Lester Leith frowned thoughtfully. “How about Bernice Lamen?”

  “The detectives watched the building last night. Miss Lamen returned to the offices. She said she was behind in her work. The detectives regarded that as being highly suspicious, so they nabbed her. You see, sir, a guard was instantly placed at the door to see that no one took the blueprints out. They must still be concealed in the offices. The thief removed them from the safe and hid them.”

  Leith said, “The detectives searched Miss Lamen and found nothing?”

  “No, sir.”

  Leith smiled.

  “You’re planning to do something about it, sir?” Beaver asked.

  Leith raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Do something?”

  “Well, sir, that is, I was wondering if you had any more theories you wanted to check.”

  “I think not, Scuttle. I find myself irritated by the stupidity with which the police have handled the entire matter, but there’s no call for me to do anything. My interest in these matters, Scuttle, is purely abstract—merely an academic speculation.”

  The woman who ran the theatrical employment agency looked up at Lester Leith. At first her smile was merely a professional blandishment, but as her eyes took in the well-knit figure, the keen, alert eyes, the straight nose and smiling lips, her manner suddenly became more personal.

  “Good morning,” she said, in a tone which had far more cordiality than was customarily given to unknown visitors.

  Lester Leith smiled down at her. “I would like to write stories,” he said.

  The smile struggled against a frown and lost. “There’s absolutely no opening for writers,” she said. “We don’t handle literary stuff ourselves, but unless you’ve had some experience—”

  “Feature writing,” Lester Leith went on, “writing from an unusual angle—the human interest behind the news.”

  The frown faded somewhat. “It sounds quite interesting, but I’m afraid we couldn’t—”

  “Oh,” Leith interposed airily, “it’s just a hobby. I don’t care to make any money out of it, and I’m not asking you to place my work.”

  “What did you want then?”

  “An actress who would not be adverse to publicity.”

  The woman at the desk said, “None of them are adverse to publicity.”

  “I want an actress,” Leith said, “who has what it takes, a trouper, a—”

  “You won’t find those anymore,” the woman interrupted wearily. “Young people these days think only in terms of Hollywood. They regard the stage only as a springboard to help them jump into the movies.”

  Lester Leith said, “My actress doesn’t necessarily need to be youthful. I want someone who has character and that something which is known as being a good sport.”

  She regarded him somewhat quizzically. “There’s one waiting in the outer office,” she said, “who has done everything from stock companies to vaudeville. She really has talent, but—well, she isn’t young any more.”

  “How old?” Leith asked.

  She smiled. “She says thirty and looks thirty-three. I would say she was around forty. I have to admire her for the way she keeps up her courage.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Winnie Gail.”

  “Would she be interested in doing a job for me—as a model?”

  “I don’t think so. She wants to be an actress or nothing, but you can talk with her.”

  Leith said, “Let’s get her in.”

  Winnie Gail proved to be a woman who was impatient of subterfuges and wanted to know exactly where she stood. She interrupted Lester Leith’s preliminary talk with a curt question. “Have you ever done any writing?”

  “No,” Lester Leith said. “This is a new venture.”

  “Listen, you haven’t the chance of the proverbial snowball,” she said impatiently.

  “Tut, tut. I was afraid of that. Don’t go, Miss Gail.”

  “Why not?”

  “Fortunately, I am not dependent on my writing as a source of income.”

  “Well, I’m dependent on my time as a source of income, and I haven’t any to waste.”

  Leith said, “I want you to pose for photographs and a story with a human interest slant. The compensation would be two hundred and fifty dollars for two hours’ work—plus, of course, a fur coat.”

  “Plus a what?”

  “A fur coat—a silver fox cape.”

  Winnie Gail abruptly sat down. “Now listen,” she said, “is this on the up-and-up?”

  Leith nodded.

  “You’re not wrapping a proposition in a cellophane package?”

  He shook his head.

  “I get this dough in cash?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Throw a fur cape out of a window, and then tell me exactly how you felt when you did it.”

