrounded. The automobile with engine running out in front was all a part of the stall. Ryan had probably stopped his machine half a block away, let out his men, given them a chance to surround the house, and then he had driven up, stopped the car with the engine running and dashed up the steps. If Dr. Drake had me covered all right; if I had managed to overpower the old man, I would break and run for the rear.

All of these things flashed through my mind in an instant. I was in my element again. Standing there before the rifled bookcase, in imminent danger, I was as cool as a cake of ice, and I didn’t waste a second.

The door of the bookcase I slammed shut. The books were in order on the shelves. As for myself, I did the unexpected. It is the only safe rule.

Instead of sneaking out the back door, I reached the front door in one jump, threw it open and plunged my fist into the bruised, bleeding countenance of Big Bill Ryan. That automobile windshield hadn’t used him too kindly, and he was badly shaken. My maneuver took him by surprise. For a split fraction of a second I saw him standing like a statue. The next instant my fist had crashed home.

From the side of the house a revolver spat. There was a shout, a running of dark figures, and I was off. Leaping into the driver’s seat of the empty automobile, I had slammed in the gears, shot the clutch, stepped on the throttle and was away.

I chuckled as I heard the chorus of excited shouts behind, the futile rattle of pistol shots. There would be some explaining for Big Bill Ryan to do. In the meantime I was headed for the apartment. I was going to decorate Jean Ellery with a medal, a medal for being the best assistant a crook ever had.

I left the car a couple of blocks from the apartment and walked rapidly down the street. I didn’t want the police to locate the stolen car too near my apartment, and yet I didn’t dare to go too far without my disguise. The walk of two blocks to my apartment was risky.

My own machine, the one in which Jean had made the rescue, was parked outside. I looked it over with a grin. She was some driver. The front bumper and license plate had been torn off, and the paint on the radiator was scratched a bit, but that was all.

I worried a bit about that license number. I’d bought that car as the old man with the flapper daughter, and I had it registered in the name I had taken, the address as the apartment where Jean and I lived. Losing that license number was something to worry about.

I made record time getting to the door of the apartment, fitting the latchkey and stepping inside. The place was dark, and I pressed the light switch, then jumped back, ready for anything. The room was empty. On the floor was a torn article of clothing. A shoe was laying on its side over near the other door. A rug was rumpled, a chair overturned. In the other room there was confusion. A waist had been ripped to ribbons and was lying by another shoe. The waist was one that Jean had been wearing. The shoes were hers.

I took a quick glance around, making sure the apartment was empty, and then I got into action. Foot by foot I covered that floor looking for something that would be a clue, some little thing that would tell me of the persons who had done the job. Big Bill had acted mighty quick if he had been the one. If it had been the police, why the struggle? If it was a trap, why didn’t they spring it?

There was no clue. Whoever it was had been careful to leave nothing behind. I had only a limited amount of time, and I knew it. Once more I was working against time, beset by adverse circumstances, fighting overwhelming odds.

I made a run for the elevator, got to the ground floor, rushed across the street, into the little car Jean had driven, and, as I stepped on the starter and switched on the lights, there came the wail of a siren, the bark of an exhaust, and a police car came skidding around the corner and slid to a stop before the apartment house.

As for me, I was on my way.

Mentally I ran over the characters in the drama that had been played about me, and I picked on Harry Atmore. The little, weak, clever attorney with his cunning dodges, his rat-like mind, his cowering spirit was my meat. He was the weak point in the defense, the weak link in the chain.

I stopped at a telephone booth in a drug store. A plastered-haired sheik was at the telephone fixing up a couple of heavy dates for a wild night. I had to wait while he handed out what was meant to be a wicked line. Finally he hung up the receiver and sauntered toward his car, smirking his self-satisfaction. I grabbed the instrument and placed the warm receiver to my ear.

Atmore wasn’t at the house. His wife said I’d find him at the office. I didn’t call the office. It would suit me better to walk in unannounced if I could get him by himself. I climbed into my machine and was on my way.

I tried the door of Atmore’s office and found it was open. There was a light in the reception room. Turning, I pulled the catch on the spring lock, slammed the door and turned out the light. Then I walked into the private office.

There must have been that on my face which showed that I was on a mission which boded no good to the crooked shyster, an intentness of purpose which was apparent. He gave me one look, and then shrivelled down in his chair, cowering, his rat-like nose twitching, his yellow teeth showing.

I folded my arms and glared at him.

“Where’s the girl?”

He lowered his gaze and shrugged his shoulders.

I advanced. Right then I was in no mood to put up with evasions. Something seemed to tell me that the girl was in danger, that every second counted, and I had no time to waste on polite formalities. That girl had grown to mean something to me. She had fitted in, uncomplaining, happy, willing, and she had saved me when I had walked into a trap there with Big Bill Ryan. As long as I was able to help that girl she could count on me. There had never been much said, but we understood each other, Jean Ellery and I. She had played the game with me, and I would play it with her.

“Atmore,” I said, pausing impressively between the words, “I want to know where that girl is, and I mean to find out.”

He ducked his hand, and I sprang, wrenched his shoulder, pulled him backward, crashed a chair to the floor, struck the gun up, kicked his wrist, smashed my fist in his face and sprawled him on the floor. He didn’t get up. I was standing over him, and he crawled and cringed like a whipped cur.

“Miss Hare has her. Bill Ryan got her located through the number on a machine, and Hattie Hare went after her. She is a devil, that woman. She has the girl back at the Holton house.”

I looked at his writhing face for a moment trying to determine if he was lying. I thought not. Big Ryan had undoubtedly traced that license number. That was but the work of a few minutes on the telephone with the proper party. He couldn’t have gone after the girl himself because he had been at Dr. Drake’s too soon afterward. On the other hand, he had gone to a public telephone because he had undoubtedly telephoned Dr. Drake and told him of his accident, probably warned him against me. From what the doctor had said, Ryan knew I was there, and he had dropped everything to come after me. What more natural than that he should have telephoned the cat-woman to go and get the girl.

I turned and strode toward the door.

“Listen, you rat,” I snapped. “If you have lied to me, you’ll die!”

His eyes rolled a bit, his mouth twitched, but he said nothing. I ran into the dark outer office, threw open the door, snapped the lock back on the entrance door, banged it and raced to the elevator. Then I turned and softly retraced my steps, slipped into the dark outer office, and tiptoed to the door of the private office. By opening it a crack I could see the lawyer huddled at his desk, frantically clicking the hook on the telephone.

In a minute he got central, snapped a number, waited and then gave his message in five words. “He’s on his way out,” he said, and hung up.

I only needed one guess. He was talking to the cat-woman. They had prepared a trap, had baited it with the girl, and were waiting for me to walk into it.

I went back into the hall, slipped down the elevator, went to my car and stepped on the starter. As I went I thought. Time was precious. Long years of being on my own resources had taught me to speed up my thinking processes. For years I had been a lone wolf, had earned the name of being the phantom crook, one who could slip through the fingers of the police. Then there had been a welcome vacation while I enjoyed immunity in California, but now all that was past. I was my own man, back in the thick of things. I had accomplished everything I had done previously by thinking fast, reaching quick decisions, and putting those decisions into instant execution. This night I made up my mind I would walk into the trap and steal the bait; whether I could walk out again depended upon my abilities. I would be matching my wits against those of the cat-woman, and she was no mean antagonist. Witness the manner in which she had learned that the girl had not been murdered, that I had convinced the girl of the woman’s duplicity, had taken her in as a partner, the manner in which the cat-woman had known she could reach me through the girl, that I would pick on Atmore as being the weak link in the chain.

I stopped at a drug store long enough to read the paper I had taken from the book at Dr. Drake’s house, and to telephone. I wanted to know all the cards I held in my hand before I called for a showdown.

The document was a strange one. It was nothing more nor less than a consent that the doctor should take an unborn baby and do with it as he wished. It was signed by the expectant mother. Apparently it was merely one of thousands of such documents which find their way into the hands of doctors. Yet I was certain it represented an important link in a strong chain. Upon the back of the document were three signatures. One of them was the signature of Hattie M. Hare. There were addresses, too, also telephone numbers. Beneath the three signatures were the words “nurses and witnesses.”

I consulted the directory, got the number of H. F. Morton, and got him out of bed.

“This is Mr. Holton,” I husked into the telephone. “Come to my house at once.”

With the words I banged the receiver against the telephone a couple of times and hung up. Then I sprinted into the street, climbed into the machine, and was off.

I had no time to waste, and yet I was afraid the trap would be sprung before I could get the bait. It was late and a ring at the doorbell would have been a telltale sign. I parked the machine a block away, hit the backyards and approached the gloomy mass of shadows which marked the home of Arthur C. Holton, the oil magnate. I was in danger and knew it, knew also that the danger was becoming more imminent every minute.

I picked a pantry window. Some of the others looked more inviting, but I picked one which I would hardly have been expected to have chosen. There had already been a few minutes’ delay. Seconds were precious. I knew the house well enough to take it almost at a run. When I have once been inside a place I can generally dope out the plan of the floors, and I always remember those plans.

In the front room there was just the flicker of a fire in the big fireplace. Above the tiles there glowed two spots of fire. I had been right in my surmise about the painting of the cat’s head. The eyes had been tinted with luminous paint.

In the darkness there came a faint, dull, “click.” It was a sound such as is made by a telephone bell when it gives merely the jump of an electrical contact, a sound which comes when a receiver has been removed from an extension line. With the sound I had out my flashlight and was searching for the telephone. If anyone was using an extension telephone in another part of the house I wanted to hear what was being said.

It took me a few seconds to locate the instrument, and then I slipped over to it and eased the receiver from the hook. It was the cat-woman who was talking:

“Yes, Arthur C. Holton’s residence, and come right away. You know he threatened to return. Yes, I know it’s Ed Jenkins. I tell you I saw his face. Yes, the phantom crook. Send two cars and come at once.”

There was a muttered assent from the cop at the other end of the line, and then the click of two receivers. Mine made a third.

So that was the game, was it? In some way she had known when I entered the place. I fully credited those luminous, cat-eyes of hers with being able to see in the dark. She had laid a trap for me, baited it with the girl, and now she had summoned the police. Oh well, I had been in worse difficulties before.

I took the carpeted stairway on the balls of my feet, taking the stairs two at a time. There was a long corridor above from which there opened numerous bedrooms. I saw a flutter of pink at one end of the hall, a mere flash of woman’s draperies. I made for that point, and I went at top speed. If my surmise was correct I had no time to spare, not so much as the tick of a watch.

The door was closed and I flung it open, standing not upon ceremony or formalities. I was racing with death.

Within the room was a dull light, a reflected, diffused light which came from the corridor, around a corner, against the half-open door, and into the room. There was a bed and a white figure was stretched upon the bed, a figure which was struggling in the first panic of a sudden awakening. When I had flung the door open it had crashed against the wall, rebounded so that it was half closed, and then remained shivering on its hinges, catching and reflecting the light from the hall.

In that semi-darkness the cat-woman showed as a flutter of flowing silk. She moved with the darting quickness of a cat springing on its prey. She had turned her head as I crashed into the room, and her eyes, catching the light from the hall, glowed a pale, baleful green, a green of hate, of tigerish intensity of rage.

Quick as she was, I was quicker. As the light caught the flicker of cold steel I flung her to one side, slammed her against the wall. She was thin, lithe, supple, but the warm flesh of her which met my hands through the thin veil of sheer silk was as hard as wire springs. She recoiled from the wall, poised lightly on her feet, gave me a flicker of the light from those cat-eyes once more, and then fluttered from the room, her silks flapping in the breeze of her progress. Two hands shot from the bed and grasped me by the shoulders, great, hairy hands with clutching fingers.

“Jenkins! Ed Jenkins!” exclaimed a voice.

I shook him off and raced for the door. From the street below came the sound of sliding tires, the noise of feet hurrying on cement, pounding on gravel. Someone dashed up the front steps and pounded on the door, rang frantically at the bell. The police had arrived, excited police who bungled the job of surrounding the house.

There was yet time. I had been in tighter pinches. I could take the back stairs, shoot from the back door and try the alley. There would probably be the flash of firearms, the whine of lead through the night air, but there would also be the element of surprise, the stupidity of the police, the flat-footed slowness of getting into action. I had experienced it all before.

In one leap I made the back stairs and started to rush down. The front door flew open and there came the shrill note of a police whistle. I gathered my muscles for the next flying leap, and then stopped, caught almost in midair.

I had thought of the girl!

Everything that had happened had fitted in with my theory of the case, and in that split fraction of a second I knew I was right. Some flash of inner intuition, some telepathic insight converted a working hypothesis, a bare theory, into an absolute certainty. In that instant I knew the motive of the cat-woman, knew the reason she had rushed from that other room. Jean Ellery had been used by her to bait the trap for Ed Jenkins, but she had had another use, had served another purpose. She was diabolically clever, that cat-woman, and Jean Ellery was to die.

I thought of the girl, of her charm, her ready acceptance of life as the working partner of a crook, and I paused in mid flight, turned a rapid flip almost in the air and was running madly down the corridor, toward the police.

There are times when the mind speeds up and thoughts become flashes of instantaneous conceptions, when one lives ages in the space of seconds. All of the thoughts which had pieced together the real solution of the mystery, the explanation of the actions of the cat-woman had come to me while I was poised, balanced for a leap on the stairs. My decision to return had been automatic, instantaneous. I could not leave Jean Ellery in danger.

The door into which the cat-woman had plunged was slightly ajar. Through it could be seen the gleam of light, a flicker of motion. I was almost too late as I hurtled through that door, my outstretched arm sweeping the descending hand of the cat-woman to one side.

Upon the bed, bound, gagged, her helpless eyes staring into the infuriated face of the cat-woman, facing death with calm courage, watching the descent of the knife itself, was the form of Jean Ellery. My hand had caught the downthrust of the knife just in time.

The cat-woman staggered back, spitting vile oaths, lips curling, eyes flashing, her words sounding like the explosive spats of an angry cat. The knife had clattered to the floor and lay at my very feet. The green-handled dagger, the jade-hilted knife which had been taken from my apartment. At that instant a shadow blotted the light from the hallway and a voice shouted:

“Hands up, Ed Jenkins!”

The cat-woman gave an exclamation of relief.

“Thank God, officer, you came in the nick of time!”

There was the shuffling of many feet; peering faces, gleaming sheilds, glinting pistols, and I found myself grabbed by many hands, handcuffs snapped about my wrists, cold steel revolvers thrust against my neck. I was pushed, jostled, slammed, pulled, dragged down the stairs and into the library.

The cat-woman followed, cajoling the officers, commenting on their bravery, their efficiency, spitting epithets at me.

And then H. F. Morton walked into the open door, took in the situation with one glance of his steely eyes, deposited his hat and gloves on a chair, walked to the great table, took a seat behind it and peered over the tops of his glasses at the officers, at the cat-woman, at myself.

The policemen jostled me toward the open front door.

The lawyer held up a restraining hand.

“Just a minute,” he said, and there was that in the booming authority of the voice which held the men, stopped them in mid-action.

“What is this?” he asked, and, with the words, dropped his hands to the table and began to drum regularly, rhythmically, “rummpy-tum-tum; rummpy-tum-tum; rummpy-tum-tumpty-tum-tumpty-tum-tum.”

“Aw g’wan,” muttered one of the officers as he pulled me forward.

“Shut up, you fool. He’s the mayor’s personal attorney!” whispered another, his hands dragging me back, holding me against those who would have taken me from the house.

The word ran through the group like wildfire. There were the hoarse sibilants of many whispers, and then attentive silence.

“ ’Tis Ed Jenkins, sor,” remarked one of the policemen, one who seemed to be in charge of the squad. “The Phantom Crook, sor, caught in this house from which he kidnapped the girl an’ stole the necklace, an’ ’twas murder he was after tryin’ to commit this time.”

The lawyer’s gray eyes rested on my face.

“If you want to talk, Jenkins, talk now.”

I nodded.

“The girl, Jean Ellery. She is the daughter of Arthur C. Holton.”

The fingers stopped their drumming and gripped the table.

“What?”

I nodded. “It was supposed that his child was a boy, a boy who died shortly after birth. As a matter of fact, the child was a girl, a girl who lived, who is known as Jean Ellery. A crooked doctor stood for the substitution, being paid a cash fee. A nurse originated the scheme, Miss Hattie M. Hare. The boy could never be traced. His future was placed in the doctor’s hands before birth and when coincidence played into the hands of this nurse she used all her unscrupulous knowledge, all her cunning. The girl was to be brought up to look upon the nurse as her aunt, her only living relative. At the proper time the whole thing was to be exposed, but the doctor was to be the one who was to take the blame. Hattie M. Hare was to have her connection with the scheme kept secret.

“But the doctor found out the scheme to make him the goat. He had in his possession a paper signed by the nurse, a paper which would have foiled the whole plan. He used this paper as a basis for regular blackmail.

“It was intended to get this paper, to bring out the girl as the real heir, to have her participate in a trust fund which had been declared for the child of Arthur C. Holton, to have her inherit all the vast fortune of the oil magnate; — and to remember her aunt Hattie M. Hare as one of her close and dear relatives, to have her pay handsomely for the so-called detectives and lawyers who were to ‘unearth’ the fraud, to restore her to her place, to her estate.

“And then there came another development, Arthur C. Holton became infatuated with the arch-conspirator, Hattie M. Hare. He proposed marriage, allowed himself to be prevailed upon to make a will in her favor, to make a policy of life insurance to her.

“The girl ceased to be an asset, but became a menace. She must be removed. Also Arthur C. Holton must die that Miss Hattie M. Hare might succeed in his estate without delay. But there was a stumbling block, the paper which was signed by Hattie M. Hare, the paper which might be connected with the substitution of children, which would brand her as a criminal, which would be fatal if used in connection with the testimony of the doctor.

“Doctor Drake demanded money for his silence and for that paper. He demanded his money in cash, in a large sum. The woman, working with fiendish cunning, decided to use me as a cat’s-paw to raise the money and to also eliminate the girl from her path as well as to apparently murder the man who stood between her and his wealth. I was to be enveigled into apparently stealing a necklace worth much money, a necklace which was to be insured, and the insurance payable to Miss Hare; I was to be tricked into kidnapping a girl who would be murdered; I was to be persuaded to make threats against Mr. Holton, and then I was to become the apparent murderer of the oil magnate. My dagger was to be found sticking in his breast. In such manner would Miss Hare bring about the death of the man who had made her the beneficiary under his will, buy the silence of the doctor who knew her for a criminal, remove the only heir of the blood, and make me stand all the blame, finally delivering me into the hands of the law.

“There is proof. I have the signed statement in my pocket. Doctor Drake will talk. Harry Atmore will confess... There she goes. Stop her!”

The cat-woman had seen that her play was ended. She had realized that she was at the end of her rope, that I held the evidence in my possession, that the bound and gagged girl upstairs would testify against her. She had dashed from the room while the stupefied police had held me and stared at her with goggle eyes.

Openmouthed they watched her flight, no one making any attempt to take after her, eight or ten holding me in their clumsy hands while the cat-woman, the arch criminal of them all dashed out into the night.

H. F. Morton looked at me and smiled.

“Police efficiency, Jenkins,” he said.

Then he faced the officers. “Turn him loose.”

