“I should say I can, even without the glass. Why, there’s—”

  Leith interrupted her to indicate one of the windows with the point of his lead pencil. “This,” he asked, “is the window of Mr. Bellview’s private office?”

  “Yes.”

  “I notice what appears to be the back of a young woman standing right here. Would that be near the vault?”

  “Yes. The vault door is right there.”

  “This man, I take it, is Jason Bellview?”

  “Yes.”

  Lester Leith said, “Someone over here is holding a broomstick.”

  She looked at the photograph, then burst out laughing. “That’s not a broomstick. It’s a gun.”

  “A rifle?” Leith asked.

  “No,” she said, smiling, “a shotgun. The man who’s trying to play hero is Frank Packerson, the editor of our house organ, the Pidico News. He’s a trapshooting enthusiast. He’d been out in the country doing some shooting over the weekend. He got back to town too late Monday morning to go to his apartment, so he brought his gun up to the office and left it there, as he does occasionally.”

  “I see,” Lester Leith said, “and he’s on the lookout for burglars in this picture, I suppose?”

  “I guess so. He really did a decent job yesterday. He grabbed his shotgun and dashed out into the corridor as soon as he heard the screaming for police across the street. He says no one except the inventor and, a few moments later, Mr. Bellview appeared in the corridor. That shows pretty conclusively that the taking of the blueprints was an inside job and that—that—”

  “Go on,” Leith said.

  “That they weren’t taken out as far as the corridor. They’re concealed somewhere in the offices.”

  “How many offices would be available as places of concealment?”

  She said, “I’ve been thinking that over. There is a whole string of them. They all have communicating doors, and then there’s the corridor which runs the whole length of the offices. But the point is, Mr. Leith, that no one went along the corridor and no one crossed the corridor. Packerson is positive on that point. He’d have shot in a minute if he’d seen anything that was out of the way—such as someone running away.”

  “That would mean, then, that the blueprints must have been hidden somewhere in the string of offices which are next to the windows that open on the street?” Leith asked.

  “Yes.”

  Leith said, indicating the photograph with a sweeping gesture of his hand, “Somewhere in the area which is covered in this photograph.”

  “That’s right.”

  Leith tapped a spot on the photograph with the point of a lead pencil. “Who’s this?”

  She frowned and said, “Let me see that glass. It’s a little hazy.”

  Leith gave her the magnifying glass.

  “Oh, yes. That’s Tarver Slade. He’s a man who showed up four or five days ago to go over our books.”

  “An auditor?” Leith asked.

  “Oh, no. Just one of those state tax men who come in at intervals for a checkup. No one pays very much attention to them. They’re terrible pests, want you to stop everything to explain little simple points. If we took them seriously, we’d never get any work done. Nowadays we just give them an office and let them alone.”

  Lester Leith said, “This man seems to be putting on an overcoat.”

  “Yes. I’ve noticed that if the weather’s at all cold, he wears his overcoat whenever he goes out. I guess he has rheumatism. At times he walks with a pronounced limp, then again he seems all right.”

  Lester Leith took out a notebook and made a cryptic entry. “Just jotting down the names of these people,” he explained. “Now, can you give me a few more names from the photographs?”

  Taking Leith’s pencil, Bernice Lamen checked off the various persons whose faces appeared in the window. Only some four or five whose heads were bent down, looking at the sidewalk, she couldn’t recognize.

  Lester Leith slipped the enlarged photographs back into his breifcase. “Thank you very much, Miss Lamen. I think I have a swell angle for writing my article, ‘How It Feels to Throw a Fur Cape Out of the Window.’ ”

  “Mr. Leith,” Millie Foster said, “please be frank with us. What are you after?”

  “Why, I’m after a human-interest story.”

  “Surely you don’t expect us to believe that a person would go to all this expense to get material for a story he wasn’t even sure of selling?”

  Leith smiled.

  Bernice Lamen said, “It’s a story that would interest me. I think the photos are swell.”

  “Aren’t they!” Leith said enthusiastically. “They should be. They cost seventy-five dollars.”

  Millicent said, “Good night—should I say, Santa Claus?”

  Leith paused with his hand on the knob. “You might look in your stocking,” he said, and quietly left the apartment.

  Lester Leith opened the door of the penthouse apartment and said, “Right this way, men.”

  The startled undercover man looked up to see half a dozen men who were probably taxi drivers carrying a miscellaneous assortment which included a desk, a swivel chair, a typewriter, a filing cabinet, a wastebasket, and a cabinet for holding stationery.