  Winnie Gail glanced at the startled woman behind the desk, then looked up at Lester Leith. “You’re crazy,” she said. “But if you have two hundred and fifty dollars in cash on you, I’m with you.”

  Lester Leith opened his wallet and counted out five fifty-dollar bills. As the currency fluttered to the desk of the woman who ran the theatrical employment agency, Winnie Gail said softly, “I haven’t seen confetti like that since I played Mother Was a Lady in the old Pelman House.”

  F. G. Gilbert, head of the Gilbert Furrier Company, regarded Lester Leith with cold, calculating eyes.

  “So you see,” Leith explained affably, indicating the photographer who stood on his left, a big studio-type camera in a carrying case and a tripod over his shoulder, “I’ve brought my photographer to make a series of pictures, and”—indicating Winnie Gail, who wore her made-over, somewhat shabby clothes with an air of distinction—“I’ve brought my own customer. I will, of course, buy the silver fox cape at retail prices.”

  Gilbert shook his head.

  “Of course,” Lester Leith went on affably, “Miss Gail is an actress. Just between you and me, she expects to get considerable publicity out of this, and, as far as you’re concerned—well, having the Gilbert Furrier Company mentioned prominently in connection with news and magazine stories shouldn’t do you any harm.”

  Gilbert frowned through his glasses. “You aren’t a newspaper reporter?”

  “No.”

  “A press agent?”

  “Well, in a way. I have Miss Gail’s publicity at heart.”

  Gilbert’s appraisal of Miss Gail spoke volumes. “I’m not certain this store desires that sort of publicity.”

  Leith shrugged his shoulders. “As you wish,” he said. “Of course, there’s the purchase of a silver fox cape.”

  Gilbert said, “Just a minute. I’ll have to confer with my advertising manager. I’ll be right back.”

  He stepped into his private office and called police headquarters. “A man by the name of Lester Leith,” he said, “claims to be a feature writer. He’s here with an actress who wants to pitch another silver fox cape out of the window and, at the same time, have Miss Fanny Gillmeyer, who was the clerk who screamed for the police yesterday, do the same thing all over again today. Is there any objection to my kicking him downstairs?”

  The desk sergeant said, “Hold the phone. I’ll put you in touch with Sergeant Ackley.”

  A moment later Sergeant Ackley came on the wire, and Gilbert explained the matter in detail.

  Ackley’s voice was eager. “Any objections? Listen, don’t let him change his mind. Stall him along for fifteen minutes. That’s all I want—fifteen minutes.”

  “And it’s okay after that?” Gilbert asked dubiously.

  “Is it okay!” Sergeant Ackley exclaimed. “You listen to me. If you let this opportunity slip through your fingers, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll close your joint up for handling stolen goods!”

  Gilbert returned to the outer office. “Okay,” he said, “but if you want Miss Gillmeyer to wait on you personally, it’ll take a few minutes, because she’s busy with another customer. However, I suppose you’ll want to set up your cameras and do a little rehearsing?”

  Lester Leith took charge of operations with that meticulous attention to detail which characterizes the highest-priced directors in the picture business.

  “You see,” Leith explained, “yesterday the fox cape hit on the support of a sign and didn’t get to the sidewalk, but that was only because an element of chance entered into the situation. Today undoubtedly the cape will reach the sidewalk. Now, then, what will happen? Will someone pick it up and hurry away with it, or will the person who finds it be honest and return it? In any event, we want a whole series of action photographs.”

  The photographer set up the big studio camera, placed a speed graphic on the floor where it would be within easy reach. He also placed another speed camera on a smaller tripod. “Now listen,” he said to Leith, “when the action starts, I’ve got to work fast. Be sure people keep out of my way.”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  Gilbert looked at his watch, then motioned to the young woman who was standing nearby. “All right, Miss Gillmeyer,” he said, “come on over here. You can go ahead any time now,” he said to Lester Leith.

  But nearly ten minutes elapsed before Leith indicated that he was ready.

  Then abruptly he said, “All right, go ahead.”