The officers shifted uneasily. The man in charge drew himself up stiffly and saluted. “He is a noted criminal with a price on his head, the very devil of a crook, sor.”

Morton drummed steadily on the desk.

“What charge have you against him?”

The officer grunted.

“Stealin’ Mr. Holton’s necklace, an’ breakin’ into his house, sor.”

“Those charges are withdrawn,” came from the rear of the room in deep, firm tones.

I turned to see Arthur C. Holton. He had dressed and joined the group. I did not even know when he had entered the room, how much he had heard. By his side, her eyes starry, stood Jean Ellery, and there were gleaming gems of moisture on her cheeks.

The policeman grunted.

“For kidnappin’ the young lady an’ holdin’ her. If she stayed against her will ’twas abductin’, an’ she wouldn’t have stayed with a crook of her own accord, not without communicatin’ with her folks.”

That was a poser. I could hear Jean suck in her breath to speak the words that would have freed me but would have damned her in society forever; but she had not the chance.

Before I could even beat her to it, before my confession would have spared her name and sent me to the penitentiary, H. F. Morton’s shrewd mind had grasped all the angles of the situation, and he beat us all to it.

“You are wrong. The girl was not kidnapped. Jenkins never saw her before.”

The policeman grinned broadly.

“Then would yez mind tellin’ me where she was while all this hue an’ cry was bein’ raised, while everyone was searchin’ for her?”

Morton smiled politely, urbanely.

“Not at all, officer. She was at my house, as the guest of my wife. Feeling that her interests were being jeopardized and that her life was in danger, I had her stay incognito in my own home.”

There was tense, thick silence.

The girl gasped. The clock ticked. There was the thick, heavy breathing of the big-bodied policemen.

“Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rumiddy, tumptidy, tumpy tum-tum,” drummed the lawyer. “Officer, turn that man loose. Take off those handcuffs. Take... off... those... handcuffs... I... say. You haven’t a thing against him in California.”

As one in a daze, the officer fitted his key to the handcuffs, the police fell back, and I stood a free man.

“Good night,” said the lawyer pointedly, his steely eyes glittering into those of the officers.

Shamefacedly, the officers trooped from the room.

Jean threw herself into my arms.

“Ed, you came back because of me! You risked your life to save mine, to see that a wrong was righted, to see that I was restored to my father! Ed, dear, you are a man in a million.”

I patted her shoulder.

“You were a good pal, Jean, and I saw you through,” I said. “Now you must forget about it. The daughter of a prominent millionaire has no business knowing a crook.”

Arthur Holton advanced, hand outstretched.

“I was hypnotized, fooled, taken in by an adventuress and worse. I can hardly think clearly, the events of the past few minutes have been so swift, but this much I do know. I can never repay you for what you have done, Ed Jenkins. I will see that your name is cleared of every charge against you in every state, that you are a free man, that you are restored to citizenship, and that you have the right to live,” and here he glanced at Jean: “You will stay with us as my guest?”

I shook my head. It was all right for them to feel grateful, to get a bit sloppy now that the grandstand play had been made, but they’d probably feel different about it by morning.

“I think I’ll be on my way,” I said, and started for the door.

“Ed!” It was the girl’s cry, a cry which was as sharp, as stabbing as a quick pain at the heart. “Ed, you’re not leaving!”

By way of answer I stumbled forward. Hell, was it possible that the difficulty with that threshold was that there was a mist in my eyes? Was Ed Jenkins, the phantom crook, known and feared by the police of a dozen states, becoming an old woman?

Two soft arms flashed about my neck, a swift kiss planted itself on my cheek, warm lips whispered in my ear.

I shook myself free, and stumbled out into the darkness. She was nothing but a kid, the daughter of a millionaire oil magnate. I was a crook. Nothing but hurt to her could come to any further acquaintance. It had gone too far already.

I jumped to one side, doubled around the house, away from the street lights, hugging the shadow which lay near the wall. From within the room, through the half-open window there came a steady, throbbing, thrumming sound: “Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tummy; tum-tummy-tum-tum.”

H. F. Morton was thinking.

The Kid Stacks a Deck Erle Stanley Gardner

The Theft from the Empty Room Edward D. Hoch

With the passing of Edward Dentinger Hoch (1930–2008), the pure detective story lost its most inventive and prolific practitioner of the past half century. While never hailed as a great stylist, Hoch presented old-fashioned puzzles in clear, no-nonsense prose that rarely took a false step and consistently proved satisfying in most of his approximately nine hundred stories. He was named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America in 2001.

Born in Rochester, New York, Hoch (pronounced “hoke”) attended the University of Rochester before serving in the army (1950–1952), then worked in advertising while writing on the side. When sales became sufficiently frequent, he became a full-time fiction writer in 1968, producing stories for all of the major digest-sized magazines such as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Saint, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Hoch wanted to create a series character specifically for EQMM, and he came up with the professional thief Nick Velvet (whose original name was Nicholas Velvetta), his attempt to create an American counterpart to the hugely successful adventures in books and films of James Bond. The character quickly changed because Hoch didn’t like the idea of his protagonist being a woman-chasing killer; Velvet remained faithful to his longtime girlfriend, Gloria Merchant, whom he met while he was burgling her apartment and who had no idea that he was a thief until 1979. The first Nick Velvet story, “The Theft of the Clouded Tiger,” was published in the September 1966 issue of EQMM. Two major elements in the stories have made them among Hoch’s most popular work: first, since Velvet will not steal anything of intrinsic value, there is the mystery of why someone would pay him twenty thousand dollars (fifty thousand in later stories) to steal something, and, second, the near impossibility of executing the theft itself (which involved stealing such items as a spider web, the water from a swimming pool, a baseball team, and a sea serpent).

“The Theft from the Empty Room” was first published in the September 1972 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; it was first collected in The Thefts of Nick Velvet (New York, Mysterious Press, 1978).

Nick Velvet sat stiffly on the straight-backed hospital chair, facing the man in the bed opposite him. He had to admit that Roger Surman looked sick, with sunken cheeks and eyes, and a sallow complexion that gave him the appearance of a beached and blotchy whale. He was a huge man who had trouble getting around even in the best of condition. Now, laid low with a serious liver complaint, Nick wondered if he’d ever be able to leave the bed.

“They’re going to cut through this blubber in the morning,” he told Nick. “I’ve got a bet with the doctor that they don’t have a scalpel long enough to even reach my liver.” He chuckled to himself and then seemed about to drift into sleep.

“You wanted to see me,” Nick said hastily, trying to focus the sick man’s attention.

“That’s right. Wanted to see you. Always told you if I needed a job done I’d call on you.” He tried to lift his head. “Is the nurse around?”

“No. We’re alone.”

“Good. Now, you charge twenty thousand — that right?”

Nick nodded. “But only for unusual thefts. No money, jewels, art treasures — nothing like that.”

“Believe me, this is nothing like that. I’d guess it’s one of the most unusual jobs you’ve ever had.”

“What do you want stolen?” Nick asked as the man’s head bobbed again.

“First let me tell you where it is. You know my brother, Vincent?”

“The importer? I’ve heard of him.”

“It’s at his country home. The place is closed now for the winter, so you won’t have any trouble with guards or guests. There are a few window alarms, but nothing fancy.”

“You want me to steal something from your brother?”

“Exactly. You’ll find it in a storeroom around the back of the house. It adjoins the kitchen, but has its own outside door. Steal what you find in the storeroom and I’ll pay you twenty thousand.”

“Seems simple enough,” Nick said. “Just what will I find there?”

The sick eyes seemed to twinkle for an instant. “Something only you could steal for me, Velvet. I was out there myself a few days ago, but the burglar alarms were too much for me. With all this fat to cart around, and feeling as bad as I did, I couldn’t get in. I knew I had to hire a professional, so I thought of you at once. What I want you to steal is—”

The nurse bustled in and interrupted him. “Now, now, Mr. Surman, we mustn’t tire ourselves! The operation is at seven in the morning.” She turned to Nick. “You must go now.”

“Velvet,” Roger Surman called. “Wait. Here’s a picture of the rear of the house. It’s this doorway, at the end of the driveway. Look it over and then I’ll tell you—”

Nick slipped the photo into his pocket. The nurse was firmly urging him out and there was no chance for further conversation without being overheard. Nick sighed and left the room. The assignment sounded easy enough, although he didn’t yet know what he’d been hired to steal.

In the morning Nick drove out to the country home of Vincent Surman. It was a gloomy November day — more a day for a funeral than an operation — and he wondered how Surman was progressing in surgery. Nick had known him off and on for ten years, mainly through the yacht club where Nick and Gloria often sailed in the summer months. Surman was wealthy, fat, and lonely. His wife had long ago divorced him and gone off to the West Indies with a slim handsome Jamaican, leaving Surman with little in life except his trucking business and his passion for food and drink.

Surman’s brother, Vincent, was the glamorous member of the family, maintaining a twelve-room city house in addition to the country home. His wife Simone was the answer to every bachelor’s dream, and his importing business provided enough income to keep her constantly one of New York’s best-dressed women. In every way Vincent was the celebrity success, while Roger was the plodding fat boy grown old and lonely. Still, Roger’s trucking business could not be dismissed lightly — not when his blue-and-white trucks could be seen on nearly every expressway.

Nick parked just off the highway and walked up the long curving driveway to Vincent Surman’s country home. The place seemed closed and deserted, as Roger had said, but when Nick neared it he could see the wired windows and doors. The alarm system appeared to be functioning, though it wouldn’t stop him for long.

Following Roger’s directions and referring to the marked photograph, he walked along the driveway to where it ended at the rear of the house. There, next to the kitchen door, was the storeroom door that Surman had indicated. Both the door and the single window were locked, but at the moment Nick was mainly anxious to see what the room contained — what he’d been hired to steal for $20,000.

He looked in the window and saw a room about 20 feet long and 14 feet wide, with an inside door leading to the kitchen.

The room, with its painted red walls and white ceiling and wooden floor, was empty. Completely empty.

There was nothing in it for Nick Velvet to steal.

Nick drove to a pay telephone a mile down the road and phoned the hospital. They could tell him only that Roger Surman was in the recovery room following his operation and certainly could not talk to anyone or receive visitors for the rest of the day.

Nick sighed and hung up. He stood for a moment biting his lower lip, then walked back to the car. For the present there was no talking to Surman for a clue to the puzzle. Nick would have to work it out himself.

He drove back to the country home and parked. As he saw it, there were only two possibilities: either the object to be stolen had been removed since Roger saw it a few days earlier, or it was still there. If it had been removed, Nick must locate it. If it was still in the room, there was only one place it could be — on the same wall as the single window and therefore out of his line of vision from the outside.

Working carefully, Nick managed to bypass the alarm system and open the storeroom door. He stood just inside, letting his eyes glide across every inch of the room’s walls and floor and ceiling. The wall with the window was as blank as the others. There were not even any nail holes to indicate that a picture might have once hung there.

And as Nick’s eyes traveled across the room he realized something else: nothing, and no one, had been in this room for at least several weeks — a layer of dust covered the floor from wall to wall, and the dust was undisturbed. Not a mark, not a footprint. Nothing.

And yet Surman had told Nick he was there only a few days ago, trying to enter the room and steal something he knew to be in it — something he obviously was able to see through the window.

But what was it?

“Please raise your hands,” a voice said suddenly from behind him. “I have a gun.”

Nick turned slowly in the doorway, raising his hands above his head. He faced a short dark-haired girl in riding costume and boots, who held a double-barreled shotgun pointed at his stomach. He cursed himself for not having heard her approach. “Put that thing away,” he said harshly, indignation in his voice. “I’m no thief.”

But the shotgun stayed where it was. “You could have fooled me,” she drawled, her voice reflecting a mixture of southern and eastern origins. “Suppose you identify yourself.”

“I’m a real-estate salesman. Nicholas Realty — here’s my card.”

“Careful with the hands!”

“But I told you — I’m not a thief.”

She sighed and lowered the shotgun. “All right, but no tricks.”

He handed her one of the business cards he carried for just such emergencies. “Are you the owner of this property, Miss?”

She tucked the card into the waistband of her riding pants. “It’s Mrs., and my husband is the owner. I’m Simone Surman.”

He allowed himself to relax a bit as she stowed the shotgun in the crook of her arm, pointed away from him. “Of course! I should have recognized you from the pictures in the paper. You’re always on the best-dressed list.”

“We’re talking about you, Mr. Nicholas, not me. I find you here by an open door that should be locked, and you tell me you’re a realtor. Do they always carry lock picks these days?”

He chuckled, turning on his best salesman’s charms. “Hardly, Mrs. Surman. A client expressed interest in your place, so I drove out to look it over. I found the door open, just like this, but you can see I only took a step inside.”

“That’s still trespassing.”

“Then I apologize. If I’d known you were in the neighborhood I certainly would have contacted you first. My understanding was that the house had been closed down for the winter.”

“That’s correct. I was riding by, on my way to the stables, and saw your car on the highway. I decided to investigate.”

“You always carry a shotgun?”

“It was in the car — part of my husband’s hunting equipment.”

“You handle it well.”

“I can use it.” She gestured toward the house. “As long as you’re here, would you like to see the inside?”

“Very much. I gather this room is for storage?”

She glanced in at the empty room. “Yes. It hasn’t been used in some time. I wonder why the door was open and unlocked.” She looked at the alarm wires, but didn’t seem to realize they’d been tampered with. “Come around to the front.”

The house was indeed something to see, fully furnished and in a Colonial style that included a huge brick oven in the kitchen. Nick took it all in, making appropriate real-estate comments, and they finally ended up back at the door to the storeroom.

“What used to be in here?” Nick asked. “Odd that it’s empty when the rest of the house is so completely furnished.”

“Oh, wood for the kitchen stove, supplies, things like that. I told you it hadn’t been used in some time.”

Nick nodded and made a note on his pad. “Am I to understand that the house would be for sale, if the price was right?”

“I’m sure Vincent wouldn’t consider anything under a hundred thousand. There’s a great deal of land that goes with the house.”

They talked some more, and Simone Surman walked Nick back to his car. He promised to call her husband with an offer in a few days. As he drove away he could see her watching him. He had no doubt that she believed his story, but he also knew she’d have the alarm repaired by the following day.

The news at the hospital was not good. Roger Surman had suffered post-operative complications, and it might be days before he was allowed visitors. Nick left the place in a state of mild depression, with visions of his fee blowing away like an autumn leaf.

He had never before been confronted with just such a problem. Hired to steal something unnamed from a room that proved to be completely empty, he had no way of getting back to his client for further information. If he waited till Roger was out of danger and able to talk again, he would probably jeopardize the entire job, because Vincent Surman and his wife would grow increasingly suspicious when no real estate offer was forthcoming during the next few days.

Perhaps, Nick decided, he should visit Roger Surman’s home. He might find some clue there as to what the fat man wanted him to steal. He drove out along the river for several miles, until he reached a small but obviously expensive ranch home where Roger had lived alone for the past several years.

Starting with the garage, he easily opened the lock with his tool kit. The car inside was a late-model limousine with only a few thousand miles on it. Nick looked it over and then went to work on the trunk compartment. There was always the possibility, however remote, that Roger had succeeded in his own theft attempt, but for some reason had not told Nick the truth. But the trunk yielded only a spare tire, a jack, a half-empty sack of fertilizer, and a can of red paint. The spotless interior of the car held a week-old copy of The New York Times, a little hand vacuum cleaner for the upholstery, and an electronic device whose button, when pressed, opened or closed the automatic garage door. Unless Nick was willing to believe that the fertilizer had been the object of the theft, there was nothing in the car to help him.

He tried the house next, entering through the inside garage door, and found a neat kitchen with a study beyond. It was obvious that Roger Surman employed a housekeeper to clean the place — no bachelor on his own would have kept it so spotless. He went quickly through the papers in the desk but found nothing of value. A financial report on Surman Travelers showed that it had been a bad year for the trucking company. There were a number of insured losses, and Nick wondered if Roger might be getting back some of his lost income through false claims.

He dug further, seeking some mention of Roger’s brother, some hint of what the empty room might have contained. There were a few letters, a dinner invitation from Simone Surman, and finally a recent bill from a private detective agency in New York City. After another hour of searching, Nick concluded that the private detective was his only lead.

He drove down to Manhattan early the next morning, parking in one of the ramps off Sixth Avenue. The Altamont Agency was not Nick’s idea of a typical private eye’s office, with its sleek girl secretaries, chrome-trimmed desks, and wide tinted windows overlooking Rockefeller Center. But Felix Altamont fitted the setting. He was a slick, smooth-talking little man who met Nick in a cork-lined conference room because a client was waiting in his office.

“You must realize I’m a busy man, Mr. Velvet. I can only give you a few moments. Is it about a case?”

“It is. I believe you did some work for Roger Surman.”

Altamont nodded his balding head.

“What sort of work was it?”

The detective leaned back in his chair. “You know I can’t discuss a client’s case, Mr. Velvet.”

Nick glanced around at the expensive trappings. “Could you at least tell me what sort of cases you take? Divorce work doesn’t pay for this kind of layout.”

“Quite correct. As a matter of fact, we do not accept divorce cases. The Altamont Agency deals exclusively in industrial crimes — embezzlement, hijacking, industrial espionage, that sort of thing.”

Nick nodded. “Then the investigation you conducted for Roger Surman was in one of those fields.”

Felix Altamont looked pained. “I’m not free to answer that, Mr. Velvet.”

Nick cleared his throat, ready for his final bluff. “It so happens that I’m in Roger Surman’s employ myself. He hired me to try and clamp a lid on his large insurance losses. The company’s threatening to cancel his policy.”

“Then you know about the hijackings. Why come to me with your questions?”

“Certainly I know about the hijacking of Surman trucks, but with my employer in the hospital I thought you could fill me in on the details.”

“Surman’s hospitalized?”

“He’s recovering from a liver operation. Now let’s stop sparring and get down to business. What was hijacked from his trucks?”

Altamont resisted a few moments longer, then sighed and answered the question. “Various things. A shipment of machine tools one month, a load of textiles the next. The most recent hijacking was a consignment of tobacco leaves three weeks ago.”

“In the south?”

“No, up here. Shade-grown tobacco from Connecticut. No crop in the nation brings as high a price per acre. Very valuable stuff for hijackers.”

Nick nodded. “Why did you drop the investigation?”

“Who said I dropped it?”

“If you’d been successful, Surman wouldn’t need me.”

The private detective was silent for a moment, then said, “I told you we don’t touch divorce cases.”

Nick frowned, then brightened immediately. “His sister-in-law, Simone.”

“Exactly. Roger Surman seems intent on pinning the hijackings on his brother, apparently for the sole purpose of causing a divorce. He’s a lonely man, Mr. Velvet. He’ll give you nothing but trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Nick said. “Thanks for the information.”

When Nick arrived at the hospital late that afternoon he was intercepted by a brawny thick-haired man who bore more than a passing resemblance to Roger Surman.

“You’re Velvet, aren’t you?” the man challenged.

“Correct. And you must be Vincent Surman.”

“I am. You’re working for my brother.”

“News travels fast.”

“You were at my country house yesterday, snooping around. My wife caught you at it. This morning you were in New York, talking to that detective my brother hired.”

“So Altamont’s on your side now.”

“Everyone’s on my side if I pay them enough. I retain the Altamont Agency to do periodic security checks for my importing company. Naturally he phoned me after you left his office. His description of you matched the one Simone had already given me.”