  “Scuttle,” Lester Leith said, “kindly move the chair out of that corner. All right, boys, just put the stuff in there—the desk right in the corner, the typewriter on the desk, the wastebasket to the side of the desk, and the swivel chair, of course, right by the desk.”

  The valet stared at the strange procession which trooped its way across the thick carpets of the penthouse apartment. When they had gone, he moved about, dusting the furniture.

  “Are you employing a secretary?” he asked.

  Lester Leith regarded him reproachfully. “Scuttle, I am going to work.”

  “To work?”

  “Yes. I am going to write stories which will interpret the hidden significance of things. I am going to fight my way to the top.”

  “Yes, sir. A novel perhaps, sir?”

  “Not fiction, Scuttle. I am going to dramatize incidents. For instance, Scuttle, how would it feel to throw three hundred and fifty dollars out of a window?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

  “But you’d be interested in finding out, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, sir—ahem—of course, if you say so, sir. Yes, sir.”

  “That’s exactly it,” Leith said. “Today a woman threw a three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fur cape out of the window. How did it feel? What were her sensations? She has told me her innermost thoughts. I’ll write them out at fever heat, Scuttle. Words will pour from my fingertips onto the paper. The incident will live, will be perpetuated through posterity.”

  Lester Leith whipped off his coat and handed it to the valet. “Hang it up, Scuttle.”

  Leith jerked out the chair, sat down at the typewriter, and fed a piece of paper into the roller.

  “May I ask why the delivery by taxicab?” the spy asked in a last desperate effort to get information.

  Leith said, without looking up, “Don’t interrupt me, Scuttle. I’m concentrating—delivery by taxicab?—why, of course, I had to buy these things at a secondhand place in the cheaper district because the other stores were closed. Those little places don’t make deliveries. I had six taxicabs—quite a procession, Scuttle. Now let’s see, how would we start this? I’ll want it in the first person. Ah, yes! I have a title: ‘Throwing Money Away,’ by Winnie Gail as told to Lester Leith.”

  Lester Leith laboriously tapped out the title and by-line on the typewriter, then pushed back his chair to stare at the blank sheet of paper. “Now, I’ll need a beginning. Let’s see—I tossed the fur cape out of the window. No, that doesn’t sound right. I want something more dramatic. Let’s see now—I tried on the fur cape the salesgirl handed me. It was a perfect fit. I was pleased with the soft luxury of the glossy fur. And I pitched it out of the window.”

  Lester Leith cocked his head on one side and studied the valet’s expression. “How does that sound, Scuttle?”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Your face doesn’t show it, Scuttle. There’s a complete lack of enthusiasm.”

  “Yes, sir. If you’ll permit me to say so, it sounds like the devil, sir.”

  “Yes,” Lester Leith admitted, “it should be done more subtly.”

  He pushed back his chair, shoved his thumbs through the armholes of his vest, stared at the keyboard of the typewriter for several minutes, then got up and started pacing the floor. “Scuttle, how do writers get their inspiration?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “The thing sounded so easy when I thought about it in general terms, but getting it down specifically … I simply can’t say, I threw it out of the window. Yet I don’t know what else to say. Well, Scuttle, I’ll make a start. It seems to me I’ve read somewhere that successful authors don’t simply sit down and dash off a story, but have to labor over it, making many revisions, choosing their words with the greatest of care.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And,” Lester Leith went on, “I’ll try to get some new angle.”

  Leith sat down at the typewriter once more and doggedly began tapping out the words. The spy hovered obsequiously in the background.

  “You needn’t wait up, Scuttle. I’ll probably be all hours.”

  “Can’t I get you something, some Scotch and soda or—”

  “No, Scuttle, I’m working.”

  “Very good, sir. If you don’t mind, I thought I’d step out for a moment for a breath of air.”

  “Quite all right, Scuttle. Go ahead,” Leith said, without looking up from the typewriter.

  The spy walked down to the corner drugstore, called police headquarters, and got Sergeant Ackley on the line.

  “Beaver,” Ackley demanded, “what was the meaning of that procession of taxicabs driving up to the place?”

  The spy said, “He’s becoming a writer. He got the inspiration for a story, and he had to start at it right away. He picked up a lot of secondhand furniture, typewriters, filing cases, and all that sort of junk, and had them delivered by taxicab.”

  Sergeant Ackley groaned. “You never know whether he’s kidding you or actually slipping something over.”

  Ackley groaned again.

  There was a subtle tension throughout the offices of the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company. Beneath the routine exterior of a smoothly functioning business organization was that strain which manifests itself in surreptitious glances and whispered conferences in the restrooms.

