The Seven Sinister Sombreros

Chapter IX. The Benefactor.

Captain Carmichael, Sergeant Ackley, and Edward Beaver sat in a huddled conference at police headquarters. On the table in front of them was the morning newspaper. A photograph appeared prominently on the second page, with the caption:

In the upper right-hand corner of the same page was an article:

Beaver said, “I found out how he did it.”

“How?” asked Captain Andrew Carmichael.

“When he heard your siren, he knew you were following him. While this man Lanten was getting out the tools and jacking up the car, Leith had found this concealed hiding place, opened it, taken out one hundred, thousand-dollar bills. He’d cut a slit in the lining of his big cowboy hat and pushed the bills down inside the lining. It was one of those big ten-gallon affairs and would hold plenty of money. He’d insisted on the hats having a silk lining. Then when he knew you were coming, he managed to switch hats with Lanten.

“Remember, they were all identical hats. They were all the same size. They were all the same shape and appearance. He’d figured far enough ahead to know he might need an innocent man to carry the bills away, yet have them where they could be recovered at any time. So Lanten quite innocently took the loot away with him. Leith sent him to the Crestview Hotel at Lakewood. That’s a road which, after the first two miles, is entirely outside the limit of the radio patrol cars. The other Leith cars were all running around town on errands. He’d spaced them so they’d be right in the path of the radio patrol.”

Captain Carmichael nodded. “Clever,” he said slowly. “Damned clever!”

“Then when Leith left here,” Beaver went on, “he made certain he wasn’t followed, and drove directly to the Crestview Hotel. It was a cinch to switch hats there without Lanten knowing anything about it.”

“But how do you know?” Sergeant Ackley asked.

“Because I happened to notice Leith’s sombrero when he returned to the apartment last night. Of course, the money had already been removed, and after he’d taken out ten thousand to compensate himself for his expenses and trouble, he’d dropped in at the Orthopedic Hospital with the other ninety bills. Well, as I say, I looked his hat over pretty carefully, and found a slit in the lining up at the top of the crown.”

For a moment, there was silence, then Captain Carmichael asked:

“How did you happen to look there, Beaver?”

The spy coughed deprecatingly. “I don’t know,” he said, “except that being around Lester Leith the way I am, I’m studying his methods of reasoning. Frankly I think the man is a genius, despite the fact that I hate his guts. I couldn’t imagine why he’d insisted on getting such a large number of ten-gallon hats, silk-lined and which were absolutely identical in size and appearance, unless he’d intended to switch hats back and forth so that he wouldn’t actually have stolen property in his possession in case he was arrested and searched; and yet have it so he could put his hands on the money whenever he wanted it.”

Captain Carmichael nodded. “Do you know, Beaver,” he said, “we may or may not be able to catch Lester Leith red-handed, but whether we do or don’t, I think the training you’re getting out there is invaluable. I’ve been watching your progress with a great deal of interest, and I’m going to make it a point to keep my eye on you. When you finally are free to return to your detective work, I feel quite certain you’ll make a name for yourself.”

The undercover man flushed. “Thank you, captain,” he said.

Sergeant Ackley could stand no more. He blurted: “All very nice, Beaver. You’re making quite a grandstand of it, but how do you account for the fact that you threw me off on the wrong track by advancing this theory that Bradercrust was the guilty party? If you hadn’t confused me with that theory, I’d have put the finger on Wolganheimer.”

Beaver raised his eyebrows. “Why, no, sergeant,” he said. “That Bradercrust angle was your theory.”

“Why, you double-crossing—”

Captain Carmichael placed a stern band on Sergeant Ackley’s shoulder.

“Sergeant,” he said, “you forget yourself.”

“But that was his idea! It was—”

Captain Carmichael interrupted: “Sergeant, you’re quite beside yourself. Apparently you have forgotten that you worked out that idea after pacing the floor for two sleepless nights. In fact, sergeant, I believe I have a statement to that effect in your own handwriting.”

Sergeant Ackley subsided. After a moment, he made one more attempt to assert himself.

“Well,” he blustered, “we’ll drag Lester Leith in here. We’ll take him before the grand jury. We’ll ask him where he got those ninety, one-thousand-dollar bills which he presented to the Orthopedic Hospital. We’ll make him show—”

Captain Carmichael’s laugh was scornful. “I presume, sergeant,” he said, “that you’d go so far as to endeavor to show that those identical one-thousand-dollar bills must have been hijacked from a thief who in turn stole them from a political organization which was planning to undermine our government.”

“Why not?” Ackley asked.

“And then you’d expect the chief to go before the people and ask support for the police program by pointing with pride to the fact that we had deprived the Orthopedic Hospital of ninety thousand dollars which was to be used for much-needed equipment, and turned the money over to a foreign-controlled organization which was planning to undermine our government! I think, sergeant, that you have quite overlooked the fact that, in the long run, the support the police department gets from the public depends upon the service the police department renders to the public.

“Of course, if you want to try and get a conviction in a hopeless case, predicated upon the theory that a lone individual thought faster than the police department, utilized the clues which should have been available to the department, and that all the police could do was to follow along behind and snatch the ninety-thousand-dollar donation from an institution so worthy of help as the Orthopedic Hospital, you’re quite welcome to the job; but I don’t want any part of it. And when you’re back pounding pavements, you may realize why.”

Sergeant Ackley’s lip quivered with emotion.

“Damn him,” he said. “I’ll get him yet.”

Captain Carmichael scraped back his chair, signaling that the interview was over.

“Well, sergeant,” he said, “please don’t disturb me again until you have something more definite to work on. In the meantime, I’m free to confess that I don’t think Leith is the worst criminal at large in the city by a long way. He’s given a stimulus to the used-car market, furnished employment to several very engaging and amiable Hawaiian hula dancers, been a godsend to half a dozen broncobusters who were on their uppers, furnished a great deal of free publicity to Io Wahine, deprived an unpatriotic anti-American organization of its sinews of war, donated ninety thousand dollars to a very worthy charity, and charged only ten per cent for his time and expense.

“For my part I’d like to have a city pretty well sprinkled with just such ‘criminals.’ I think we’d get along better with the underworld, and incidentally, sergeant, don’t overlook the fact that he’s giving Beaver a most valuable training, a training in deductive reasoning that couldn’t be purchased for any amount of money. And as for you, sergeant, I want once more to caution you against jumping at conclusions from insufficient data. Your theory about Bradercrust sounded logical upon a hasty, superficial examination of the facts. It proved to be most confusing to the department. I would suggest that, in the future, you be more careful about making accusations. Don’t pace the floor nights thinking up theories to throw yourself off the track. Think your way cautiously, a step at a time. Don’t try to be brilliant, because it isn’t natural for you to be brilliant.”

Sergeant Ackley glowered at the undercover man who returned his stare with the meek humility of conscious virtue on parade.

The telephone rang.

Captain Carmichael picked up the receiver, said, “Carmichael talking,” listened a minute, then said: “All right. We’re not interested — officially.”

He dropped the receiver back into place and grinned at the discomfited Sergeant Ackley. “One more good deed,” he said, “that you can add to Lester Leith’s account. Hollywood scouts, attracted by the publicity given Io Wahine in connection with the award of the Hawaiian-American Aesthetic Art Association, have just signed her for a lead in a Hawaiian picture.”

Sergeant Ackley jumped to his feet, ripped the cigar from his mouth, threw it as hard as he could throw it in the general direction of the cuspidor, and stormed from the room.