“I hope it was flattering.”

“I’m not joking, Velvet. My brother is a sick man, mentally as well as physically. Anything you undertake on his behalf could well land you in jail.”

“That’s true,” Nick agreed with a smile.

“Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it.”

“My work for him is just about finished. As soon as he’s well enough to have visitors I’ll be collecting my fee.”

“And just what was your work?”

“It’s a confidential matter.”

Vincent Surman tightened his lips, studying Nick. “Very well,” he said, and walked on to the door.

Nick watched him head for the hospital parking lot. Then he went up to the information desk and asked for the doctor in charge of Roger Surman’s case. The doctor, a bustling young man whose white coat trailed behind him, appeared ten minutes later, and his news was encouraging.

“Mr. Surman had a good night. He’s past the worst of it now. I think you’ll be able to see him for a few minutes tomorrow.”

Nick left the hospital and went back to his car. It was working out just fine now — the money was as good as in the bank. He drove out the country road to Vincent Surman’s place, and this time he took the car into the driveway, around back, and out of sight from the road.

Working quickly and quietly, Nick bypassed the alarm and opened the storeroom door once more. This time he knew what he was after. On his way to the hospital he’d stopped to pick up the can of red paint from the trunk of Roger’s car. He had it with him now, as he stepped across the threshold into the empty room. He stood for a moment staring at the red walls, and then got to work.

It had occurred to him during the drive back from New York that there might be a connection between the can of red paint in Roger Surman’s trunk and the red walls of the empty room. Roger had driven the car to the country house a few days before his operation to attempt the robbery himself. If the paint on the walls had been Roger’s target — the paint itself — he could have replaced stolen paint with fresh red paint from the can.

Nick had stolen strange things in his time, and taking the paint from the walls of a room struck him as only a little unusual. The paint could cover any number of valuable things. He’d read once of a room that had been papered with hundred-dollar bills from a bank holdup, then carefully covered over with wallpaper. Perhaps something like that had been done here, and then a final layer of red paint applied.

He got to work carefully scraping the paint, anxious to see what was underneath; but almost at once he was disappointed. There was no wallpaper under the paint — nothing but plaster showed through.

He paused to consider, then turned to the paint can he’d brought along. Prying off the lid, he saw his mistake at once. The red in the can was much brighter than the red on the walls — it was an entirely different shade. He inspected the can more closely and saw that it was marine paint — obviously destined for Roger Surman’s boat. Its presence in Roger’s trunk had been merely an annoying coincidence.

Before Nick had time to curse his bad luck he heard a car on the driveway. He left the room, closing the door behind him, and had almost reached his own car when two men appeared around the corner of the house. The nearer of the two held a snub-nosed revolver pointed at Nick’s chest.

“Hold it right there, mister! You’re coming with us.”

Nick sighed and raised his hands. He could tell by their hard icy eyes that they couldn’t be talked out of it as easily as Simone Surman had been. “All right,” he said. “Where to?”

“Into our car. Vincent Surman has a few more questions for you.”

Prodded by the gun, Nick offered no resistance. He climbed into the back seat with one of the men beside him, but the car continued to sit there. Presently the second man returned from the house. “He’s on his way over. Says to keep him here.”

They waited another twenty minutes in silence, until at last Surman’s car turned into the driveway. Simone was with him, bundled in a fur coat against the chill of the autumn afternoon.

“The gun wasn’t necessary,” Nick said, climbing out of the car to greet them.

“I thought it might be,” Vincent Surman replied. “I had you tailed from the hospital. You’re a thief, Velvet. I’ve done some checking on you. Roger hired you to steal something from me, didn’t he?”

“Look around for yourself. Is anything missing?”

“Come along — we’ll look.”

With the two gunmen staying close, Nick had little choice. He followed Vincent and Simone around to the storeroom door. “This is where I found him the first time,” she told her husband, and sneezing suddenly, she pulled the fur coat more tightly around her.

“He was back here when we found him too,” the gunman confirmed.

Vincent unlocked the storeroom door.

The walls stared back at them blankly. Vincent Surman inspected the place where the paint had been scraped, but found nothing else. He stepped outside and walked around, his eyes scanning the back of the house. “What are you after, Velvet?”

“What is there to take? The room’s empty.”

“Perhaps he’s after something in the kitchen,” Simone suggested.

Vincent ignored her suggestion, reluctant to leave the rear of the house. Finally, after another pause, he said to Nick, “All right. We’ll look through the rest of the house.”

An hour later, after they’d convinced themselves that nothing was missing, and after the gunmen had thoroughly searched Nick and his car, Vincent was convinced that nothing had been taken. “What’s the paint for?” he asked Nick.

“My boat.”

The dark-haired importer sighed and turned away. “Roger is a madman. You must realize that. He’d like nothing better than to break up my marriage to Simone by accusing me of some crime. Altamont was hired to prove I was hijacking Roger’s trucks and selling the goods through my import business. He hoped Simone would quarrel with me about it and then leave me.”

Nick motioned toward the gunmen. “These two goons could pass for hijackers any day.” One man started for him, but Vincent barked an order. Simone’s eyes widened, as if she were seeing her husband’s employees for the first time.

“You don’t need to hold them back,” Nick said.

This time the nearer man sprang at him and Nick’s fist connected with his jaw. The second man had his gun out again, but before he could bring it up Simone grabbed his arm.

“Simone!” Vincent shouted. “Stay out of this!”

She turned on her husband, her eyes flashing. “I never knew you used hoods, Vincent! Maybe Roger knows what he’s talking about! Maybe you really are trying to ruin him by hijacking his trucks.”

“Shut up!”

Nick backed away, his eyes still on the two hoods. “I’ll be leaving now,” he said. “You two can fight it out.”

Nobody tried to stop him. As he swung his car around the others in the driveway he could see Vincent Surman still arguing with his wife.

The next morning Roger Surman was sitting up in bed, just finishing a meager breakfast, when Nick entered the hospital room. He glanced at the paper bag Nick was carrying and then at his face. “I’m certainly glad to see you, Velvet. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you what I wanted stolen.”

“You didn’t have to tell me,” Nick said with a grin. “After a couple of false starts I figured it out.”

“You mean you got it?”

“Yes, I’ve got it. I had a few run-ins with your brother and his wife along the way, but I got the job done last night.”

“How did you know? How could you know?”

“I talked to your detective, Altamont, and learned about the hijackings. Once I started thinking about it — the country place, the driveway leading to the storeroom — my reasoning must have followed yours quite closely. Vincent’s hired hijackers were bringing the loot there and leaving it in the storeroom for transfer to his own importing company trucks.”

The fat man moved uncomfortably under his blanket. “Exactly. I tried to tell Simone, but she demanded proof.”

“I think she’s got it now. And I think you have too. It wasn’t easy finding something to steal in an empty room — something that would be worth $20,000 to you. First, I considered the room itself, but you would have needed heavy equipment for that — and you told me you’d hoped to accomplish the theft yourself. That led me to your car, and I found the paint can in your trunk. Next, I almost stole the paint off the walls for you, until I ruled that out too. Finally, I remembered about the last shipment that was hijacked a few weeks ago. It consisted of bundles of valuable tobacco leaves, and certainly such a shipment would leave traces of its presence. Yesterday, out at the house, Simone walked into the storeroom and sneezed. Then I remembered something else I’d seen in your car.”

Roger Surman nodded. “The little hand vacuum cleaner. I was going to use it if I got past the alarms.”

Nick Velvet nodded and opened the paper bag he was still carrying. “I used it last night — to steal the dust from the floor of that empty room.”

The Shill Stephen Marlowe

A prolific author of popular fiction, especially science fiction and mysteries, Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was best known for his long series of novels about the international adventurer and private eye Chester Drum, beginning with The Second Longest Night (1955) and concluding a run of twenty exploits with Drum Beat — Marianne (1968).

The Drum character clearly owes a great deal to Mickey Spillane’s very tough private detective, Mike Hammer. While most of Hammer’s cases were set in New York City, the peripatetic Drum engaged in crime solving and espionage in such far-flung locales as Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia, Berlin, India, South America, and Iceland. Commonly known as Chet, he was single, kept a bottle of booze in his office, and carried a gun that he wasn’t afraid to use.

Born Milton Lesser in Brooklyn, New York, he legally changed his name to Stephen Marlowe in the 1950s, one of the many pseudonyms he employed over his long and productive career; other names were Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, Darius John Granger, Jason Ridgway, C. H. Thames, and Stephen Wilder. He also was one of many authors who penned the later Ellery Queen novels, his titled Dead Man’s Tale (1961). He collaborated on Double in Trouble (1959) with the very popular Richard S. Prather as Drum teamed up with Shell Scott, Prather’s series P.I.

Marlowe was presented with The Eye, the lifetime achievement award given by the Private Eye Writers of America. He also won the Prix Gutenberg du Livre, a French literary award.

“The Shill” was originally published in A Choice of Murders, edited by Dorothy Salisbury Davis (New York, Scribner, 1958).

Eddie gawked and gawked. The crowd came slowly but steadily. They didn’t know they were watching Eddie gawk. That’s what made a good shill, a professional shill.

He was, naturally, dressed like all the local thistle chins. He wore an old threadbare several years out of date glen plaid suit, double-breasted and rumpled-looking. He wore a dreary not quite white shirt open at the collar without a tie. And he gawked.

He had big round deep-set eyes set in patches of blue-black on either side of his long narrow bridged nose. His lower lip hung slack with innocent wonder. He had not shaved in twenty-four hours. He looked exactly as if he had just come, stiff and bone weary and in need of entertainment, off the assembly line of the tractor plant down the road at Twin Falls. He stared in big eyed open mouthed wonder at Bart Taylor, the talker for the sideshow, as Bart expostulated and cajoled, declaimed and promised the good-sized scuff of townsfolk who had been drawn consciously by Bart Taylor’s talking and unconsciously by Eddie’s gawking.

He was a magnificent shill and he knew it and Bart Taylor knew it and not only the people at the Worlds of Wonder sideshow knew it but all the folks from the other carnival tents as well, so that when business was slow they sometimes came over just to watch Eddie gawk and summon the crowd with his gawking and they knew, without having studied psychology, as Eddie knew, that there was something unscientifically magnetic about a splendid shill like Eddie.

They used to call Eddie the Judas Ram (cynically, because the thistle chins were being led to financial slaughter) and the Pied Piper (because the thistle chins followed like naive children the unheard music of his wondering eyes and gaping mouth). But all that was before Eddie fell in love with Alana the houri from Turkestan who did her dance of the veils at the Worlds of Wonder, Alana who was from Baltimore and whose real name was Maggie O’Hara and who, one fine night when she first joined the carnival at a small town outside of Houston, Texas, stole Eddie’s heart completely and for all time. After that Eddie was so sad, his eyes so filled with longing, that they didn’t call him anything and didn’t talk to him much and just let him do his work, which was shilling.

From the beginning, Eddie didn’t stand a chance. He was a shill. He was in love with Alana, who was pale, delicate, and beautiful, and everyone knew at once he was in love with her. In a week, all the men in the carnival were interested in Alana, whom nobody called Maggie. In a month, they all loved Alana, each in his own way, and each not because Alana had dunned them but because Eddie was a shill. It was as simple as that. Alana, however, for her own reasons remained aloof from all their advances. And the worst smitten of all was Bart Taylor, the talker and owner of Worlds of Wonder.

Now Bart finished his dunning and Eddie stepped up to the stand, shy and uncertain looking, to buy the first ticket. Bart took off his straw hat and wiped the sweat from the sweat band and sold Eddie a ticket. A good part of the scuff of thistle chins formed a line behind Eddie and bought tickets too. They always did.

Inside, Eddie watched the show dutifully, watched Fawzia the Fat Lady parade her mountains of flesh, watched Herko the Strong Man who actually had been a weight lifter, watched the trick mirror Turtle Girl, who came from Brooklyn but had lost her freshness in Coney Island and now was on the road, and the others, the Leopard Man and the Flame Swallower who could also crunch and apparently swallow discarded light bulbs and razor blades, Dame Misteria who was on loan from the Mitt camp down the midway to read fortunes at Worlds of Wonder and Sligo, a sweating red-faced escape artist who used trick handcuffs to do what Houdini had done with real ones.

But there was no Alana. Eddie waited eagerly for her act of the dancing veils, which was the finale of the show, but instead, the evening’s organized entertainment concluded with Sligo. After that, the booths and stalls inside the enormous tent would remain in operation although the central stage was dark. The thistle chins, wandering about listlessly under the sagging canvas both because it was hot and because they too sensed something was missing from the show, had left the expected debris, peanut bags and soft drink bottles and crumpled sandwich wrappers, in the narrow aisles among the wooden folding chairs in front of the stage.

Eddie found Bart Taylor outside in his trailer, spilling the contents of his chamois pouch on a table and counting the take. “Two and a half bills,” Bart said. “Not bad.”

“How come Alana didn’t dance?” Eddie wanted to know.

“Maybe she’s sick or something.”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

“I haven’t seen her,” Bart Taylor said, stacking the bills and change in neat piles on the table in front of him. He was wearing a lightweight loud plaid jacket with high wide peaked lapels of a thinner material. One of the lapels was torn, a small jagged piece missing from it right under the wilted red carnation Bart Taylor wore. The carnation looked as if it had lost half its petals too.

“Well, I’ll go over to her trailer,” Eddie said.

“I wouldn’t.”

Eddie looked at him in surprise. “Any reason why not?”

“No,” Bart said quickly. “Maybe she’s sick and sleeping or something. You wouldn’t want to disturb her.”

“Well, I’ll go and see.”

A shovel and a pick-ax were under the table in Bart Taylor’s trailer. Eddie hadn’t seen them before. “Don’t,” Bart said, and stood up. His heavy shoe made a loud scraping sound against the shovel. He was a big man, much bigger than Eddie and sometimes when the carnival was on a real bloomer with no money coming in they all would horse around some like in a muscle camp, and Bart could even throw Herko the Strong Man, who had been a weight lifter.

“O.K.,” Eddie said, but didn’t mean it. He went outside and the air was very hot and laden with moisture. He looked up but couldn’t see any stars. He wondered what was wrong with Bart Taylor, to act like that. He walked along the still crowded midway to the other group of trailers on the far side of the carnival, past the lead joint where the local puddle-jumpers were having a go at the ducks and candle flames and big swinging gong with .22 ammo, past the ball pitching stand where shelves of cheap slum were waiting for the winners, past the chandy who was fixing some of the wiring in the merry-go-round. For some reason, Eddie was frightened. He almost never sweated, no matter how hot it was. A shill looked too obviously enthusiastic if he sweated. But now he could feel the sweat beading his forehead and trickling down his sides from his armpits. He wasn’t warm, though. He was very cold.

There was no light coming through the windows of Alana’s trailer. The do not disturb sign was hanging from the door-knob. The noise from the midway was muted and far away, except for the explosive staccato from the lead joint. Eddie knocked on the aluminum door and called softly, “Alana? Alana, it’s Eddie.”

No answer. Eddie lit a cigaret, but it tasted like straw. His wet fingers discolored the paper. He threw the cigaret away and tried the door. It wasn’t locked.

Inside, Eddie could see nothing in the darkness. His hand groped for the light switch. The generator was weak: the overhead light flickered pale yellow and made a faint sizzling sound.

Alana was there. Alana was sprawled on the floor, wearing her six filmy veils. In the yellow light, her long limbs were like gold under the veils. Eddie knelt by her side. He was crying softly before his knees touched the floor. Alana’s eyes were opened but unseeing. Her face was bloated, the tongue protruding. From the neck down she was beautiful. From the neck up, it made Eddie sick to look at her.

She had been strangled.

He let his head fall on her breast. There was no heart beat. The body had not yet stiffened.

He stood up and lurched about the interior of the small trailer. He didn’t know how long he remained there. He was sick on the floor of the trailer. He went back to the body finally. In her right hand Alana clutched a jagged strip of plaid cloth. Red carnation petals like drops of blood were strewn over the floor of the trailer.

“All right, Eddie,” Bart Taylor said softly. “Don’t move.”

Eddie turned around slowly. He had not heard the door open. He looked at Bart Taylor, who held a gun in his hand, pointing it unwaveringly at Eddie.

“You killed her,” Eddie said.

“You killed her,” Bart Taylor said. “My word against yours. I own this show. Who are you, a nobody. A shill. My word against yours.”

“Why did you do it?”

“She wouldn’t look at me. I loved her. I said I would marry her, even. She hated me. I couldn’t stand her hating me. But I didn’t mean to kill her.”

“What are you going to do?” Eddie said.

“Jeep’s outside. Tools. We’ll take her off a ways and bury her.”

“Not me,” Eddie said.

“I need help. You’ll help me. A shill. A nobody. They all know how you were carrying a torch for her. You better help me.”

“Your jacket,” Eddie said. “The carnation. They’ll know it was you.”

“Not if we bury her.”

“Not me,” Eddie said again.

“It’s late. There are maybe thirty, forty people left on the midway. We’ve got to chance it now. It looks like rain. Won’t be able to do it in the rain. Let’s get her out to the jeep now, Eddie.”

“No,” Eddie said. He wasn’t crying now, but his eyes were red.

Bart came over to him. Eddie thought he was going to bend over the body, but instead he lashed out with the gun in his hand, raking the front sight across Eddie’s cheek. Eddie fell down, just missing Alana’s body.

“Get up,” Bart said. “You’ll do it. I swear I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

Eddie sat there. Blood on his cheek. The light, yellow, buzzing. Bart towering over him, gigantic, menacing. Alana, dead. Dead.

“On your feet,” Bart said. “Before it starts raining.”

When Eddie stood up, Bart hit him again with the gun. Eddie would have fallen down again, but Bart held him under his arms. “You’ll do it,” Bart said. “I can’t do it alone.”

“O.K.,” Eddie said. “I feel sick. I need some air.”

“You’ll get it in the jeep.”

“No. Please. I couldn’t help you. Like this. Air first. Outside. All right?”

Bart studied him, then nodded. “I’ll be watching you,” he said. “Don’t try to run. I’ll catch you. I have the gun. I’ll kill you if I have to.”

“I won’t try to run,” Eddie promised. He went outside slowly and stood in front of the trailer. He took long deep breaths and waited.

Eddie gawked at the trailer. It was like magic, they always said. It had nothing to do with seeing or smelling or any of the senses, not really. You didn’t only gawk with your eyes. Not a professional shill. Not the best. You gawked with every straining minuteness of your body. And they came. The thistle chins. The townsfolk. Like iron filings and a magnet. They came slowly, not knowing why they had come, not knowing what power had summoned them. They came to gawk with you. They came, all right. You’ve been doing this for years. They always came.

You could sense them coming, Eddie thought. You didn’t have to look. In fact, you shouldn’t. Just gawk, at the trailer. Shuffling of feet behind you. A stir. Whispering. What am I doing here? Who is this guy?

Presently there were half a dozen of them. Then an even dozen. Drawn by Eddie, the magnificent shill.

There were too many of them for Bart to use his gun. They crowded around the trailer’s only entrance. They waited there with Eddie. Unafraid now, but lonely, infinitely lonely, Eddie led them inside.

They found Bart Taylor trying to stuff carnation petals down his throat.

