“More than that, it had to be someone who knew enough about sleight of hand to palm off the diamonds where they wouldn’t be found while he was being searched so he could pick those diamonds up afterward, and walk out of the house.”

  Steven Slone reached up and took the perfecto from his lips. His whole frame seemed to have stiffened.

  “Yes?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” said Lester Leith. “There seemed to be only one person present who possessed those qualifications. So I thought it would be well to ask him about the diamonds. Now, of course, a man who was clever enough to engineer such a crime would have the necklace hidden where the police would never find it.

  “It would be worse than useless to try and make a search for it as long as that man had it in its hiding place. But it occurred to me that if I could get that man to plan on running away on such short notice that he could take only a very few of his most valuable possessions with him, I might narrow down the scope of the search.”

  Steven Slone took a deep breath. His right hand moved casually toward the lapel of his coat, then stopped as he felt a pressure against his side.

  He looked down to see that Lester Leith was driving with one hand, that the right hand was pressing a barrel of blued steel against his side.

  “We have narrowed down the search quite a bit,” suavely supplemented Lester Leith. “Just your person, the suitcase and the bag.”

  Steven Slone thought for a while.

  “Dorothy Delano?” he asked.

  “Was merely giving me a demonstration of her ability as an actress. She wasn’t in on it at all. I used her as an unconscious accomplice, just as you did when you freed the mouse.”

  Steven Slone kept both hands well in the air. “You’re not nervous?” he asked.

  “Not in the least, as long as you don’t resist,” said Leith.

  “After you get the diamonds, then what?” asked Slone.

  Lester Leith’s smile was cheerfully urbane.

  “Then we go right ahead producing the show. You draw a salary as a press agent. I have an idea you’d make a good one. It has occurred to me that you dabbled in crime only as a side line because you saw such excellent opportunity. I have a hunch you were more puzzled what to do with the diamonds after you got them than you were over any other phase of the matter.”

  Steven Slone heaved a great sigh.

  “Damn it, you’re right. They’re in that grip. I figured out what a cinch it would be to cop those sparklers, and then, after it came off just the way I figured, I didn’t know what to do with them.

  “I turned the mouse loose, slipped up on the platform during the excitement, grabbed the diamonds, slipped them in a bowl of fruit punch. Then I suggested the search.

  “After I’d been searched, I walked right over to the punch bowl in front of every one, stirred the ladle around on the bottom, managed to scoop up the necklace, and dumped it into my cup.

  “I drank it, got the necklace up my sleeve, and walked out. It was just that simple. The police were all goggle-eyed. Nobody had any idea of what was going on.”

  Lester Leith laughed.

  “Dorothy Delano?”

  “You described her—an unconscious accomplice of mine, just as she was of yours.”

  Leith slowed the car to a stop. “The police will probably question you later on to-night. Do you suppose you can hand them a good song and dance?”

  “Can I? They’ve nothing on me.”

  Lester Leith nodded. “That’s true. But, perhaps, if you were to take the train for Reno, just as you planned, it might make things a little better. That would enable Dorothy Delano to give you an alibi if she were questioned.”

  Steven Slone sighed.

  “I should have known I was getting out of my line, anyway. But, having been a stage magician, I thought I could pull the stuff …”

  Lester Leith parked the car.

  “You’d better let me have that gun. You’re not used to carrying it. It’s going to spoil the shape of that tight coat.”

  Steven Slone held his hands high above his head. “Take it,” he said.

  Lester Leith took it, took also the diamond necklace from the bag.

  “Your train,” he said, “leaves in exactly ten minutes. I will drive you there. If you should be questioned you will remember that the police have nothing on you except suspicions. If you should mention that I had taken the necklace from you, you would be making yourself liable for about a twenty-year jolt.”

  Steven Slone struck a match, re-lit the perfecto. “I’m not a damned fool,” he said.

  CHAPTER X

  Very Simple

  Sergeant Arthur Ackley, his uniform soiled, his eyes smoldering with rage, burst into the apartment of Lester Leith.