  Winnie Gail walked over to the window, hesitated a moment, then tossed out a silver fox cape. Fanny Gillmeyer thrust her head out of the window and screamed for police. Pedestrians on the street below stared up in frozen-faced curiosity. Across the street the office workers in the Rust Commercial Building paused in whatever they were doing to stare. The photographer jumped from one camera to the other, then snatched up the speed graphic, leaned out of the window, and started shooting a series of pictures….

  Sergeant Ackley sat in conference with Captain Carmichael at police headquarters. A pile of photographs was on the desk.

  “He doesn’t know you’ve got these pictures?” Carmichael asked.

  Sergeant Ackley shook his head. “I put the screws on the photographer.”

  Captain Carmichael picked up the photographs and studied them thoughtfully. He opened a drawer in his desk, took out a magnifying glass, and moved it over one of the pictures. “Interesting,” he said.

  “You got something?” Sergeant Ackley inquired eagerly, walking around to peer over Captain Carmichael’s shoulder.

  The police captain tapped a portion of the photograph. “Notice,” he said, “you can actually identify the people who are at the windows of the Precision Instrument offices. You can even see what’s going on back in the offices themselves. There’s a woman standing in front of the vault door.”

  “That’s our own plant,” Sergeant Ackely said. “Believe me, she’s on the job. As soon as she heard the alarm, she didn’t even look to see what it was. She just beat it for the safe and stood there keeping guard. That’s Ann Sherman, and they don’t slip anything over on her!”

  Captain Carmichael rubbed his hand thoughtfully over the top of his head. “I wonder,” he said musingly, “if that spoiled things for Leith.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He hadn’t counted on the woman who took Bernice Lamen’s place being from headquarters. Perhaps he was hoping the vault would be unguarded, just as it was for a few moments yesterday.”

  “But the blueprints have already been swiped,” Sergeant Ackley said. “What good would it do to give somebody the opportunity to steal them again?”

  Captain Carmichael pursed his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and blew thoughtfully. Slowly his eyebrows crept together in a portentous scowl. “Sergeant,” he said, “that’s exactly what he wanted, and Ann Sherman’s being on the job kept him from getting results. Hang it, we should have thought of that!

  “Don’t you see? Whoever stole those blueprints hasn’t been able to get them out of the building. They are still there, hidden somewhere. The thief has memorized them enough to know the real secret of the device. Now he’d like to get them back into the vault.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  Captain Carmichael said patiently, “Because every inch of those offices was searched by the police immediately after Jason Bellview got in touch with you. We didn’t get to first base. Tell Jason Bellview to apologize to Bernice Lamen and get her back on the job, then give Lester Leith a free hand.”

  “What do you mean by a free hand?”

  “Exactly what I said. Have you ever seen the Chinese method of catching fish, Sergeant?”

  The exasperated Sergeant Ackley said sarcastically, “That’s another thing I’ve overlooked in connection with the case, and I’ve completely overlooked inspecting the hairs on the head of the last Egyptian mummy through a microscope.”

  Captain Carmichael flushed. “Don’t be so irritable,” he growled, “and so blamed ignorant. I was going to tell you that the oriental method of catching fish is to put a rope around the neck of the fish-eating bird, so he can’t swallow. The bird drops into the sea and grabs half a dozen fish. He can’t swallow ’em, so he comes back to the surface, and the wily Chinese has half a dozen nice live fish, caught without any effort on his part.”

  Sergeant Ackley’s eyes glistened. “What’s the name of that bird?” he asked.

  Captain Carmichael frowned. “I think they call it a cormorant.”

  Sergeant Ackley said, “Cripes, I’d like to have one of those birds to take up to the lake where I spend my summer vacation! There were fish there that just wouldn’t bite—”

  “We’re talking about blueprints,” Captain Carmichael interrupted. “Lester Leith is going to be our cormorant. He’ll get the swag for us and then have to disgorge it.”

  “What the heck does a cormorant look like?” Sergeant Ackley asked.