The Dr. Sherrock Commission Frank McAuliffe

A modest output nonetheless garnered many devoted, almost cultish, fans for Frank McAuliffe (1926–1986), the author of four off-kilter books about Augustus Mandrell, the figure McAuliffe hints (with tongue pressed into his cheek) might be a real-life person and describes as “the most urbane killer in all the annals of hysterical crime.” The Mystery Writers of America agreed and presented For Murder I Charge More (1971), the third book in the series, with an Edgar for best paperback original in 1972. Accepting the award, McAuliffe announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, you have impeccably good taste.”

McAuliffe was one of eight children born to Irish immigrants in New York City, where he also married and had seven children. After moving to Ventura, California, he worked as a civilian technical writer for the navy while also writing fiction, mainly short stories, many of which were published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

The first book in the Mandrell series, Of All the Bloody Cheek (1965), was written by hand as he sat in a station wagon outside a church while his wife took the children to Mass. The second volume of Mandrell’s adventures was Rather a Vicious Gentleman (1968) and the last, published many years later from a long-lost manuscript, was the poorly conceived Shoot the President, Are You Mad? (2010), initially rejected by his publisher as inappropriate following the assassination of President Kennedy.

Incidentally, though Mandrell, the sole proprietor and only employee of Mandrell, Limited, is English and the author’s style sounds like someone from the United Kingdom, McAuliffe never traveled outside the United States.

“The Dr. Sherrock Commission” was first published in Of All the Bloody Cheek (New York, Ballantine Books, 1965).

Dr. Sherrock is remembered by the firm of Mandrell, Limited, with unequivocal sentimentality. He put us on our feet, so to speak. Which is more than I can say for the service he extended to many of his patients.

Odd chap, this Sherrock. He was a medical doctor with a practice in Liverpool. His home, with its steel-shuttered windows, was located in the posh Clairemont section. Each day the doctor made his transit from home to office in the rear of a locked Rolls. The chauffeur of the Rolls, a barrel-shouldered young man named Ben Nett, carried beneath his left arm an ugly bit of iron manufactured in Belgium and containing within its contours seven steel-headed bullets.

Once the auto arrived at the building that housed the doctor’s offices, it was driven down a ramp to an underground garage. Here the machine was parked in a wire-enclosed stall from which Sherrock stepped directly into an elevator that scheduled but two stops: the garage and the doctor’s offices on the third floor.

And this strange regimen did not slacken with Sherrock’s arrival at the office. He would not treat just anyone. Perhaps he had been less selective at one time, accepted patients purely on the criterion of their forfeiture of health. But in the period in which I knew the man he insisted that yours be an anatomy previously researched by his stethoscope before he would allow you the shelter of his office.

One would assume it financial folly for a doctor to so isolate himself from the community. Which M.D., I mean, survives without that one essential trapping of his practice — the patient? Not so. Sherrock sustained the vacuum and still remained the top yearly-income doctor in Liverpool. A feat, I am told, of no meager proportions, for the Liverpool of those days (about a year prior to the war) was a city glutted with medical men made notoriously tractable by starvation.

Sherrock prospered because he still retained a trusting core of old patients, his Clairemont neighbors for the most part — case histories he knew by memory — and their offspring.

What have we here, then? A snob who has discarded the ideals of his youth, the wistfully lofty tenets of his profession? No; there was more substance to Sherrock’s withdrawal. During the several months prior to my acquaintance with the man, the doctor had been exposed to a series of odd adventures, an unsettling record of mayhem that prompted anything but a sense of security.

On June 19, for instance, Daisy Sherrock, the doctor’s wife for eighteen years, encountered sudden escape from the balance of her life. On holiday in Wales the woman slipped, jumped, or was pushed from a promontory onto a covey of rocks bordering the Irish Sea. While it is true that the lady was renowned locally for her lack of beauty, it is doubtful that her extraordinary acrobatics improved her condition in any degree.

On December 26 of the same year (you will note that I am reluctant to wax specific regarding the identity of the year involved; I must refuse to do so for reasons that will remain my own) — anyway, on December 26 a Miss Sally Hickey received the following correspondence in the post: If you go ahead and do it I’m going ahead and kill you and him.

A rather irrelevant exhibition of faulty sentence structure, but noteworthy in this instance when you realize that Miss Sally Hickey was about to become the second Mrs. Sherrock. The doctor had announced their engagement on Christmas Day. Miss Hickey, a winsome slip of a girl, had, up until this time, known only that fame inherent in her occupation as a nurse in Dr. Sherrock’s office. She was evidently a medical woman of precocious skill, for it was she (not the older, more experienced, nurses) whom the doctor kept alone with him in the office for those late-evening experiments that are so much a part of the life of the dedicated physician.

There was no further enlightenment from the letter writer. Perhaps he had exhausted his gift.

Then on February 13 (that birth date, historically, of beautiful women) of the new year, a rifle bullet splashed through the window of Dr. Sherrock’s library. On February 19 a similar missile shattered the same window. These ballistic outrages commanded Dr. Sherrock’s attention rather abruptly, for he chanced to be seated in the room on both occasions. All windows of the great house, except those of the servants’ quarters, were shortly equipped with steel shutters.

Then on March 8, just three weeks prior to the wedding, Dr. Sherrock found himself face-to-face with the secret aggressor. On his way to the office in his Rolls, the doctor encountered a vintage saloon that forced his own machine from the roadway at high speed. The Rolls struck a stone wall that fortunately gave way to superior craftsmanship, and Sherrock went unharmed.

The doctor, for all his submersion in the medical profession, was not a dense man. Upon sensing the bent of his enemy’s animosity — having it rather flung in his face, actually — Sherrock exhibited an astute knowledge of the basic ingredients of survival. He, for example, did not entrust his deliverance to the abilities of the Liverpool police (a loutish lot). Instead, following the roadway impertinence, he hired for himself the chauffeur with the automatic pistol, the Mr. Ben Nett previously mentioned.

In fact, the durable Mr. Nett became so much the constant companion of Dr. Sherrock and the doctor’s fiancée in the ensuing weeks that when the day of the wedding finally arrived, a certain degree of good-natured joshing befell young Nett. The alcoholic mouths of the wedding guests speculated with Ben on the sleeping accommodations being provided for the trembling bride.

“What’ll it be, lad? Three in a bed? Ho-ho-ho-ho.”

“How many loaded guns will the poor lass find facing her tonight? Eh? Ho-ho...”

Ahhh, when will Englishmen ever learn that dignity is the least resident in the brandy bottle?

The wedding went off as planned, but I understand the honeymoon trip to Italy was postponed until less hostile times. That is, postponed until the police, or somebody, should apprehend Mr. Michael Bell.

It had been suspected all along that the caretaker of Dr. Sherrock’s misfortune was one Michael Bell. After all, hadn’t it been Michael Bell who had injected into the demise of the first Mrs. Sherrock the fascinating rumor of possible “foul play”? Hadn’t it been Michael, a brash immigrant from Belfast, who had gone about the pubs in Clairemont muttering his dark, vulgar conclusions regarding “...me sister’s accident — if you’ll call that an accident...” immediately following the burial of the first Mrs. Sherrock? Yes, Michael was the brooding brother of the matron who had enjoyed the flamboyant swim in the Irish Sea. He was Dr. Sherrock’s brother-in-law.

Michael had also been the frequent escort of Miss Sally Hickey prior to her engagement to Dr. Sherrock. Michael it was who had taken the vivacious young nurse about the sights of Liverpool on those evenings when she was not enmeshed in after-hours research with the good doctor.

Thus it must have seemed to poor Mr. Bell that his whole world was being unraveled before his eyes, and all of the yarn ending in the hands of the physician. Sister gone... lady friend gone.

As I said, Dr. Sherrock and the Liverpool police suspected that Michael was the secret tormentor. But it was not until the day of the automobile rowdyism that they knew for certain. Sherrock swore that he had seen the contorted face of Michael behind the wheel of the offending machine. The authorities of course took after the lad with laudable vindictiveness. But Mr. Bell proved worthy of their zeal. He eluded the pack, and was still, two months following the Sherrock-Hickey nuptials, at large. More power to you, lad.

Mrs. Sherrock (née Hickey), poor lass, came to despise Michael Bell with a fervor equal to that expressed by her doctor-husband. The young waif had indentured herself to the god Matrimony, and she was eager to test the residual benefits thereof — to wit, her new buying power. But instead, she found herself a prisoner in the steel-shuttered house. On the assumption that Mr. Bell had been rather in earnest when he threatened to kill both Sally and the doctor, the Liverpool police and Sherrock himself insisted that Sally remain confined.

The situation was at this flux when the talents of Mandrell, Limited, were solicited.

Despite the obvious impediments in the case, I accepted the Commission. My decision was considerably influenced by the hints of pending bankruptcy tended me by my creditors. As I deposited the advance fee to my account, my banker of the day, a Mr. Lovejoy, remarked, “Ah, it does my heart good to see so young a firm as your own finally making its way, Mr. Mandrell. Afraid there for a while we were going to lose you. So many bankruptcy decisions being brought on these days, eh? Although you young fellows shouldn’t be believing all those things you read in the press about the commercial houses. We are certainly not the ‘smugly solvent’ lot you hear about from those Bolshevik crybabies. No, indeed... Ah, Mr. Mandrell, our dossier on Mandrell, Limited, appears somewhat delinquent. We do not have your exact activity listed. What is Mandrell, Limited, in?”

“Why, I suppose hunting describes it best,” I murmured.

“Hunting? You mean big-game hunting? Buena macubula and all that?”

“Yes, big-game hunting,” I said.

“My, my. That doesn’t sound any too broad-based, reliable, or... ah... economy-attached, if I may say so.” (Followed by a positive geyser of derogatory clichés.) “Can you tell me, is our Mr. FitzHunt aware of Mandrell, Limited’s corporate structure?”

You suet-voiced popinjay. You no longer have Mandrell, Limited, beneath your pound-sterling thumb; the loan is up to date. So now you would impose this false insecurity to our negotiations. Bondage me with fear. Not on your life, sir. Mandrell, Limited, now has teeth.

“I would appreciate it, Mr. Lovejoy,” I said, “if you would summon the necessary articulation to correctly pronounce my name. It is Man-DRELL. Not Man-DRILL. A minor distinction, to be sure, yet one the zoologists of the world have seen fit to emblazon with significance.”

“Oh, I say, I hadn’t meant to... well now, back to our analysis of Mandrell, Limited’s growth potential. You see—”

“Good day, Mr. Lovejoy. You will find my checks in the post.”

I moved on from my bank — yes, indeed, “my” bank — to a sleazy building in Blackpool. To the eternally suspicious gentlemen encountered therein I handed over the sum of nineteen pounds. They in turn grudgingly parted with an Afghan rug which they had been holding but which belonged to me.

“Nineteen pounds. That’s not one-tenth the worth of this thing,” I was informed by a Mr. Grimes of Customs.

“Not one-fiftieth,” I corrected him. “But you see it is damaged here, the two holes? So the full import duty could hardly be assessed.”

“Not if I’d been in charge... Here, those look to be bullet holes!”

“Yes, they certainly do. Good day, sir.”

At this period in my life I was admittedly a bit dotty on the subject of fine rugs. An affectation, probably, that has not survived my maturity. On this occasion, however, I found myself particularly indebted to Dr. Sherrock. Had it not been for the advance monies from the Sherrock Commission, I fear I would have been driven to some desperate act in order to retrieve the Afghan rug from the customhouse.

These, then, were the fruits of my labor. Let us pursue now the labor itself. The Dr. Sherrock Commission.

In order that you may not be misled, let me point out that it was not Dr. Sherrock who negotiated the Dr. Sherrock Commission with Mandrell, Limited. That would have been somewhat incongruous, as you shall see.

My major concern, following my acceptance of the Commission, consisted of arranging a face-to-face meeting with the harried doctor. The meeting, of necessity, had to be within a format that Sherrock’s schedule, with its bristling aura of defensive security, firmly did not allow.

As a first maneuver I motored up to Liverpool and presented myself at Sherrock’s offices. With my arm supported by a dramatic, blood-spotted sling, I supplicated at the desk of the nurse-receptionist for emergency help. Through lips made blubbery by pain, I demanded that the talents of Dr. Sherrock should immediately be brought to bear on my tortured arm. I was informed that a Dr. O’Shaughnessy, a colleague of Sherrock’s, would honor my affliction. “Dr. Sherrock is not available.”

“You are not understand, Lady Nurse,” I sniveled. “I am Igor Kaminski. Great pianist. Greatest since Gaultflegal. The critics, some say greater than Gaultflegal. I? I must be neutral... I am trapped here, Liverpool, this stupid city, by the concert. I am let nobody, nobody, touch-a these lovely hands except Sher-rook.”

I held out for the nurse’s attention my injured paw. The fingers of the hand were so grotesquely intertwisted that I would be lucky were I ever again to zip my trousers with same, much less play the piano. The ring finger itself was split fully in half all the way to the second joint. The collection of malformed digits that she viewed was of course of my own manufacture. Mostly a block of plaster of Paris sculpted to my needs and carefully tinted to an over-all yellowish purple, except for the areas of bruised red where two of the fingernails hung by a thread of cuticle. Rather overdone, actually, but the thing passed for a ruptured hand if only because there was nothing else it could possibly have been.

“This Dr. Sher-rook, I am heard of him,” I said. “He is must fix me. I must play tonight.”

“Dr. O’Shaughnessy will see you, if you care to wait,” the nurse said, staring coldly at my affliction. “We do not treat non-English patients, as a rule. Dr. Sherrock’s orders. But in this case, since you are in the Arts, perhaps...”

I carried on a bit more, banging about Dr. O’Shaughnessy’s office and screeching that none but “Dr. Sher-rook himself” should examine my hand, but to no avail. O’Shaughnessy and another white-smocked gentleman eventually prescribed massive home rest for me and flung me from the building. It would serve you right, you medical swine, should Igor Kaminski elect to never play again. How, I ask you, sirs, are you to explain my absence at the next Buckingham Palace command performance?

Thus, in my first move to complete the Sherrock Commission I gained little but a growing respect for the good doctor’s hunger for privacy. I returned to London, taking with me the abused but talented hand of Igor Kaminski, and sat brooding at my desk in this bit of an office I had acquired just off Bristol Square. The Dr. Sherrock Commission represented the first substantial Commission in the short history of Mandrell, Limited. It had to be brought off with ringing virtuosity. The firm’s reputation would be built on nothing less.

Following a full day of contemplation, I had all but decided that if I were to retain my infant business, and my Afghan rug, I would be forced to risk the temper of the doctor’s armed chauffeur, Mr. Ben Nett. I would intercept Sherrock during his daily home-to-office ride. Then, lo! before I had time to act on this somewhat dangerous decision, the correct strategy came suddenly to me on the winds of Fortune. Fortunate for me, that is. A bit on the awkward side for the third party involved, a gentleman named John Austin.

Austin was an incumbent M.P. from Liverpool, Labour man. He had, according to the shocked report in The Times, been struck down by an auto on a street of his own district while returning home from an electioneering rally. The offending machine — described by a witness as an old Bentley, color red, if you can imagine such a thing — had sped off without pausing to ascertain even the extent of the M.P.’s injury; which, upon his removal to St. Malachy’s Hospital, proved to be grievous.

The key, the very key to my dilemma, served up by the voting stock — slack, blind cattle — of Liverpool!

I immediately flew north and presented myself at old, gray St. Malachy’s to involve myself in the succor being tended Mr. Austin. To the hospital authorities, I was a doctor engaged by the Labour Party. To the politicians on the scene, I was present on behalf of the Austin family. And to the family, I was a member of the hospital staff. It was all rather simple. Most of the people I encountered during my three days of medical duty, even the members of the M.P.’s family, appeared more concerned with the political ramifications surrounding the incident than the ministrations being accorded the near-deceased.

An ugly theory had invaded the affair. It was indignantly whispered, through filed teeth, that the Tories had done in poor M.P. Austin, had paid the driver of the red Bentley to obliterate their opposition, an expediency well in keeping with Liverpool political tradition. A very serious game down there.

On two occasions during my medical tour I was able to achieve the sickroom unescorted and spend a few minutes alone with the patient. Following the first of these visits, I looked in on the superintendent of the hospital and informed him that his famous charge had regained coherence for a few seconds during my visit and had voiced a request.

“He wants a particular doctor called in for further consultations,” I told the super. “A Dr. Sherrock. I’ve heard of Sherrock but, unfortunately, do not know him personally.”

“I know Dr. Sherrock,” the super said. “I’m afraid he’ll not come to the hospital. He lives under... well, some rather peculiar pressures.”

I shrugged. “Just as well. The patient evidently has enormous faith in him; but, after all, Sherrock is no more than an M.D., possessing God knows what degree of competence.”

“Dr. Sherrock is the highest caliber of physician,” the super told me coldly. The super didn’t like me. He didn’t like my splayfooted stride, my paunchy, hunched posture, my stained school tie, or my grimy, fingerprint-crusted eyeglasses. He, in particular, did not enjoy the cloud of bad breath that hung about me like a cape (in reality a bit of pungent cheese smeared on the upper arms and neck). I was not at all the super’s conception of the doctor one summoned to minister to a Member of Parliament. Which is not surprising, since the disguise I have described was inspired not by a doctor but by a banker, my Mr. Lovejoy.

“If Mr. Austin has so much faith in Dr. Sherrock,” the super told me, “I will personally make every effort to bring Sherrock here. Are you, sir, so in command of your profession that you can deny the therapeutic effect such a visit might have?” Quackery on high. Nothing as ineffectual as medical attention was going to keep Austin from dying, and the super well knew it.

I did not leave the invitation of Dr. Sherrock to the super’s influence alone. After maneuvering my second visit to the sickroom, I reported to the Labour Party people and the dying man’s family that the M.P. had amazed me by a miraculous rally to consciousness. “He badly wants this Dr. Sherrock brought in,” I informed them. “And I will venture only this diagnosis myself. As a humble medical scientist, I’d say that without Sherrock the M.P.’s chances are wholly dependent upon the whimsey of the supernatural. Which, at best, is... well, erratic.”

I also mentioned that I had reported the patient’s request to the superintendent of the hospital and that, while the man had promised action, I thought I had detected a bit of foot-dragging. “Does anyone... er... happen to know the super’s political affiliations?” I asked slyly.

Ah, there are few spurs so sharp as the sudden knowledge that one is being made the victim of a conspiracy. My listeners exploded into activity. Poor Dr. Sherrock. He found his carefully erected isolation abruptly besieged from several impressive quarters. Entreaties to abandon his security shield for a trip to St. Malachy’s rang upon him from people he could hardly ignore, from empire-level government people, from the medical hierarchy, and from his own insular neighbors in Clairemont. The doctor capitulated in twelve hours.

The routine was snapped. Instead of motoring home from his office that evening, Sherrock was chauffeured to St. Malachy’s, protesting all the way that he did not know and had never met M.P. Austin. “Strange are the ways of modern medical science,” the super soothed him.

I of course made it my business to be on hand when Sherrock arrived at the hospital, and I graciously agreed to attempt once more to rouse the unconscious patient. I insisted, however, that only Sherrock and myself should be present in the sickroom. There was grudging compliance.