  “What the heck made you slip off that truck?” he demanded.

  Lester Leith was sprawled at silken ease on the cushions of the reclining chair, blowing smoke rings. He got to his feet, the silk lounging robe billowing about him as he moved forward.

  “My dear sergeant! Phew! So you’ve been in the scavenger business, too, eh? Well, well, well! Just fancy that! Now you had a question. What was it, sergeant? Oh, yes, why did I slip off the truck?

  “Dear me, so the police know that, do they? Do you know, sergeant, the police seem terribly efficient? They know so many things. But you want an answer, sergeant. Why did I slip off the truck? The answer, my dear sergeant, is ‘Three Strikes and Out.’”

  The sergeant glowered at Lester Leith.

  “Three strikes and out? What the heck are you talking about?”

  “The name of a play I’m putting on. Dorothy Delano is going to star in it. And, during the course of the performance, a mouse is going to run across the stage. You can imagine what a kick the audience will get out of that.

  “And I wanted to get some unusual publicity for it. I didn’t know how to do it at first, and then I remembered about the Middleton robbery. So I decided to get Scuttle, my valet, to act as an amateur detective. I gave him a perfectly impossible solution of the Middle-ton affair, and had him start out to run it down.

  “Then I telephoned the newspaper reporters and told them to be on hand with cameras, and they’d see Scuttle making a recovery of the Middleton diamonds.

  “I hope they fell for it. Because, you see, the more publicity I can give to that story, and the episode of the mouse, the more free advertisement I can get. Then, tomorrow, when I announce the starring of Miss Dorothy Delano in the new play ‘Three Strikes and Out,’ all of the public who read the papers will remember the episode of the mouse.

  “You see, Miss Delano was an unconscious accomplice in that affair. But the fact remains that her legs were so shapely they enabled the thief to get away with the diamonds, undetected.

  “One couldn’t ask for a more splendid endorsement of the young lady’s figure. By the way, sergeant, I’m presenting you with a pass to the show. Drop in whenever you like. Perhaps we might even allow you to appear at dress rehearsal.. .Dorothy Delano, the girl with the diamond legs! Pretty nifty, what?”

  Sergeant Ackley clenched and unclenched his odoriferous hands.

  “Well,” he said, “the damned reporters were there on the job all right. They’ll be wild when they find out it’s just a press stunt. How the hell did you get Beaver to fall for it?”

  Lester Leith lit a cigarette.

  “Oh, it sounded reasonable to him. He has a mind of childlike simplicity. Any sane person would have realized that, even if the thief had secreted the diamonds in some article of food that would go into the garbage, he’d have removed those diamonds after he had been searched and before he left the house.

  “But Beaver’s simple. He doesn’t think of those things. So I made Beaver an unconscious accomplice to get me some free publicity … By the way, sergeant, you certainly didn’t get fooled? You weren’t an unconscious accomplice?”

  Sergeant Ackley clenched his hands. “Oh, no. Certainly not,” he said.

  Lester Leith laughed.

  “Poor Scuttle! It must have been a show to see him searching for that necklace.”

  Sergeant Ackley forced a grin. “It was,” he said.

  “Ha ha!” said Lester Leith.

  Sergeant Ackley took a deep breath, towered over Lester Leith for a moment, then turned and strode toward the door.

  “Ha, ha!” he echoed, and banged the door with a force which threatened to tear it loose from the plastering.

  Behind him, Lester Leith smiled and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.

  ‘The sergeant,” he muttered, “seems discomfited.”

  Nor did it add to the peace of mind of Sergeant Ackley when it subsequently turned out that “Three Strikes and Out” was the comedy hit of the season, nor when the public fell for Steven Slone’s clever press-agenting and referred to Dorothy Delano as “the girl with the diamond legs.”

  All of which brought additional dollars into the well-tailored pockets of Lester Leith.

  Lester Takes the Cake

  CHAPTER I

  Lemon Pie and Layer Cake

  Lester Leith stretched forth a graceful arm and jabbed an impatient finger upon the electric bell button.