  Captain Carmichael said vaguely, “He’s something like a pelican.”

  Sergeant Ackley pushed back his chair. “Well, I get the idea all right. We’ll make this guy Leith something like a pelican.”

  Captain Carmichael gave one last warning. “Be absolutely certain,” he said, “that you keep a rope tied around his neck. “That’s the most important thing in the way the Chinese fish. Otherwise the birds would swallow everything they get.”

  Sergeant Ackley said confidently, “Leave it to me, Captain,” and left the room. He was back, however, within a few seconds. “Say, Captain, don’t think I’m cuckoo, but where could a man buy one of those birds that are like a pelican?”

  Captain Carmichael fixed him with a stern eye. “In China,” he said.

  Lester Leith pressed the button of Apartment 7-B. The card opposite the button bore the names of two persons: Bernice Lamen, who was the confidential secretary of Jason Bellview, and Millicent Foster.

  After a moment the buzzer sounded, and Lester Leith walked up two flights of stairs to the apartment he wanted. The young woman who answered his knock was cool, collected, and very much on her guard. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I’d like to talk with Miss Bernice Lamen.”

  “Miss Lamen is not at home.”

  Lester Leith’s eyes softened into twinkling appraisal of the stern young woman on the threshold. “You,” he asked, “are Miss Foster?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps I can talk with you.”

  For a moment she studied him, then relaxed somewhat the severity of her manner and repeated, “What do you want?”

  “I take it, because you’re sharing an apartment with Miss Lamen, that your relationship is a friendly one?”

  “Yes. We’re friends—have been for years.”

  Leith said, “I’m a writer.”

  There was alarm in her voice. “A newspaperman?”

  “No, no! I’m just a beginner. It’s something of a hobby with me.”

  “I see,” she said dubiously.

  Leith said affably, “Your friend has been placed in a most unsatisfactory position.”

  “In what way?”

  “If I were she, I’d want to prove myself innocent.”

  “How?”

  Leith’s voice showed surprise. “Why, by seeing that the guilty person was trapped, of course.”

  For a long moment the woman in the doorway hesitated, then her face softened in a smile. “Oh, come on in,” she said impulsively. “I’m Bernice Lamen. This is Millicent over here by the window. Miss Foster, this is Mr.— What did you say your name was?”

  “Leith. Lester Leith.”

  “Well, come on in and sit down.”

  As Leith settled himself in the chair she had indicated, she sized up the expensive tailor-made suit he was wearing and said, “You don’t look like a poor writer.”

  “I’m not,” Leith said. “I’m a good writer.”

  Millicent said hastily, “Bernice didn’t mean—”

  Bernice interrupted, “Skip it. He’s kidding.” She smiled at Lester Leith. “You don’t look like any sort of a writer, good, bad, or indifferent. What’s your game?”

  “To find out who stole those blueprints.”

  Millicent said, “I understand someone threw another fur out of the window this afternoon.”

  “I did,” Leith announced calmly.

  “You did!” Bernice exclaimed.

  Leith smiled deprecatingly. “It was, of course, the obvious thing to do.”

  Bernice glanced at Millicent, then leaned forward to regard Lester Leith from under level brows. “Now, let’s get this straight. You mean you threw a fur cape out of the window again this afternoon?”

  “Oh, I didn’t do it myself,” Leith said. “I engaged a young woman to do it, a very talented actress. You see, I wanted to have her give me an exclusive interview, telling me how it felt to throw an expensive fur cape out a four-story window.”

  Again the young women exchanged glances. Bernice Lamen, her tone perceptibly cooler, said, “Well, I’m afraid I can’t do anything to help you.”

  Leith opened the small briefcase he was carrying, took out some photographs, and said, “These are a series of photographs which we took, showing the entire episode. Most interesting, don’t you think?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, the two young women moved closer to study the photographs. Leith took a magnifying glass from his pocket and said, “You can see a great many details here. Look at this picture of the crowd leaning out of the window over at the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company. I daresay you can recognize many of your fellow workers, Miss Lamen?”