Once in Austin’s room, door locked behind us, blinds drawn, I guided Sherrock to the respirator tank in which Austin lay, living tenuously on the mechanical ability of his windowed boiler (or iron lung, as I believe the Americans affectionately call it). Dr. Sherrock stared down at the pallid face of the M.P. for a few seconds, then said crossly, “Never met him. And shouldn’t care to either, I might add. Labour man, isn’t he?”

“I doubt that introductions will ever be necessary, Doctor,” I said, reaching into my black satchel, “I have something here you must digest, sir. Somewhat bitter I’m afraid...”

“Wha—”

I expended the time necessary to place the snout of my pistol against his smock directly in line with his heart. Accuracy was essential in this instance, for the silencer on my weapon was effective for but one shot, really, and Sherrock was already frisking about somewhat. The one discharge proved sufficient. Sherrock was deceased before I caught his body and lowered it to the tile floor.

I removed my gloves, washed my hands in the small lavatory (they generally perspire a bit); then I left the room. Prior to my departure I of course disconnected from its wall socket the electric plug that ensured the functioning of Mr. Austin’s respirator.

In the outer room I encountered the M.P.’s family, a couple of Labour Party officials, and the super and a few of his staff. Dabbing at my eyes with a soiled handkerchief, I blubbered, “He’s making every effort... Dr. Sherrock... Such skill... His hands, not a tremor... He requests that he be left alone with the patient until he summons you... The finest physician I...”

My breath opened a passageway through the crowded room as I made for the corridor door. I paused by the door only long enough to unsettle the lush widow Austin by pressing on her an unwholesome leer, for no reason that I can recall now other than my possibly being a bit nervous by this time. Then I left St. Malachy’s and Liverpool.

I received the balance of my fee in the Dr. Sherrock Commission a week later in my office off Bristol Square. The late doctor’s chauffeur, the cleft-chinned and void-eyed Ben Nett, carried the crisp pound notes to my hand. He brought also my client, the widow Sherrock, née Hickey.

Sally was on her way to seclusion in Italy for the period of her bereavement. Mr. Nett had graciously consented to share her grief. They were utilizing the same steamship tickets, I believe, that had been held in abeyance from the doctor and Sally’s postponed honeymoon.

We concluded our business; Sally made several fatuous but well-intentioned remarks regarding my Afghan; then they left. I have met Sally a few times over the years since that day, but Mr. Ben Nett I saw once more only, in Switzerland, just prior to his unhappy accident.

On the day following the payment of the fee, I returned to Liverpool and released my auto from its hiding place. I drove the sad machine to a local automotive shop and contracted repairs. As I turned to exit from the shop, I discovered the manager studying the dented front end of the red Bentley with an apprehensive eye of cocked suspicion. “Don’t get many red ones, we don’t,” he observed nervously. “You say you’ll be back to fetch it this afternoon?”

Out with it, mealymouth. What are you trying to say? I of course assured this idiot that I would return; then I left him and his uncharitable speculation.

The Bentley, I might mention, had been purchased and licensed under the name Lovejoy — a gesture of sorts to my banker. That I would never be allowed to reclaim the machine was not so staggering a loss as you might assume. The Tory people had been most generous and had budgeted into my fee the purchase price of the auto.

Thus: the Dr. Sherrock Commission. Actually, the Second Dr. Sherrock Commission. I can never be certain, I guess, but it did appear to me at the last moment there, as my finger enjoined the trigger, that recognition had floated to the surface of Dr. Sherrock’s eyes. That he remembered me from our previous association. The matter of the first Mrs. Sherrock.

In Round Figures Erle Stanley Gardner

Lester Leith is only one of a huge number of series characters created by the indefatigable Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970). The most famous of his crime fighters was Perry Mason, but there also were a number of novels featuring district attorney Doug Selby and a long series about Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, produced under his A. A. Fair pseudonym. But most of Gardner’s pulp characters were criminals, including Ed Jenkins (the Phantom Crook), the sinister Patent Leather Kid, the thieving Paul Pry, and Senor Arnaz de Lobo, a professional soldier of fortune and revolutionary.

It is Leith, however, who was the “hero” of the second greatest number of Gardner’s crook stories, appearing in more than seventy novelettes (trailing only Ed Jenkins, “the Phantom Crook,” who appeared in seventy-three), all written for the pulps. Leith approached his thievery from a slightly different angle, working as both a detective and as a Robin Hood figure of a kind that was very popular in the Depression era. He stole from the rich, but only those who were themselves crooks, and he unfailingly gave the money to charities — after taking a twenty percent “recovery” fee.

Debonair, quick-witted, and wealthy, he enjoyed the perks of his fortune, checking the newspapers in the comfort of his penthouse apartment for new burglaries and robberies to solve, and from which he could reclaim the stolen treasures.

He has a valet, Beaver, nicknamed “Scuttle” by Leith, who is a secret plant of Sergeant Arthur Ackley. Leith, of course, is aware that his manservant is an undercover operative, using that knowledge to plant misinformation to frustrate the policeman again and again.

“In Round Figures” was originally published in the August 23, 1930, issue of Detective Fiction Weekly; it was first collected in The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith (New York, The Dial Press, 1980).

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 sign painter — 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 back 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...

The Racket Buster Erle Stanley Gardner

In the decade that Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) wrote for the pulps (averaging nearly four thousand words a day), he created three dozen series characters, some that had long careers with numerous capers, some a little less, such as Ken Corning, a tough attorney who morphed into Perry Mason after six stories; Major Copley Brane, a “freelance diplomat”; Bob Larkin, an adventurer and accomplished juggler whose only weapon was a pool cue; El Paisano, who could see in the dark; Sidney Zoom, a millionaire con man who prowled the city streets with his vicious police dog; and Speed Dash, the “Human Fly,” who gained his superhuman strength by crushing a raw potato in one hand every morning.

Paul Pry, who appeared in twenty-seven stories, is another of Gardner’s crook protagonists. Much like Gardner’s Lester Leith, Pry keeps an eye on other thieves and figures out how to acquire their ill-gotten gains, frequently calling on the police to (unwittingly) help him. He has befriended “Mugs” Magoo, a one-armed former cop, pulling him out of the gutter, and forms a kind of partnership with him — which turns out to be useful when he comes up against serious gangsters. Pry’s most despised victim, and one he confronts in more than one adventure, is Big Front Gilvray, whose real name is Benjamin Franklin. Pry has taken offense that so great a name has been corrupted by the gangster.

“The Racket Buster” was originally published in the November 1930 issue of Gang World Magazine; it was first collected in The Adventures of Paul Pry (New York, Mysterious Press, 1990).

Paul Pry lounged in well-dressed ease on a corner in the congested business district. From time to time he received provocative glances from passing women. But the eyes of Paul Pry were fastened upon the huddled figure of “Mugs” Magoo.

Mugs Magoo had earned his nickname years before when he had been the camera-eye man for one of the police administrations. A political shake-up forced him out. An accident took off his right arm at the shoulder. Booze had done the rest.

Paul Pry had found Mugs Magoo selling pencils on the street, had taken a liking to the man, learned his history, and reached a working arrangement to their mutual advantage. For Paul Pry was an opportunist of the highest degree of skill and efficiency. Even the closest observer would have failed to observe any connection between the slender, debonaire young man on one corner and the huddled figure of the crippled pencil-seller on the other. Yet between the two passed the flowing stream of human traffic, and that stream was instantly checked by Mugs Magoo, who knew every denizen of the underworld.

A young woman, modestly attired, strikingly beautiful, gazed with dazed eyes at the snarl of traffic. Her clothes proclaimed her as coming from the country. Her air of innocent unsophistication fitted nicely with the round-eyed wonder of her expression.

Mugs Magoo dropped the hat containing his stock of pencils some two inches, and seeing Mugs’s signal, Paul Pry knew that the woman was a dip or pickpocket.

His keen eyes flashed over her in swift appraisal, then darted back to Mugs Magoo, and Mugs knew that his employer was not interested.

A short, well-tailored man strutted past, shoulders back, chin up. His face was a little pasty. His manner held a little too much assurance.

Mugs Magoo let his glassy eyes flicker once over the man’s features, then the hand which held the hat raised and swept in a half circle. Paul Pry interpreted the signal to mean that the man was a gangster and a killer, a gun for a mob, and a top-notcher in his profession.

But Paul Pry’s eyes did not even give the gangster a second glance. He was waiting for some choice tidbit to drift into his net.

Half an hour passed without any interchange of signals. Mugs Magoo, crouched against the wall of a bank building, sold a few pencils, mumbled a few words of thanks as coins clinked into his hat, and surveyed the passing pedestrians with glassy eyes that never missed a face.

A thin, dour individual with ratty, suspicious eyes, pattered his way along the sidewalk with quick, nervous strides. Mugs Magoo’s gestures meant that the man was the pay-off for a gang of big rum-runners.

Paul Pry shook his head.

Another fifteen minutes and a man who might have been a banker paused on the corner, almost directly between Mugs Magoo and Paul Pry. Paul Pry moved abruptly to get the signals Mugs was making.

The man was slightly inclined to be fat. He was about forty-five. His cheeks were clean-shaven and massaged to pinkness. His motions were slow, weighted with the dignity of one who has accustomed himself to command. About him was none of the nervousness of a man who is forced to blast a living by the sheer force of his personality. Here was the calm assurance of one who reaps the crops others have sown. Serene, complacent, dignified, the big man with the broad chest and well-fitted waistcoat watched the flow of traffic with eyes that might have been concentrated rather upon some large financial problem than upon the composite rush of city traffic.

Mugs Magoo nodded his head, moved his hat in a circle, then shook it slightly. Paul Pry raised a hand to his hat, gave a flip to the cane which he held in his right hand, and sauntered a few steps toward the curb.

Properly interpreted, those signals meant that Mugs Magoo had recognized the dignified individual as the scout of a powerful mob, and that the mob in question was the one headed by “Big Front” Gilvray.

And Mugs Magoo had not needed Pry’s answering signal to apprize him that his duties for the day were over. For it went without saying that any of the activities of Big Front Gilvray’s gang would be of absorbing interest to Paul Pry. Ever since Paul Pry had found that Gilvray was far too clever to let the police pin anything on him, and that the initials B. F. reputed in the underworld to stand for Big Front, really stood for Benjamin Franklin, Paul Pry had cultivated Gilvray as a pet aversion.

Mugs Magoo gathered up his pencils, put them in a voluminous pocket, scooped the few silver coins from his hat, got to his feet, and walked away.

The portly man continued to stand in dignified meditation, his eyes fixed upon the door of the Sixth Merchants & Traders National Bank. For anything that appeared in his face or figure to the contrary, he might have been a Wall Street banker, turning over in his mind the advisability of purchasing a controlling interest in the institution. Certainly no ordinary detective would ever have placed him as a gangster, scouting out information of value to his mob.

Five minutes passed. The gangster looked at his watch, and there was something impressive in the very motion of his well-manicured hand as he took the timepiece from his waistcoat pocket.

Two more minutes. There was the rumble of heavy wheels sounding a base note deeper than the whining tires of the lighter traffic. An armored truck rumbled to a stop before the side entrance of the bank.

Instantly special police cleared the space between door and truck. The end doors of the truck were opened. Two men with heavy revolvers bulging from shiny holsters stood at watchful attention. Employees of the bank trundled out two hand trucks loaded with small, but heavy, wooden boxes.

The boxes were checked, and flung into the armored truck. One of the armed men signed a paper. The steel doors clanged shut. The armed men entered the truck through another door which, in turn, clanged shut. Then there was the grating sound of bars sliding across steel. The special police walked back into the bank. The truck rumbled out into the stream of traffic, a rolling fortress, laden with wealth, impregnable.

The men inside had sub-machine guns, and were encased in bullet-proof steel. Little slits gave them opportunity to fire in any direction. Bullet-proof glass furnished their vision of the entire four points of the compass. There would be a special police escort waiting to receive the shipment at its destination. In the meantime, thousands of dollars worth of gold was being moved safely and efficiently through the streets of the city.

The sides of the truck bore a sign, printed in the small letters of a firm that deals with conservative institutions in a conservative manner. “Bankers’ Bonded Transportation Co.”

Paul Pry inspected the sign with eyes that were slitted in concentrated thought. The truck turned a corner and was lost to sight. The gangster took a notebook from his pocket, took out his watch, and made a notation, apparently of the exact time.

Paul Pry managed to get a look at the face of the gangster. It was wreathed in a smile of satisfaction.

In impressive dignity, the man walked away, and Paul Pry followed him.

He walked for two blocks, and then approached the curb. Almost instantly a huge, shiny machine drew up beside him. The car was driven by a slight individual whose skin was a dead white, whose eyes were pin-pointed, but steady. In the rear of the car sat a large man whose flashing eyes were as keen as darting rapiers. Bushy brows covered those eyes as thunderheads cover the first flashes of lightning from a coming storm.

This was Big Front Gilvray. He might have been a United States senator, or a big corporation lawyer. He was, in fact, a crook, and a leader among crooks. The police had never pinned anything definite upon Big Front Gilvray.

The man Paul Pry had been following stepped into the car, and muttered something to Gilvray. To prove it, he produced the leather-backed notebook in which he had made a pencil entry at the exact time the armored truck had received its cargo of gold.

The information was not so satisfactory to Gilvray as it had been to the man Pry had shadowed. Gilvray’s brows puckered together, his eyes filmed for a moment in thought. Then he shook his head slowly, judicially, in the manner of a judge who is refusing to act upon insufficient evidence. The car purred out from the curb.

Paul Pry hailed a taxicab. Through the congested traffic he managed to keep close to the car. In the more open stretches of through boulevard he dropped some distance behind. But the big car rolled along at a rate of speed that was carefully timed to be within the law. Big Front Gilvray did not believe in allowing the police to get anything on him, even a petty traffic violation.

In the end, Paul Pry could have secured the same information from a telephone book that he paid a taxi driver seven dollars and five cents to secure. For the big, shiny automobile was piloted directly to a suburban house where B. F. Gilvray was living.

Paul Pry knew that house was listed in the telephone directory, that there would be a name plate to the side of the door containing the words “Benjamin F. Gilvray.”

Big Front Gilvray had given up his city apartment and moved into the suburbs. The house was set back somewhat from the street and was rather pretentious. There was a sweep of graveled drive, a huge garage, a struggling hedge, some ornamental trees, and a well-kept lawn.

Paul Pry looked the place over, shrugged his shoulders, and had the cab drive him back to the city.

Paul Pry’s apartment was in the center of the most congested district he could find. He liked the feel that he was in the midst of things, surrounded by thousands of humans. He had only to raise his window and the noises of traffic would roll into the apartment. Or, if traffic were momentarily silenced, there would sound the shuffle, shuffle, shuffle of countless feet, plodding along the sidewalk.

Mugs Magoo was in the apartment, a bottle of whiskey at his elbow, a half emptied glass in his hand. He looked up with glassy eyes as Paul Pry entered.

“Find out anything, chief?”

“Not a thing, Mugs. The man you pointed out seemed to have gone to some trouble to find out exactly when an armored truck left the Sixth Merchants & Traders National.”

“He would.”

“Meaning?”

“That guy was Sam Pringle. He’s one of Gilvray’s best men. He got an engineer’s education, and he believes in being thorough. When that bird writes down a seven it means a seven. It don’t mean six and a half, or about seven, or seven an’ a tenth. It means seven.” And Mugs Magoo drained the rest of the whiskey in his glass.

His tone was slightly thick. His eyes were watery underneath their film, and he talked with a loquacity which he reserved for occasions of alcoholic stimulation. But Paul Pry accepted this as a part of the man’s character. Mugs had cultivated the habit through too many years to put it lightly aside.

“What,” asked Paul Pry, “do you know of the Bankers’ Bonded Transportation Company?”

“A sweet graft. The illegal crooks built it up for the legal crooks. They have to ship gold back and forth every once in a while, now that they have lots of branch banks, and payrolls and all that sort of thing. The crooks went at it too heavy and almost killed the goose that was layin’ the golden egg. A bunch of bankers got together and bought some armored trucks. They’re lulus. No chance of cracking one of those things short of using a ton of dynamite. Then they bonded every employee, and got an insurance company to insure every cargo. Now the bank is responsible until the cargo gets aboard the truck. After that the bank don’t have nothin’ to worry about.”

Mugs poured himself another drink and then continued: “In some cities the banks own their own trucks. Here, it’s all done through this company. You watch ’em loading. You’ll see a string of officers guarding the sidewalks. But the minute the last sack of gold bangs down on the floor of the trucks and the driver signs a receipt, the bank pulls in its cops. If there should be a hold-up the next second the bank officers would just yawn. They’re covered by insurance, and bonds and guarantees. They should worry.”

Paul Pry nodded, slowly, thoughtfully. “And why should the Gilvray outfit be so interested in the time the armored trucks make their appearance? Do you suppose they contemplate staging a hold-up just as the gold hits the sidewalk? Perhaps having a regular slaughter with machine guns?”

Mugs Magoo shook his head emphatically.

“Not those babies. They go in for technique. They pull their jobs like clockwork. I’m tellin’ you the department ain’t ever got a thing on Big Front. They know lots, but they can’t prove a thing. That’s how slick he is.”

Mugs Magoo reached for his glass of whiskey.

“Don’t get crocked,” warned Paul Pry.

“Son, there ain’t enough whiskey left in the world to crock me.”

“Lots of fellows have wrestled with old John Barleycorn, Mugs.”

“Yeah. I ain’t wrestlin’. I’m gettin’ ready to take the count whenever he slips over the kayo. But what the hell’s left in life for a guy with one arm and no job?”

“Maybe you could get on the force somewhere.”

“Not now. They keep too accurate records.”

And because the talk had made Mugs Magoo blue, he tossed off the entire glass at a gulp, and refilled it.

Paul Pry crossed to the north wall of his apartment. Here were drums, all sorts of drums. There were huge war drums, Indian ceremonial drums, snare drums, cannibal tom-toms. Paul Pry selected his favorite drum as a violinist might select a favored instrument.

It was an Indian rain drum of the Hopi tribe. It was made from a hollowed log of cottonwood, the wood burnt to proper temper and resonance. It was covered with skin, laced with rawhide thongs. The stick was made of juniper, wadded with a ball of cloth.

Paul Pry sat in a chair and boomed forth a few solemn sound-throbs from the interior of the instrument.

“Get that note of haunting resonance, Mugs. Doesn’t it arouse some savage instinct in your dormant memory cells? You can hear the pound of naked feet on the floor of a dance rock, get the suggestion of flickering camp fires, steady stars, twining bodies, dancing perhaps with rattlesnakes clasped in their teeth.”

Boom — boom — boom — boom!

The drum gave forth regular cadences of weird sounds — sounds that entered the blood stream and heightened the pulse in the ears. Paul Pry’s face took on an expression of savage delight. This was the manner in which he prepared himself for intellectual concentration.

But Mugs Magoo merely drank whiskey and let his bleary eyes remain fixed on a spot in the carpet.

Slowly the tempo changed. The booming of the drum became more somber. Gradually it faded into faint cadences of thrumming sound, then died away altogether. Paul Pry was in a rapt state of concentration.

Mugs Magoo poured himself another drink.

Fifteen minutes passed and became a half hour, and then Paul Pry chuckled. The chuckle rasped upon the silence of the room as a sound of utter incongruity.

Mugs Magoo cocked an eyebrow.

“Got somethin’?”

“I rather think I have, Mugs. Do you know, I have an idea I had better purchase a car.”