  The bedroom door opened and disclosed a surprised valet. “What is it, sir?”

  Lester Leith motioned toward the window. “Machine guns, Scuttle. I dreamt I was in a battle.”

  The valet grinned. “Oh, that, sir, that’s just an automatic riveter working on some steel framework next door.”

  “Scuttle, don’t ever refer to anything that makes such an infernal racket as ‘just an automatic riveter.’ And another thing. Don’t look so damned cheerful. What time is it?”

  “Nine o’clock, sir.”

  Lester Leith sat up in bed, reached languidly for a cigarette. “Scuttle! Do you mean to tell me any one gets up at such an ungodly hour?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, indeed. So it seems. And not only do they get up, but they insist upon raising the devil with my sleep. What can we do about it, Scuttle?”

  The valet leaned forward. His beady black eyes glistened like twin chunks of obsidian. His lips twisted eagerly.

  “The crime news, sir. There’s been a most wonderful crime, sir.”

  Lester Leith yawned. “Tut, tut, Scuttle. I like to read of crime during the evening for intellectual enjoyment. But now’s no time for thought. It’s the middle of the night. Nine o’clock in the morning! How horrible! How atrocious!”

  The valet lowered his voice, made the tones seductive. “A ten-thousand-dollar diamond necklace, sir.”

  “Indeed, Scuttle. Now you begin to interest me. Am I to infer that this diamond necklace disappeared and has not been recovered?”

  The valet nodded, rubbed his hands, twisted his great sweep of black mustache in an oily smirk.

  “Yes, sir. And the police can’t find it. It vanished right under their noses.”

  Lester Leith straightened, threw back the covers. “Indeed, Scuttle, I am interested. Give me the details.”

  But the valet was suddenly wary.

  “Your bath first, sir. Then some coffee, sir, and a little crisp toast and bacon, with just a bit of that tart marmalade, sir, and then you’ll sit in your chair by the fireplace and I’ll give you all the clippings, sir.”

  Leith yawned, stretched, nodded, grinned.

  The valet watched him narrowly through hostile, squinted eyes. Did Lester Leith realize that the supposed valet was, in reality, a police spy? Did he know that the reason for switching the conversation to the living room was because there was a cunningly hidden dictograph concealed there? That every word spoken within that room was relayed two floors down where Sergeant Ackley sat with two police stenographers, waiting, tense, expectant, drawing the net ever closer?

  But if Lester Leith knew he gave no sign. He tubbed, rubbed down, shaved, dressed, ate and sprawled in the big easy chair, directly under the eager disk of the concealed dictograph.

  “You were mentioning a crime, Scuttle?”

  The valet pussyfooted his huge form to a place where his voice would register clearly over the hidden wires and purred an eager acquiescence.

  “Yes, sir. At Goldman’s, sir.”

  “Tut, tut, not Goldman, the jeweler?”

  “Yes, sir. Goldman, the jeweler.”

  “And what happened? Ah. I see you have the clippings in your hand!”

  “Yes, sir. Just a moment, sir. Shall I read them or shall I give you a summary of the facts?”

  “Give me a running summary of the facts, Scuttle, and then I’ll glance over the clippings if the crime seems to have its points of interest.”

  “It all started over George Cripely, sir. He was employed at Goldman’s, and he was discharged. They rather fancied he’d been getting some of the smaller stones at rather less than cost. At any rate, sir, he was discharged.”

  Lester reached for a cigarette.

  “At rather less than cost, eh, Scuttle? Come, come, you’re developing tact, diplomacy. Too bad our dear friend, Sergeant Ackley,

  couldn’t have heard that!”