“Another one?”

“Another one. And I think I’d better register it in the name of B. F. Gilvray at 7823 Maplewood Drive.”

“Then he’d own it.”

“Certainly.”

“But you’d be paying for it.”

“Right again. But I’ve always wanted to make Gilvray a present.”

And Paul Pry, continuing to chuckle, arose, hung up the ceremonial drum, and reached for his stick, which contained a sword of finest steel, his hat, and gloves.

“The bottle, Mugs, will have to do you for the rest of the day,” he said, and went out.

Mr. Philip Borgley, first vice president of the Sixth Merchants & Traders National, regarded the dapper individual who smiled at him with such urbane assurance, and then consulted the slip of pasteboard which was held between his fingers.

“Mr. Paul Pry, eh?”

Paul Pry continued to smile.

The banker squirmed about in his chair and frowned. He did not encourage smiles during interviews. The great god of money must be approached in a spirit of proper reverence. And Philip Borgley wished to impress upon his customers that he was the priest of the great god.

“You do not have an account here?” There was almost accusation in the question.

“No,” remarked Paul Pry, and the smile became slightly more pronounced.

“Ah,” observed Borgley in a tone which had shattered the hopes of many a supplicant before the throne of wealth.

But the smile upon Paul Pry’s face remained.

“Well?” snapped the banker.

“The bank, I believe, has a standing reward for the recovery of stolen money?”

“Yes. In the event any is stolen.”

“Ah, yes. And does the bank, perhaps, offer any rewards for crime prevention?”

“No, sir. It does not. And may I suggest that if idle curiosity prompted you to seek this interview it had best be terminated.” Banker Borgley got to his feet.

Paul Pry poked at the toe of his well-fitting shoe with the tip of his cane. “How interesting. The bank will pay to recover the spoils of crime after the crime had been committed, but it will do nothing to prevent the commission of the crime.”

The banker moved toward the mahogany gate that swung in the marble partition which walled off the lower part of his office.

“The reason is simple,” he said, curtly. “To reward the prevention of crime would merely make it possible for some gang to plan an abortive crime, then send some slick representative here to shake us down for not committing the crime they themselves had planned.”

There was no attempt to disguise the suspicion in his voice.

“I’m sorry,” said Paul Pry. “I guess, under those circumstances, I’ll have to let the crime go through and collect a reward for recovery.”

Philip Borgley hesitated, and it was apparent from his manner that he was debating whether or not he should call the police.

Paul Pry leaned forward.

“Mr. Borgley, I am about to make a confession.”

“Ah!” snapped the banker, and returned to his chair.

Paul Pry lowered his voice until it was hardly above a whisper. “Will you treat my admission in confidence?”

“No. I accept confidences only from depositors.”

“Sorry,” Paul Pry said.

“You were about to make a confession?”

“Yes. I’m going to tell it to you. But it’s a secret. I’ve never admitted it before.”

“Well?”

“I’m an opportunist.”

The banker straightened and his face darkened.

“Are you, by any chance, trying to play a practical joke, or are you just trying to act smart?”

“Neither. I called to warn you of a theft of rather a large sum of money which is due to take place within the next few days. I am, however, an opportunist. I live, Mr. Borgley, by my wits, and my information is never imparted gratuitously.”

“I see,” said the banker, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “And let me point out to you, Mr. Pry, that this bank doesn’t temporize with crooks. This bank is well guarded, and the guards are instructed to shoot to kill. This bank is wired with the last word in burglar alarms. This bank is protected by devices which I do not care to discuss in detail. If any crook can rob us of any of this money he is welcome to it. And if any crook tries it, this bank will send that crook to the penitentiary. So now you understand. Have I made myself clear?”

Paul Pry yawned and got to his feet.

“I would say about twenty percent would be about right. Let us say two hundred dollars on every thousand you lose. That, of course, is for recovery. I would offer to prevent the crime for a mere ten percent.”

Banker Borgley quivered with rage.

“Get out,” he yelled.

Paul Pry smiled as he strolled leisurely through the mahogany gate.

“By the way,” he said, “I feel quite sure your disposition is such that you would be most unpopular. I understand your best friends won’t mention it. I am mentioning it because I am not your best friend. Good morning!”

The banker jabbed a finger on a button. An emergency alarm sounded and an officer came on the run.

“Show this gentleman out!” yelled the banker.

Paul Pry bowed his thanks. “Don’t mention it. So good of you,” he drawled.

The officer grasped Paul Pry’s arm, just above the elbow, and instantly the smile vanished from Paul Pry’s face. He turned to the banker.

“Are your orders that I should be ejected? Do you suggest that this officer lay his hands upon me?”

And something in the cold tone brought Borgley to a realization of lawsuits and assault actions.

“No, no,” he said, hastily, and the officer dropped his hand from Paul Pry’s arm.

“The price,” said Paul Pry, “will be two hundred and fifty dollars for each thousand recovered. Good morning.”

Truck number three of the Bankers’ Bonded Transportation Company lumbered out of the garage where the trucks were stored. The driver had a series of yellow sheets in his pocket, a route list of places where calls were to be made and valuable shipments picked up.

It was a hot day, and the truck was empty. There was not five cent’s worth of loot in the entire machine, and the guards were naturally enjoying the currents of air which came through the open windows. Later on, when the truck would become a rolling treasure chest, the guards would have to crouch within the hot steel tank, windows rolled up, suspicious eyes scrutinizing the surrounding traffic, perspiration smearing oily skins in a perpetual slime.

Now both driver and guard were relaxed, taking life easy. Their work had become mere routine to them. The contents of the boxes they carried meant nothing more to them than do the contents of packing cases to the drivers of department store trucks.

They were ten blocks from the garage, rolling down the boulevard with the steady speed of controlled momentum. There came a moment when there was no other traffic in sight.

The light car which flashed from the side street and disregarded the arterial stop, crashed against the curb, skidded, and sideswiped the big armored truck.

There was the sound of a splintering crash. The driver of the truck clamped his foot on the brake pedal. He had lost a little paint from the sides of the steel car. The flivver was wrecked. Its driver was jumping up and down, gesticulating.

“What the devil do you mean hogging the road? I’ll have you arrested. I’ll—”

The truck driver unwound himself from behind the wheel of the armored car and jumped to the ground.

“Sa-a-ay,” he snarled. “How do you get that way?”

The man who had driven the light car moved his left with the trained precision of a professional fighter. The function of that left was to measure the distance, hold the outthrust jaw of the truck driver steady. It was the flashing right which crossed to the button of the jaw and did the damage.

“Hey, you!” yelled a startled guard, and jumped out of the truck. “You’re in the wrong. What the devil are you trying to do? I’m an officer, and—”

He didn’t finish the sentence. A black, shiny car slid smoothly to a stop.

“I saw it,” said a man and jumped to the ground. “It was the truck’s fault.”

“What in hell—” yelled the infuriated guard.

The truck guard stopped. The gun that bored into his middle was held in a steady hand, and the eyes of the man who held it were aglitter with businesslike efficiency.

“Get into that car and be damned quick about it, both of you,” said the man, as he swung his gun to cover the two astonished guards.

At that moment the door opened and two men stepped out. The guards’ jaws sagged with astonishment, for these men were attired in an exact replica of their own clothing. There were the olive drab shirts with the insignia of the Bankers’ Bonded Transportation Company; the identical caps with their shields, the belted trousers with their holstered weapons dangling from belts, the puttees, the polished shoes.

They never fully recovered from their gasps of surprise, for a tap with a slungshot collapsed them both like a sack of meal. Men moved with studied efficiency, and the two unconscious guards were in the shiny automobile before the first of an oncoming procession of cars came abreast of the scene of the accident.

Out of the little cluster of traffic two or three cars stopped. The drivers of these cars saw nothing unusual. The uniformed men who stood by the side of the truck were gravely exchanging license numbers with the driver of the demolished light car who was very, very meek.

The shiny sedan with drawn side curtains purred away. The meek man accepted a lift with a passing motorist. The armored truck rumbled away, and only the stolen flivver was left by the curb to mark the first step in the efficient plans of Big Front Gilvray.

From there on, it was smooth sailing. The Sixth Merchants & Traders National had some rather heavy gold shipments to make, and had telephoned its order for the truck to be at the door at a certain time.

The truck arrived, on time to the minute. The side door popped open, and special officers patrolled the sidewalk. Passing pedestrians gawked at the sight of the heavy boxes thudded to the floor of the armored car. The special officers watched the faces of the pedestrians with vigilance. The truck driver yawned as he signed the receipt for the given number of boxes.

The bank was rather casual in the matter. The drivers were bonded, the contents of the truck insured. The shipment had been safely transferred into the hands of the Bankers’ Bonded Transportation Company. There was nothing to worry about. It was mere routine.

The guard slammed the door shut. The driver crawled in behind the wheel, and the truck rumbled away into traffic.

The truck was next seen abandoned by the curb in a residential district. Residents had noticed certain boxes being transferred to a delivery truck. They could give little additional information. The ones who made the transfer had worn conventional uniforms, and the residents had not been overly curious — at first.

The captured guards were released two hours later. They were groggy, mortified, enraged, and they had aching heads. They were able to give only a vague description of the men who had engineered the capture of the truck, and the police knew that these men, unmasked as they were, were crooks imported especially for this one job.

They were at a standstill, but they hesitated to admit it. They made a great show of getting fingerprints from the armored car, but they might as well have saved their time.

Philip Borgley immediately reported his interview with Paul Pry, and insisted that Pry must be one of the robbers. The police laughed. They had crossed the trail of Paul Pry before. That young man was just what he claimed to be — an opportunist. He had solved several crimes, and in every event had collected a reward. The total of those rewards amounted to a tidy income.

But the police had investigated Paul Pry from one side to the other. His methods were shrouded in mystery. His technique was baffling. But he was not in league with any criminal.

All of which called Paul Pry to the attention of the directors of the bank who were in session.

At about that time the bank’s counsel delivered his opinion. The Bankers’ Bonded Transportation Company was not responsible for the loss. They had never sent a truck to the bank, had never signed for the shipment. The theft of the truck had been completed before it called at the bank. Therefore, the bank had voluntarily delivered its shipment of gold to two crooks.

The directors promptly announced a reward for the recovery of the stolen gold. But gold is hard to identify and easy to divide. It looked very much as though the bank was about to make a rather large entry in red ink upon its books of account.

Paul Pry knew of the reward within half an hour of the time it was announced. He telephoned the bank to verify the report, and then sauntered to the parking station which was around the corner from his apartment.

He had sufficient information to lay before the police to secure a search warrant for the residence of Benjamin F. Gilvray, and doubtless recover the missing coin. But Paul Pry had no intention of killing the goose that laid his golden eggs. Big Front Gilvray had indirectly furnished Paul Pry with a very nice income during the past few months.

At the parking station, Paul Pry surrendered a ticket and had delivered to him a new, shiny automobile. This automobile was registered in the name of Benjamin F. Gilvray, 7823 Maplewood Drive, although the information would have come as a distinct shock to Benjamin F. Gilvray.

Paul Pry drove the new car to a point well out of traffic, parked it, and switched to a red roadster which was registered in his own name. He drove this roadster to a point about a block and a half from the residence at 7823 Maplewood Drive, and parked it. Then he called a taxicab and returned to the place where he had parked the new automobile he had registered in the name of the arch-gangster.

In a deserted side street, Pry stopped the car, opened the tool box, and took out a big hammer. With this hammer he started operations on the left front fender.

When he had finished, the car presented a striking appearance. The shiny newness of its factory finish was marred by a left front fender which was as battered as a wad of discarded tinfoil. The paint had been chipped off. The fender had been rubbed against a telephone pole and dented in countless places.

By this time it was the dusk of early evening, and Paul Pry blithely piloted his new car out into the boulevard.

At a side street where there was a little traffic, yet enough potential danger to warrant an automatic signal, Paul parked the car and awaited his opportunity.

A traffic officer stood just under the automatic signal box on the southwest corner, peering sharply at such machines as passed. He was there to arrest violators, the theory being that the amount thus received in fines would more than offset his salary.

When Paul Pry considered the moment opportune, he eased his car away from the curb. The street was deserted as far as he could see in both directions. The traffic signal was againt him.

The rest was absurdly simple.

With the bewildered stupidity of a new driver, he slowly drove the car out into the middle of the intersection and brought it to a stop only when the whistle of the officer on duty had blown its third imperative summons.

The position in which the car had stopped was such that Paul had an uninterrupted view up and down both streets. He was, in fact, almost in the exact center of the intersection.

The traffic officer, striding purposefully and irately to the left side of the machine, took due note of the crumpled fender and the new finish of the car. His voice held that tone of patient weariness with which mothers address wayward children after waywardness has become a habit.

“I suppose you’re blind and can’t see, and deaf and can’t hear. You didn’t know there was a traffic signal, nor hear me yelling for you to stop.”

Paul Pry drew himself up with dignity.

“You,” he said, slowly and distinctly, “can go to hell. I am B. F. Gilvray, Benjamin Franklin Gilvray.”

The officer, his ears attuned to expectation of humble excuses, and half-inclined to be charitable with the driver of a new car, recoiled as though he had been struck. His face darkened, and the air of patient sarcasm slipped from him.

“You half-pint of a lounge lizard! You start talking to me like that and I’ll push your nose so hard it’ll stick wrong side out the back of your head. Who the bloody hell do you think you’re talking to?”

And he thrust his rage-mottled face over the edge of the front door and glowered at Paul Pry.

Pry made no answer, none whatever.

For a full five seconds the officer glowered, hoping that the culprit would give him an excuse to use sufficient force to make an arrest on the charge of resisting an officer. But Paul Pry remained immobile.

The officer snorted and went to the front of the machine. He took down the license number, strode majestically back to the car and jerked open the left front door.

“Got your fender smashed. Did that just recently, didn’t yuh?”

“That, my man, is none of your business.”

The officer’s hand shot into the car, clutched the collar of Paul Pry’s coat, and Paul Pry came violently out from behind the steering wheel.

“Sa-a-ay, you’ve got lots to learn, you have. Get out your driving license and be quick about it. You’re going to take a drive to headquarters. That’s where you’re going!”

And, still holding Paul Pry by the collar, he reached in his free hand and ripped out the registration certificate.

There was no traffic up either street. The intersection showed no approaching headlights. There were no pedestrians. Paul Pry had carefully chosen his corner and his time. Abruptly he changed from a passive but impudent citizen in the hands of the law, to a bundle of steel muscles, and wire-hard sinews.

“Crack!” the impact of his fist on the side of the officer’s head sounded like a muffled pistol shot.

The officer staggered back, rage, surprise, and pain on his features. Paul Pry snapped his left home with that degree of accurate precision in timing which denotes the trained fighter.

The blow seemed almost unhurried, so perfectly timed was it, so gracefully were the arm and shoulder swung behind the punch. But the officer went down like a sack of meal, the registration certificate still clutched in his left hand.

Paul Pry got into the automobile, slipped in the clutch and purred down the street, turned on the next through boulevard and drove directly in front of the residence of Big Front Gilvray, where he parked the automobile.

Then he strolled across the street, sat down in the shadow of a hedge, and smoked a cigarette.

The house of Big Front Gilvray showed as a gloomy and silent pile of darkness. There was no sign of light from the windows, no sound of occupancy from within. The house was shrouded in watchful silence. But it was a tense silence. One sensed that perhaps there might be a cautious face, pressed against the glass of an upper window, surveying the street — that other faces at the four corners of the house might be cautiously inspecting the night.

It was a full half hour before Paul heard the wail of a siren, the sound of a clanging gong. The street reflected the rays of a red spotlight. The police were going to make something of a ritual of it. They had brought the patrol wagon with them.

Paul Pry walked down the street to the place where he had left his roadster, got in, started the motor, and warmed up the engine. Then he switched off the ignition the better to hear any sounds that the night had to offer.

The wagon drew up to the big residence with something of a flourish.

“Here we are, boys!” yelled someone. “Lookit the car! It’s the kind Bill said, and the front fender’s caved.”

Another voice growled, “Drag him out.”

The police car discharged figures who moved with grim determination up the walk to the house. The front steps boomed the noise of their authoritative feet into the night, and there came the sound of nightsticks beating a tattoo upon wooden panels.

But the door didn’t open immediately.

The house gave forth signs of muffled activity. Then a porch light clicked on, and Big Front Gilvray stood in the doorway, his frame blocking out the soft glow from a lighted hallway.

Big Front lived true to his name. He put on a bold front. Behind him there were men armed with machine guns, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible; but these men were out of sight, hidden where their guns could sweep hallways and staircases with the most deadly angle of fire.

Paul Pry heard Gilvray’s booming voice.

“What in hell is the meaning of this outrage?”

It was Gilvray’s code to be impressive, always to keep the other man on the defensive.

The only answer to the question was a counter question from one of the officers.

“Are you Benjamin F. Gilvray of 7823 Maplewood Drive?”

“I am. And I want to know—”

What Big Front Gilvray wanted to know was drowned in the sound made by a heavy fist impacting soft flesh. There followed the scuffle of feet, the thud of blows. After an interval someone said, “You’re under arrest,” and a knot of struggling figures threshed their way toward the patrol wagon.

There was the clanging of a bell, the wail of a siren, the roar of an exhaust, and the patrol wagon was on its way. From within could be seen moving figures, silhouetted against the lighted ribbon of roadway.

Big Front Gilvray was resisting arrest and the figures were doing their stuff.

Paul Pry started the motor on his car and slipped to the side street. From this position he could command a view of the alley entrance from the garages, also of the graveled driveway.

Lights blazed on in the house, then were subdued. Doors banged. There was the sound of running steps. A car shot out of one of the garages, skidded at the turn into the side street, and roared into the night. It was filled with men.

A truck followed. There were two men in the driver’s seat. The cargo of the truck was covered with canvas. It was not particularly bulky.

Paul Pry followed the red light of the truck.

He kept well to the rear, yet, with the flexibility of his powerful roadster, was able to command the situation. The truck could not get away. Paul Pry drove without headlights and was invisible to the occupants of the truck.

The chase led for nearly a mile, and then the truck turned into a public garage. Paul Pry drove around the block and piloted his red roadster into the same garage.

The truck of the gangsters was parked at one end of the place and a sleepy-eyed attendant came forward with a ticket. His eyes were swollen with sleep, and he sucked in a prodigious yawn as he stretched his hands high above his head.

“I’d better park it,” said Paul Pry. “The reverse is sticking a little.”

The man in the dirty overalls yawned again and sleepily pushed a ticket into the crack over the hinges of the hood. That ticket was numbered, a string of black figures on a red background. The other half of the ticket, bearing a duplicate number, he thrust into Paul Pry’s hand.

“Right next to the truck?” asked Paul casually, and didn’t wait for an answer.

He drove the car down the dimly lit aisle of the garage, backed it into the first vacant stall to the side of the truck, switched off motor and lights, and got out.

It was, perhaps, significant that he got out of the car on the side that was nearest the truck, and that his hand rested against the hood of the powerful truck as he walked between the stalls.

In the dim light of the place, the sleepy-eyed attendant had no idea that Paul Pry was switching squares of pasteboard, that the red ticket which had been thrust into the hood of the roadster now adorned the truck, and that the truck ticket was transferred to the roadster.

Paul Pry had hardly intended to play the game in just that manner. He felt certain the gangsters, alarmed over the arrest of Big Front Gilvray, would transfer the treasure cargo, but he had hardly counted upon the audacious move by which they sought to insure safety for themselves.

It was simple. The very simplicity of it was its best protection. They felt the police might be on their trail. Therefore the thing to do was to place the stolen cargo where it would never be found. What more simple solution than to treat the boxes of gold as just an ordinary truck cargo, park the truck for the night, and make no further move until they heard from Gilvray.

If the police had the goods on Gilvray, the gangsters could take the truck’s cargo, transfer it to fast touring cars and leave the city. If it was a false alarm, the gold was removed from the house which might be searched on general principles. If the police had complete information and knew the emergency headquarters the gang had established, a raid would reveal no incriminating evidence.

Paul Pry, however, was an opportunist. He had intended only to make certain that the gold was collected in one place, and then notify the police of that hiding place and claim the reward. As it was, he had an opportunity to make a much more spectacular recovery of the treasure, and leave the gang intact — an organization of desperate criminals, ready to commit other crimes upon which Pry might capitalize.

So it happened that when Pry left the garage he had with him a square of pasteboard containing a number, and, upon that truck with its illegal cargo, was a duplicate ticket containing the same number.

Paul Pry chuckled to himself as he walked out into the night.

He telephoned Sergeant Mahoney at headquarters.

“Pry talking, Sergeant. There’s a reward out for the recovery of the gold that was slicked from the Sixth Merchants & Traders National?”

“I’ll say there is. You haven’t got a lead on it, have you?”

“Yeah. What say you drive out to the corner of Vermont and Harrison? I’ll meet you there with the gold. You take the credit for the recovery and keep my name out of it. We split the reward fifty-fifty.”

The sergeant cleared his throat.

“I’d like to do that all right, Pry. But it happens you’ve figured in two or three rewards lately. How come you get the dope so easily?”

Paul Pry laughed. “Trade secret, Sergeant. Why?”

“Well, you know, someone might claim you were pulling the crimes in order to get the rewards.”

“Don’t be silly, Sergeant. If I’d taken the risk of pulling this job I wouldn’t surrender the coin for a fraction of its value. These boxes don’t contain jewels. They contain gold coin and currency. I could take the stuff out and spend it — if I didn’t want to turn it back. But if you think it might make trouble, we’ll just forget it and I won’t back the shipment and you can go ahead and work on the case in your own way.”

“No, no, Pry! I was just thinking out loud. You’re right. The corner of Harrison and Vermont? I’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

Paul Pry hung up the telephone, then rang his apartment. Mugs Magoo answered the ring.

“You drunk, Mugs?”

“No.”

“Sober?”

“No.”

“All right. Get a cab and pick up a pair of overalls and a cap, also a jumper. Get a leather coat if you can’t get a jumper. Bring them to me in a rush. You’ll find me at a drug store out on Vermont, near a Hundred and Tenth Street. Make it snappy.”

And Paul Pry settled himself comfortably in the drug store, picked up a magazine, purchased a package of cigarettes and prepared to enjoy himself.

It took Mugs Magoo half an hour to bring the things. Paul Pry changed in the taxicab and arrived at the garage with clothes that were soiled and grimy. A little tobacco in his eyes gave them a reddened inflamed appearance.

He was cursing when the sleepy-eyed attendant, dozing in a chair tilted back against the office wall, extended a mechanical hand.

“That damned truck. Can you beat it? I don’t any more than get to sleep when the boss rings up and tells the wife I’ve got to take that load down to the warehouse tonight, pick up a helper and start on another trip.”

The attendant looked at Paul Pry with a puzzled frown.

“You the one that brought in that truck?”

Paul yawned and flipped him the red pasteboard.

“Uh huh,” he said.

The attendant walked back to the truck, compared the numbers on the tickets, nodded.

“Your face looked familiar, but I thought—”

He didn’t finish what he had thought.

Paul Pry got in the truck, switched on the ignition, got the motor roaring to life, turned on the headlights and drove to the street. Mugs Magoo in the taxicab, an automatic clutched in his left hand, guarded the rear. The treasure truck rumbled down the boulevard.

At the corner of Harrison, Sergeant Mahoney was parked in a police car. He shook hands with Paul Pry and ran to the canvas-covered cargo of the truck. A moment’s examination convinced him.

“God, there should be a promotion in this!”

Paul Pry nodded.

“You drive the truck to headquarters. Claim you shook the information out of a stoolie. I’ll drive your roadster to my apartment. You can have one of your men pick it up later. By the way, I’ve got a red roadster out at Magby’s Garage, a mile or so down the street. I’ve lost my claim check for it. Wish you’d send a squad out there and tell the garage man it’s a stolen car. You can leave it in front of my apartment when you pick up your car.”

Sergeant Mahoney surveyed Paul Pry with eyes that were puckered to mere glinting slits.

“Did you switch tags and steal this truck, son?”

Paul Pry shook his head. “I can’t very well answer that question.”

“Afraid of something? You’d have police protection if you committed a technical robbery of a gangster truck.”

Pry laughed. “No. There’s a more personal reason than that.”

“Which is?”

“That I don’t want to kill the goose that’s laying my golden eggs.”

Sergeant Mahoney emitted a low whistle.

“Golden eggs is right! But you’re monkeying with dynamite, son. You’ll be pushin’ up daisies if you play that game.”

“Possibly,” agreed Paul Pry. “But, after all, that’s what makes the game more interesting. And it’s something that’s entirely between me and—”

“And who?” asked the officer eagerly.

“And a gentleman to whom I have presented a new car,” said Paul Pry. With which cryptic remark, he walked toward the police roadster.

“Take good care of that truck, and good night, Sergeant. Let me know about your promotion.”

The sergeant was clambering into the driver’s seat of the truck as Paul Pry stepped on the starter of the police roadster. In the morning another consignment of golden eggs would find its way to him — one half of the reward money posted by the bank for a loss which it might have prevented.

Sweet Music Robert L. Fish

As he tells it in the introduction to Kek Huuygens, Smuggler (1976), Robert Lloyd Fish (1912–1981) was living in Rio de Janeiro, working as a civil engineer and trying to work on his golf game when a friend told him of a man who had legally — well, almost legally — smuggled five million dollars into the United States from Belgium. Fish was already writing Sherlock Holmes parodies featuring Schlock Holmes and detective novels about Jose da Silva, a Brazilian police detective, but he thought this story was too good to ignore, so he went on to write several clever stories and a novel, The Hochmann Miniatures (1967), about Huuygens, who was born in Poland, had a Dutch name, and carried a valid American passport.

During his career, Fish wrote more than thirty novels, won three Edgar Awards (for The Fugitive, the best first novel of 1962; for Bullitt, the best motion picture of 1969, based on his novel Mute Witness, published under his Robert L. Pike pseudonym; and for “The Moonlight Gardener,” the best short story of 1971), was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America, and left the legacy of the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award, sponsored by his estate, that has given an annual award since 1984 for the best first short story by an American author as selected by MWA.

“Sweet Music” was originally published as a complete story within the novel The Hochmann Miniatures (New York, New American Library, 1967). It was first collected in Kek Huuygens, Smuggler (New York, Mysterious Press, 1976).

The month was September, the place was Paris, and the weather was hot.

Claude Devereaux, one of the large and overworked staff of customs inspectors at the incoming-passenger section of Orly airport, tilted his stiff-brimmed cap back from his sweating forehead, leaned over to scrawl an indecipherable chalkmark on the suitcase before him, and then straightened up, wondering what imbecile had designed the uniform he wore, and if the idiot had ever suffered its heavy weight on a hot day. He nodded absently to the murmured thank you of the released passenger and turned to his next customer, automatically accepting the passport thrust at him, wondering if there might still be time after his shift to stop for a bière before going home. Probably not, he thought with a sigh, and brought his attention back to business.

He noted the name in the green booklet idly, and was about to ask for declaration forms, when he suddenly stiffened, the oppressive heat — and even the beer — instantly forgotten. The bulletins on the particular name he was staring at filled a large portion of his special-instruction book. His eyes slid across the page to the smiling, rather carefree photograph pasted beside the neat signature, and then raised slowly and wonderingly to study the person across the counter.

He saw a man he judged to be in his early or middle thirties, a bit above medium height, well dressed in the latest and most expensive fashion of the boulevardier, with broad shoulders that seemed just a trifle out of proportion with his otherwise slim and athletic body. The thick, curly hair, a bit tousled by a rather bumpy ride over the Alps, was already lightly touched with gray; it gave a certain romantic air to the strong, clean-shaven face below. Mercurial eyebrows slanted abruptly over gray eyes that, the official was sure, undoubtedly proved very attractive to women. He came to himself with a start; at the moment those gray eyes were beginning to dissipate their patience under the other’s blatant inspection. Claude Devereaux suspected — quite rightly — that those soft eyes could become quite cold and hard if the circumstances warranted. He bent forward with a diffident smile, lowering his voice.

“M’sieu Huuygens...”

The man before him nodded gravely. “Yes?”

“I am afraid...”

“Afraid of what?” Kek Huuygens asked curiously.

The official raised his shoulders, smiling in a slightly embarassed manner, although the glint in his eyes was anything but disconcerted.

“Afraid that I must ask you to step into the chief inspector’s office,” he said smoothly, and immediately raised his palms, negating any personal responsibility. “Those are our instructions, m’sieu.”

“Merde! A nuisance!” The gray eyes studied the official thoughtfully a moment, as if attempting to judge the potential venality of the other. “I don’t suppose there is any other solution?”

“M’sieu?”

“No, I suppose not.” The notion was dismissed with an impatient shake of the head. “Each and every time I come through French customs! Ridiculous!” He shrugged. “Well, I suppose if one must, one must.”

“Exactly,” Devereaux agreed politely. What a story to tell his wife! No less a scoundrel than the famous Kek Huuygens himself had come through his station in customs, and had actually tried to bribe him! Well, not exactly to bribe him, but there had been an expression in those gray eyes for a moment that clearly indicated... The inspector dismissed the thought instantly. If his wife thought for one minute that he had turned down a bribe, she would never let him hear the end of it. Better just tell her... He paused. Better say nothing at all, he thought sourly, feeling somehow deprived of something, and then became aware that he was being addressed. He came to attention at once. “M’sieu?”

“The chief inspector’s office? If you recall?”

“Ah, yes! If m’sieu will just follow me...”

“And about my luggage?”

“Your luggage?” Claude Devereaux looked along the now vacant wooden counter, instantly brought from his dream, immediately on the alert. The bulletins had been most definite about this one! Watch him! Watch him constantly! Watch his every move! His eyes returned to the man before him suspiciously.

“You mean your briefcase? Or is there more?”

“It’s all I have, but it’s still my luggage.” Kek suddenly smiled at the other confidingly, willing to let bygones be bygones, accepting the fact that the inspector was merely doing his job. “I prefer to travel light, you know. A toothbrush, a clean pair of socks, a fresh shirt...” He looked about easily, as if searching out a safe spot where no careless porter might inadvertently pick up the briefcase and deposit it unbidden at the taxi-rank, or where someone with less honest intent might not steal it. “If I might leave it someplace out of the way...”

The official glanced at the high-vaulted ceiling with small attempt to hide his amusement, and then looked down again. Really, there had to be some way he could tell this story to his wife, or at least to his girl friend! It was just too delicious! He shook his head pityingly.

“I’m afraid, m’sieu, that your briefcase must go with you to the chief inspector’s office.” He brightened falsely. “In fact, I’ll even carry it for you.”

“You’re very kind,” Huuygens murmured, and followed along.

Charles Dumas, chief inspector of the Orly section, looked up from his cluttered desk at the entrance of the two men, leaned back in his chair with resignation, and audibly sighed. Today, obviously, he should have stayed home, or, better yet, gone to the club. The small office was baking in the unusual heat of the morning; the small fan droning in one corner was doing so without either enthusiasm or effectiveness; he was beginning to get a headache from the tiny print which somehow seemed to be the only font size available to the printing office, and now this! He accepted the proffered passport in silence, indicated with the merest motion of his head where he wished the briefcase deposited, and dismissed Inspector Devereaux with the tiniest lifting of his eyebrows. Even these efforts seemed to exhaust him; he waited until the disappointed inspector had reluctantly closed the door behind him, and then riffled through the pages of the passport. He paused at the fresh immigration stamp and then looked up with a faint grimace.

“M’sieu Huuygens...”

Kek seated himself on the one wooden chair the small office offered its guests, wriggled it a bit to make sure it was secure, and then looked up, studying the other’s face. He leaned back, crossing his legs, and shook his head.

“Really, Inspector,” he said a bit plaintively, “I fail to understand the expression on your face. It appears to me if anyone has reason to be aggrieved, it’s me. This business of a personal interview each time I come through customs...”

“Please.” A pudgy hand came up wearily, interrupting. The chief inspector sighed and studied the passport almost as if he had never seen one before. “So you’ve been traveling again?”

“Obviously.”

“To Switzerland this time, I see.” The dark eyes came up from the booklet, inscrutable. “A rather short trip, was it not?”

Kek tilted his chair back against the wall, crossing his arms, resigning himself to the inevitable catechism. “Just a weekend.”

“On business?”

“To avoid the heat of Paris for a few days, if you must know.”

“I see...” The chief inspector sighed again. “And I also see that you have nothing to declare. But, then, you seldom do.”

The chair eased down softly. Huuygens considered the inspector quietly for several seconds, and then nodded as if seeing the logic of the other’s position.

“All right,” he said agreeably. “If you people are sincerely interested in a soiled shirt and an old pair of socks, I’ll be happy to declare them. What’s the duty on a used toothbrush?” He suddenly grinned. “Not used as often as the advertisements suggest, but used.”

“I’m quite sure you are as familiar with the duty schedule as anyone in my department,” Inspector Dumas said quietly, and reached for the briefcase, drawing it closer. “May I?”

Without awaiting a reply he undid the straps, pressed the latch, and began drawing the contents out upon the table. He pushed the soiled clothing to one side, opened the shaving kit and studied it a moment, placed it at his elbow, and then reached further into the depths of the briefcase.

“Ah?” His voice was the essence of politeness itself. “And just what might this be?”

“Exactly what it looks like,” Kek said, in the tone one uses to explain an obvious verity to a child. “A box of chocolates.”

The chief inspector turned the package in his hands idly, admiring the patterned wrapping embossed in gold with the name of the shop, and the rather gaudy display of ribbon bent into an ornate bow. “A box of chocolates...” His eyebrows raised in exaggerated curiosity. “Which you somehow feel does not require declaring?”

Huuygens cast his eyes heavenward as if in secret amusement. “Good heavens, Inspector! A box of candy I faithfully promised as a gift to a lady, worth all of twenty Swiss francs!” He shrugged elaborately and came to his feet with a faint smile. “Well, all right. It’s silly, I assure you, but if you wish it declared, I’ll declare it. May I have my form back, please?”

The briefest of smiles crossed Inspector Dumas’s lips, and then was withdrawn as quickly as it had come. He waved a hand languidly. “Please be seated again, M’sieu Huuygens. I’m afraid it is far from being all that simple.”

Huuygens stared at him a moment and then sank back in his chair. “Are you trying to tell me something, Inspector?”

The inspector’s smile returned, broader this time, remaining. “I’m trying to tell you I believe I am beginning to become interested in these chocolates, m’sieu.” His hand remained on the box; his voice was suave. “If I’m not mistaken, m’sieu, while you were in Switzerland yesterday — to avoid the heat of Paris, as you say — you visted the offices of Ankli and Company. The diamond merchants. Did you not?”

Kek’s voice was more curious than perturbed. “And just how did you know that?”

The chief inspector shrugged. “All visitors to diamond merchants are reported, M’sieu Huuygens.” He sounded slightly disappointed. “I should have thought you would have known.”

Huuygens smiled at him. “To be honest, Inspector, it never even occurred to me. I simply went there because M’sieu Ankli is an old friend of mine. We share an interest in—” his smile broadened “—pretty things. In any event, it was purely a personal visit.”

“I’m sure. Probably,” the inspector suggested innocently, “since you were merely avoiding the heat of Paris, you found his offices to be air-conditioned, which undoubtedly helped you serve the purpose of your trip.” He picked the box up again, turning it over, studying it closer. “Suchard’s, I see. A very fine brand. And from the famous Bonbon Mart of Zurich, too. I know the place. Excellent.” His eyes came up, unfathomable. “Caramels?”

“Creams, if you must know,” Huuygens said, and sighed.

“Oh? I prefer caramels, myself. Both, of course, are equally fattening. I hope the lady realizes that,” the inspector added, and began to slip the ribbon over one corner of the box.

“Now, really!” Huuygens leaned forward, holding up a hand. “The lady in question has nothing to fear from fat, Inspector. Or from slimness, either. However, I rather think she would prefer to receive her chocolates with the minimum of fingerprints, if you don’t mind.”

“My personal opinion,” said Inspector Dumas, sounding honest for the first time, “is that she will never see these chocolates,” and he folded back the foil-lined wrapper and began to lift the cover of the box.

Kek frowned at him. “I still have the feeling you’re trying to tell me something.”

“I am,” said the inspector succinctly, and placed the cover to one side. He raised the protective bit of embossed tissue covering the contents, stared into the box, and then shook his head in mock horror. “My, my!”

“Now what’s the matter?”

“I’m rather surprised that a house as reputable as the Bonbon Mart would permit chocolates to leave their premises in this condition.” Dumas looked up. “You say your lady friend prefers her chocolates without fingerprints? I’m afraid you should have explained that to the clerk who put these up...”

Huuygens snorted. “With your permission, Inspector, now you are just being ridiculous! Those are chocolates, and nothing more. Creams!” he added, as if the exact designation might somehow return the other to sanity. “And exactly the way they left the store.” He studied the inspector’s face curiously. “How can I convince you?”

“I’m not the one who has to be convinced,” said the chief inspector. He continued to study the contents of the box a moment more, nodding to himself, and then with a sigh at the foibles of mankind, he replaced the tissue and the cover. “I’m afraid it’s our laboratory which requires conviction. And that’s where these chocolates are going.” His eyes came up, steady. “Together, I might add, with your shaving kit.”

“My shaving kit?”

“Tubes, you know,” said the inspector apologetically. “Jars and things...”

“You’re quite sure, of course,” Kek said with a touch of sarcasm, “that the shaving kit isn’t going to one of your sons? And the chocolates to your wife?”

Inspector Dumas grinned at him. “Those chocolates to my wife? I’d fear for her teeth. Which,” he added, his grin fading slightly, “have already cost me a fortune.”

Huuygens sighed. “I only have one question, Inspector. To whom do I send a bill for the value of a practically new shaving kit? Plus, of course, twenty Swiss francs?”

“If you honestly want my opinion,” said the inspector, appearing to have considered the question fairly, “I would suggest you charge it up to profit and loss. After all, once our laboratory is through with its investigation, the cost to m’sieu may be considerably higher.” His voice hardened perceptibly. “And may I add that it would be wise for you not to leave the city until our report is in.”

Huuygens shook his head hopelessly. “I don’t believe you appreciate the position you’re putting me in, Inspector. Extremely embarrassing. How do I prove to the lady that I did not forget her? That I actually did buy her a box of Swiss chocolates, only to lose them to — if you’ll pardon me — the muttonheaded bureaucracy of the French customs?” His voice became sarcastic. “What am I supposed to use for proof? The wrapper?”