  And the valet, pausing only long enough to flick his boiled-lobster eyes toward the spot where the dictograph was concealed, nodded, wet his lips with the tip of a nervous tongue, and went on:

  “Yes, sir. Cripely was discharged, sir. Then he returned to the store yesterday, sir. He had with him a companion, sir, a Miss Nell Spratt. He walked up to the counter, bold as brass, sir, and said he wanted to purchase a diamond necklace. The girl was rather striking, sir. Very striking, in fact,sir. From the newspaper account, one gathers that the employees all watched her. She had a beautiful figure, and the newspaper states that—let’s see just how it was the newspaper did state it, sir—ah, yes, here it is: ‘The suspect was accompanied by a companion whose well molded figure had taken full advantage of latest styles to proclaim itself to the masculine world.’”

  Lester Leith chuckled.

  “Rather neatly turned, eh, Scuttle?”

  “The expression, sir?”

  “No, the figure.”

  The valet glanced up sharply, but Lester Leith’s lazy-lidded eyes seemed devoid of guile. “Yes, sir, so I gathered, sir.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “The clerk brought out the diamond necklaces, sir. He had, of course, no means of knowing who Cripely’s companion was. And she carried a package, sir, a package that she sat down on the counter. From subsequent events, sir, it seemed that the package contained an alarm clock.

  “Well, sir, as I said, sir, Cripely looked at the necklaces. The companion glanced at them, over his shoulder, picked out several for comparison.

  “And the store policeman came on the job, sir.”

  CHAPTER II

  An Alarm Sounds

  Lester Leith, who had been listening to the account, blowing smoke, the while, straightened in his chair. “What’s that, Scuttle? The store policeman?”

  “Yes, sir. You see, sir, on account of Cripely having been discharged, and on account of the suspicions that the management held, sir, the clerk pressed the button which summoned the special officer on duty at the store, sir.

  “That officer wasn’t intrusive. There was a chance Cripely held no hard feelings and had brought a very valuable customer to the store, sir. Such things have happened, sir. So the officer merely watched the couple.

  “Well, sir, Cripely became more and more attentive to the necklaces. The woman seemed to lose interest and wandered about the store. And then the package, which had been left on the counter, sir, let out the very devil of a noise, sir. It was the alarm clock, sir. It had been wound and set, sir.

  “Cripely grabbed the package, sir, ripped off the wrappings and silenced the alarm clock. Naturally, when he did that, he tossed the necklaces down to the counter, sir.

  “And that was where the clerk was wise, sir, or else stupid, sir. They can’t tell. For he immediately inspected the necklaces. And one of them was an imitation, sir.

  “He made a sign to the officer, and the special officer placed Cripely and his companion under arrest. Cripely was searched, but they couldn’t find any trace of the necklace.

  “And they detained the woman, of course. Finally they were all sent to headquarters, and there the woman was searched by a matron. The search was most complete. Yet they failed to find the necklace.”

  The valet finished his recital, gazed with fixed intensity at Lester Leith.

  “Ah, yes, Scuttle. Yes indeed, rather strange. You made a remark I didn’t quite gather. You said that the clerk was either quite clever or quite stupid when he called the officer and when he inspected the necklaces. Just what did you mean, Scuttle?”

  “I meant this, sir. The clerk might have been the one to make the substitution. No one thought of searching the clerk, sir. You see, because Cripely had been discharged, he was somewhat under suspicion, sir. And the clerk was considered absolutely honest.

  “But Cripely claims he had telephoned the store that he was coming in with a customer, asked for a commission. He claims he talked with this clerk who waited on him. And he claims that the clerk, seeking to capitalize on the circumstances, had switched necklaces as soon as the attention of every one was distracted by the alarm clock, and that the clerk had pocketed the original.

  “Of course, the clerk was running around in the excitement that followed the arrest. And, of course, he had ample opportunity to have ditched the necklace. Cripely didn’t, and yet they couldn’t find any trace of the necklace on Cripely or on his companion.”

  Lester Leith blew a smoke ring. Then he blew a smaller smoke ring through the first. Once more his chuckle rattled through the tense silence of the room.

  “I see, Scuttle. And if the clerk had waited until after Cripely had left the place before making his discovery, the police would never have suspected him. It was only when they failed to find the gems on Cripely and knew that he had had no chance to dispose of them that they began to heed Cripely’s story and suspect the clerk? Is that it?”