“Now that’s not a bad idea,” said the chief inspector approvingly, and grinned at the other’s discomfiture. “It has the name of the shop on it, and if you wish, I’ll even stamp it with the date as further proof.” He checked the briefcase to make sure it was unlined, running his fingers along the seams at the bottom, and then folded the ornate wrapper, stuffing it into the empty space, and shoving the soiled laundry on top of it. He unfolded his stout five-foot-seven and came to his feet, his smile completely gone, his voice once more official. “And now, m’sieu, I’m afraid I must ask you to submit to a personal search.”

Huuygens rose with a hopeless shrug. He ran his hand through his already tousled hair and studied the inspector’s face. “I don’t suppose it would do much good to inform you that I consider a personal search an indignity?”

“I’m afraid not,” said the inspector. “And now, m’sieu...”

“And not only an indignity, but one which becomes boring when it is repeated each time I come through customs?”

“If I might offer a solution,” Inspector Dumas suggested, with a brief return to humor, “it would be for m’sieu to control his wanderlust. In this fashion, of course, the entire problem of customs would be eliminated.”

“We are not amused.” Huuygens shook his head. “Admit one thing, Inspector. Admit that this treatment is unfair in my case — you’ve never once found me in violation of the law. Nor has anyone else.”

“Not yet,” the chief inspector conceded softly. “But one day we shall.” His eyes went to the box of chocolates and then returned a bit smugly. “This — unfair treatment, as you put it — is the penalty one must pay for becoming famous among smugglers as a man who continually manages to outwit us poor crétins of customs inspectors. Or so, at least, we hear...”

His smile disappeared, wiped out as by a huge hand. He became quite businesslike, suddenly aware that time was passing, and of the further fact that — important as M’sieu Huuygens might be — other, lesser, smugglers might even now be requiring his attention.

“And now, m’sieu — your coat first, please. If I may?”

“Just don’t wrinkle it,” Huuygens requested, and began to remove his jacket.

Jimmy Lewis, by his own account the greatest roving reporter his New York newspaper maintained in Paris — a statement difficult to dispute, since he was the only one — leaned against one corner of a news kiosk in the main concourse of Orly airport, glancing through a magazine devoted in the main to pictures of bosomy girls and ads for Lonely Hearts clubs. He was a beanpole of a young man, with sandy hair and eyes that were surprisingly innocent considering some of the things he had looked upon in his life, including the magazine he had in his hand at the moment. He towered over the hurrying crowd that swept past him; the ever-present camera and raincoat slung over his shoulder were as much a uniform for him as the butcher jacket and cap were for the kiosk attendant who was eyeing him malevolently.

Jimmy finished studying the last of the revealing photographs of mammary exaggeration, and idly raised his eyes in time to see Kek Huuygens emerge from the escalator leading from the customs section below, moving purposefully in the direction of the taxi-rank. It was impossible not to recognize that stride; Huuygens always walked with his wide shoulders thrust forward, as if he were pushing his way through a blocking crowd. With an exclamation of surprised delight, Jimmy dropped the magazine on the rack and took a loping course calculated to intercept the other somewhere in the vicinity of the lower-level restaurant. The kiosk attendant retrieved the magazine, muttering something indubitably Gallic and undoubtedly impolite; he seemed to feel that people should either pay for magazines, or at least have the decency to return them to their proper stall.

Jimmy caught up with his quarry, shifted the load on his shoulder expertly, and grinned down genially.

“Hi, Kek. How’ve you been?”

Huuygens looked up; his preoccupied expression changed to a smile. “Hello, Jimmy. As a matter of fact, I’ve been better.” He noted the raincoat and camera. “Are you coming or going?”

“Coming,” Jimmy said, and tilted his head vaguely toward the concourse. “I was down at Marseilles on another wild goose chase. Why my editor has such a thing for missing persons, I’ll never know. I could have been covering the tennis matches, or at least staying home with my feet on the windowsill. Or on my neighbor, a gorgeous dame, who looks like she’d make a great footrest.” He grinned. “Right now I’m waiting for them to either bring my luggage out or admit frankly they lost it.” A thought occurred to him. “How about a drink? I’ll drive you home afterward, if I ever find my stuff.”

Huuygens checked his watch and then nodded. “All right. I’d love one. I’ve got to make a phone call first, but I’ll meet you in the bar.”

“Fair enough. But let’s make it the bar upstairs. Too many women in this one.”

The mercurial eyebrows raised. “And what’s wrong with women?”

“They cadge drinks,” Jimmy informed him in solemn tones, and turned away, moving toward the staircase, grinning with pleasure. Huuygens was not only an old friend, he was also one of Jimmy Lewis’s favorite people. Their habit of running into each other at odd times and strange places intrigued them both; and in the past some of Kek’s exploits had furnished him with good copy, mainly because Huuygens trusted the other to keep information to himself when requested.

Jimmy mounted the steps two at a time, pushed through the door, and found an empty table that was protected from the vaulted concourse below by draped curtains that lined the windows of the room. He pushed aside the heavy cloth, staring down a moment, and then allowed the folds to fall back as a waiter approached.

By the time Huuygens joined him, two drinks were already waiting on the table. Kek dropped his briefcase onto a third chair already accommodating the camera and raincoat, and sank down, reaching for his glass. He raised it in the brief gesture of a toast and then drank deeply. There was a satisfied smile on his face as he replaced the glass on the table.

“Ah! That’s much better.”

Jimmy studied him with less sympathy than curiosity. “Have the big, bad men downstairs in customs been giving my little boy Kek a bad time again?”

Huuygens nodded solemnly, but his eyes were twinkling. “They have.”

“I see.” Jimmy twisted his glass idly, and then raised his eyes. “And would you like to tell Daddy all about it?”

“Not yet,” Kek said calmly, and raised his glass once again.

Jimmy was far from ready to concede defeat; he had had to wheedle stories from Huuygens before. “Do you mean not yet meaning never? Or not yet like the girl in ‘The Young Man On The Flying Trapeze’?”

“The girl in the what?” Huuygens stared at him.

“I keep forgetting you weren’t born in America,” Jimmy said, shaking his head. “This girl I refer to was in a song. The exact line goes something like this: da-dum, tum-tum, da-dum, something, something, and then ends up: ‘But, gee, folks, I loved her, I offered my name; I said I’d forgive and forget — She rustled her bustle and then without shame, she said, Maybe later, not yet.’ ”

Huuygens laughed. “A hussy.”

“Definitely,” Jimmy agreed equably. “Indubitably. Meaning without a shadow of doubt.” He studied his friend. “Well? Which not yet is it? Maybe later, or never?”

Huuygens appeared to think about it. “Maybe later, I think. When the proper time comes.”

“Good. Or anyway, better than never.” Jimmy finished his drink and dragged aside the thick curtain, peering down. His eyes lit up. “I do believe they’ve finally decided to give up the loot. There’s a blonde down there I saw on the plane, and the dear, sweet thing is laden with luggage. On the offhand chance that they aren’t just handing out suitcases to beautiful blondes, I think I ought to go down and get mine.” He set his glass aside. “Unless you’d like another?”

“No. I’ll continue my drinking at home. I’m expecting a guest who’s usually thirsty.”

“Ah. Tough luck. Well, in that case I’ll pick up my bag and meet you in the parking lot. You know my car.” Jimmy smiled brightly. “To show you I’m not angry, I’ll even let you pay for the drinks. You can call it taxi fare to your apartment on your income tax.”

“Thank you endlessly,” Kek said politely. He grinned at the other and raised his hand for the waiter.

In the parking lot Jimmy tossed his bag, camera, and raincoat into the rear of his battered Volkswagen, and somehow managed to squeeze himself behind the wheel while Kek got in the other side and pulled the door shut. Jimmy released the clutch with his normal exuberance and they roared from the drive, turning into the traffic heading for the city. Kek kept his heels pressed tightly against the floorboard; Jimmy had a tendency to brake at frequent and inexplicable times.

He swooped around a truck laden with lumber, passed between two motorcycles racing with each other, and turned to Kek, grinning cheerfully. “Hey? Did you see my new camera?”

Kek refused to take his eyes from the road. “I didn’t notice.”

“It’s a beauty. I finally got a decent Graphic Super Speed 45 from the skinflints in the New York office. It used to take two porters to carry the ancient monster I had.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. And a lovely camera it is, too.”

“Why? Did you get some good pictures in Marseilles?”

“Sure. Of the town in general plus a couple of good shots of the docks.” Jimmy grinned. “I get sent off on these idiotic assignments and I’m supposed to cable back something that sounds like I know what I’m doing. Which is usually difficult.”

“Why?”

“Because, my friend, assignment cables cost money, so my dear editor tries to economize. Net result: confusion. Half the time I have no clue of what they want me to do. However, by also cabling some decent pictures, and filing enough ‘alleged’s’ — and keeping my fingers crossed — I manage to keep the brass from adding me to the unemployed.”

Kek smiled. “You mean your editor is that easily satisfied?”

“Who? My editor?” Jimmy stared at his passenger as if he were mad; traffic zipped by as his attention was diverted. He looked back to the road just in time to neatly avoid a head-on collision with a three-wheeled camionette. “I said I managed to avoid being fired. My dear editor wouldn’t be satisfied with an exclusive scoop on the secret formula for Beaujolais de Texas.”

“Whatever that is.”

Jimmy grinned. “In the bars I patronize, it’s the name given to Coca-Cola.” He suddenly braked, swung into the Avenue de Neuilly, and jammed down on the accelerator, all, seemingly, in the same motion. “And in case you want to know the reason for this long dissertation, I’ll tell you. I need some news.”

Kek glanced at him. “Why tell me?”

“Because things happen to you, my friend. Or you make them happen.” He spun the wheel without slackening speed; they shot around the Porte Maillot, nearly hitting an old man on a bicycle. Jimmy selected the Allée des Fortifications and raced on. His eyes came around again. “How about breaking down and giving me something I can use?”

Huuygens smiled. “I’ll think about it.”

“I wish you would,” Jimmy said, and sighed. “I like Paris, and I’d hate to be transferred.” He thought a moment. “Or fired.” He swung into the Avenue du Maréchal Favolle, cut between a station wagon and a speeding car, and slammed on his brakes, slewing to a squealing halt before Kek’s apartment. “Voila, m’sieu.”

Kek climbed out and retrieved his briefcase, then leaned in at the window. “Jimmy,” he said thoughtfully, “have you ever throught of doing a piece on the dangerous driving here in Paris?”

Jimmy shook his head. “I know French drivers are the worst in the world,” he said sincerely, “but you’d never convince my editor. He lives in Jersey.” He raised a hand. “Well, ta-ta. And don’t forget I need some news.”

“I won’t,” Huuygens promised. He watched Jimmy shoot into traffic, narrowly missing an irate cabdriver, and then turned with a smile into his apartment building.

His smile disappeared as soon as he entered the cab of the elevator, the little old man who operated the lift opened his mouth to greet him, but one look at the rigid features and he closed it again. Kek left the elevator at his floor, unlocked his apartment door, and closed it behind him. He dropped his briefcase on a chair and crossed the dim room to the balcony, throwing open the doors there, stepping out.

The view overlooking the Bois de Boulogne was lovely, with the stained tile roofs and their multiple searching fingers of chimney pots lost in the shimmering haze of distance beyond the green cover of the forest. The scented breeze brought with it the sharp, impatient blare of automobile horns, mixed with the delighted screams of playing children, and the admonishing cries of their exasperated nursemaids. He looked down. Below the balcony in the shadow of the tall apartment building, a small sidewalk cafe served as an oasis for the weary stroller; the colorful umbrellas, seen from above, gave it the appearance of a fanciful garden planted with careless geometry beside the river of asphalt that flowed past.

Paris! he thought, leaning on the filigree railing. A sardonic grin crossed his lips. Where else in the world could I enjoy noisy automobile horns or screaming children? Or rides with drivers like Jimmy Lewis? Or the personal attention of every customs inspector in town? The thought made him grimace; he glanced at his watch and straightened up. Anita was due in a very few minutes, and she was almost never late.

He came back into the apartment, closing the balcony doors behind him softly, as if reluctant to separate himself from the pleasant and uncomplicated life below, and then crossed to the bar in one corner of the elegant room. Two glasses were taken down from a shelf, inspected, and then meticulously wiped: his day-maid — poor, pretty soul — didn’t consider cleanliness to be a part of housekeeping. He bent and removed an ice tray from the refrigerator hidden beneath the bar sink, placed the cubes in a small silver bucket for readiness, and then took down a bottle of Argentinian brandy for himself and English gin for the lady. And wouldn’t his friends be shocked to see him drink Argentinian brandy in France! Oh, well — they just didn’t know. They also didn’t know the advantages of having friends in the import trade, he thought with a grin, and was just reaching for the Seltzer bottle when the doorbell rang. He wiped his hands on a towel, hung it back in place, and walked to the door, swinging it wide in welcome.

“Hello, Anita.”

“Kek! Darling!” The young lady facing him was smiling in unalloyed delight. “How have you been?”

She came up on tiptoe to meet his height, presenting her lips half-parted, her blonde hair a delicate swirl that hid her beautiful face, her wonderful figure outstretched. Kek embraced her warmly, holding her tightly, feeling her full curves cushion against him, smelling the rich fragrance of her perfume, and enjoying the titillation of his senses fully. Behind them, in the foyer, there was a romantic sigh from the elderly elevator operator peering through a crack in the lift door, a sharp click as the doors were finally and reluctantly closed, and then the grinding whine of cable against drum as the elevator cab began to descend. Kek pulled away from the embrace, grinning broadly.

“Very good, Anita.”

Anita made the motion of a curtsy. “Thank you, sir.” She walked quite matter-of-factly into the apartment, fanning herself with one hand. “What a day! I’m dying of thirst!” Her blonde head tipped toward the door in curiosity. “I love these greetings, Kek — and I wish you loved them half as much — but, really! When you called me today, I couldn’t imagine why you wanted me to put on such a show just for the benefit of the elevator operator.”

“Because he’s new,” Kek said.

“You mean, you want to break him in properly?”

Kek laughed. “No. Because I’m sure he’s being paid by the police to keep an eye on me.” He moved back of the bar, busying himself with their drinks.

Anita seated herself on a barstool with a swirl of skirt that momentarily displayed long and beautiful legs, set her purse on another, and then reached for the cigarette box. She took one and lit it with a tiny lighter, blowing smoke, and then proceeded to remove tobacco from her tongue with the tip of her fingernail. This normal ritual attended to, she looked at him archly.

“And if he is being paid by the police, what of it? And why the necessity of a mad love scene in front of him? What are they after you for? Celibacy?”

Kek laughed again and handed her her drink. They clinked glasses, smiled at each other in true affection, and then tasted their drinks. Kek nodded in appreciation of the heady body of the brandy, and shook his head.

“No,” he said quietly. “It’s simply that they’re expecting me to have a visit from a lovely lady today, and you’re that lady.”

“Wonderful! I like being your lovely lady. Only—” Anita took a sip of her drink and set it down “—it would be nice if you didn’t have to be pressured by the police into asking to kiss me.”

Kek grinned. “They only think they pressured me. Actually, they don’t even think that.”

“Whatever that means,” Anita said, and looked at him pensively as a further thought struck her. “And just why did the police expect you to have a visit from a lovely lady today?”

“Because I told the customs that I had brought her some chocolates from Switzerland, and naturally...”

Anita shook her head disconsolately. “You make less and less sense as you go on, but I suppose I should be used to it by now. And anyway, I’d forgive you almost anything for chocolates. What kind are they?”

“They aren’t, I’m afraid,” Kek said ruefully. “Or if they still are, by this time they’ve been so mauled, pinched, poked at, X-rayed, and generally examined with the fabled efficiency of the police laboratory, that I doubt if anyone would want to eat them.” He grinned and raised his eyes heavenward. “And may Allah give them sticky fingers for their nasty suspicions!”

“Amen,” Anita said devoutly, and set her glass down firmly. “And speaking of nasty suspicions, who were you bringing those chocolates back for? Which lovely lady? Because I’m sure it wasn’t me.”

Huuygens’s eyes twinkled. “Jealous?”

“Very.” Her violet eyes stared into his seriously.

“Well,” Kek said slowly, his big hand twisting his glass on the bar to form a series of damp circles, “in this case you needn’t be. Because while I didn’t realize it at the time, it seems I was actually bringing them back for a certain Inspector Dumas. Who, believe me, is certainly no lovely lady.”

“And why were you bringing them back for this Inspector Dumas?”

“Because he searched me so nicely,” Kek explained gravely. “Today he was even more careful than usual. Not one single tickle.”

“Kek Huuygens, you are impossible!” Anita shook her head in exasperation and then immediately brought a hand up to check her coiffure. She saw the expression in Kek’s eyes her gesture had triggered, and suddenly grinned. It was a gamin grin that made her look even younger than her twenty-five years. “Well, at least highly improbable. Are you going to tell me what this is all about, or aren’t you?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” Kek said with exaggerated patience. “You simply refuse to understand. I returned from Switzerland today, as you know, and the customs searched me, became suspicious of my chocolates — which I had brought as a gift for a lovely lady — and took them away.”

“And I’m the lovely lady you brought them for.”

“Right.”

“I see.” Anita nodded. “And you therefore immediately called me up and asked me to come over and kiss you publicly for the benefit of the elevator operator, just so I could be told that my chocolates were taken in customs. Is that it?”

“To a large extent—”

“But not entirely.” Anita crushed out her cigarette, finished her drink, and set down her glass, eyeing him carefully. “What else did you want this lovely lady to do? Because I’m sure it’s more than that.”

“It is.” Kek finished his drink and set it aside with an air of finality. “I want you to make a delivery for me.”

“A delivery? From your trip today?” He nodded; she frowned at him uncertainly. “But you said they searched you.”

“Oh, they did that, all right.”

“So they took away the chocolates,” the girl said, in a tone that indicated she didn’t know whether to be disappointed or not. It seemed to her odd, from the story she had just heard, that Kek was not more subdued. “You seem to be taking it rather lightly.”

“One learns to be philosophical about these things,” Kek said, and smiled faintly. “Besides, the shaving kit was an old one, and the twenty Swiss francs, as the Inspector said, can be charged up to profit and loss. Or, rather, added to my expense account which, plus my fee, will be ten thousand dollars. Ask the man for a check, will you?”

The girl stared at him. “But you said—!”

“I said they took away the chocolates,” Kek said gently. “They left me the wrapper. In fact, they practically forced it upon me.” He reached into his briefcase and withdrew the garish paper. “Between the foil and the outer wrapper is the last known page of a particular Bach Cantata, original, in the hand of the master, and worth a great deal of money. Tell the man with a little heat, not too much, the foil and paper come away quite easily. The adhesives chosen were carefully selected; they’ll do the manuscript no harm.”

The girl looked at him in amazement.

“Kek, you are fantastic! And just what would have happened if the customs had kept the wrapper? Or thrown it in the wastebasket? I suppose then you would have had to go out and rob a garbage truck!”

Kek grinned at his associate affectionately.

“Not exactly rob one,” he said. “I’ve spent quite a bit of time cultivating the driver who hauls away the trash. Fortunately,” he added, patting the wrapper, “we shall not require his services, because I’d much rather spend the time with you...”