  Frank Packerson, editor of the Pidico News, sat in his private office, a pencil in his hand, aimlessly tracing designs on a sheet of paper.

  The interoffice communcating system buzzer sounded, and Packerson almost mechanically threw the lever which made the connection. The voice of the girl at the information desk said, “An author is here with a manuscript which he is willing to sell for five hundred dollars to the Pidico News.”

  Packerson was startled. “A manuscript—five hundred dollars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him we don’t buy manuscripts. All our stuff is staff written. Tell him they don’t allow me five hundred dollars for an entire issue.”

  “Yes, Mr. Packerson. I told him, but he insisted I should notify you. He also has a gun he wishes to sell.”

  “A gun?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Packerson was interested. “What sort of gun?”

  “He says it’s a genuine Ithabore over-and-under which he’s willing to sell for fifteen dollars.”

  “A genuine Ithabore!” Packerson exclaimed. “For fifteen dollars?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gun enthusiast that he was, Packerson could no more resist such a bargain than a baseball fan could turn down a free ticket to the World Series.

  “Tell him to come in.”

  Packerson had expected some shabby out-at-the-elbows individual with long hair and glittering eyes. He was hardly prepared for the suave, well-dressed man who entered his office, carrying a briefcase in his right hand and two sole-leather gun cases over his left shoulder.

  Instantly suspicious, Packerson said, “Understand, my man, I’m not buying guns from persons whom I know nothing about. I’ll want a complete history of the gun.”

  “Oh, certainly,” Lester Leith said. “I’m prepared to give you a bill of sale.”

  “I want more than a bill of sale. I’ll want to know something about you. That price is—well, it’s absurd for a genuine Ithabore over-and-under.”

  Lester Leith laughed. “Want me to make the price sixty dollars?”

  Packerson flushed. “I’m only interested in getting another gun if the price is right. I’d hardly anticipated dealing with a well-dressed stranger who very apparently has two guns for sale. I think you can appreciate my position, Mr.—er—”

  “Leith,” his visitor said.

  “Well, I think you see my position.”

  Lester Leith laughed. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Packerson, I am willing to sell this Ithabore cheap because I simply can’t hit a thing with it, whereas I have a Betterbilt that simply knocks ’em dead.”

  Packerson shook his head. “I don’t like the Betterbilt. I like an Ithabore over-and-under, without too much drop in the stock.”

  Leith said, “You should like this gun.” He opened one of the gun cases, and Packerson gave the gun first a casual inspection, then put it together, tried the lock, swung it up to his shoulder once or twice, and turned to Leith with a puzzled expression. “How much did you say you wanted for this?”

  “Fifteen dollars.”

  Packerson stared at him suspiciously.

  “For reference,” Leith said, “you can ring up my banker.”

  Packerson said, “I suppose you know what that gun cost new.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then why the fifteen-dollar price?”

  Leith hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said, “I’ll be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Packerson. I think there’s a little bulge in the barrel. You can’t see it when you’re inside, but if you’ll step over to the window and let the sun shine along the barrel, you can see it—a peculiar line of half-shadow.”

  Packerson walked over to the window, pushed the gun barrel out into the sunlight, studied it thoughtfully. Lester Leith remained at Packerson’s desk, smoking a cigarette.

  After a minute of close scrutiny, Packerson turned back to say, “I don’t think— Well, there may be a slight bulge. I would say it was worth more than fifteen dollars, however.”

  Leith said, “Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Packerson, I thought if I’d make the price sufficiently attractive, I could get you to look at my manuscript. I—”

  Packerson shook his head emphatically. “We don’t buy any outside material.”

  Leith said with dignity, “Under those circumstances, I think I’d prefer to give some other editor an opportunity to look at the gun.”

  Packerson’s face colored. “So that’s the game! You want to bribe me to buy a manuscript for five hundred dollars by selling me an Ithabore for about a tenth of what it’s worth. Why, you crook! Get out of here! Go on, take your gun! What sort of man do you think I am, anyway? A cheap bribe like that!”

  Lester Leith, summoning what dignity he could muster, picked up his briefcase, swung the sole-leather gun cases over his shoulder and walked out, while Frank Packerson followed him to the door to finish what he had to say.

  Lester Leith was just emerging from the elevator when he saw Bernice Lamen step from a bus at the corner and start walking with quick, businesslike steps toward the entrance of the Rust Commercial Building. He waited until she caught his eye.

  She stopped to stare at him in astonishment. “What in the world!” she exclaimed.

  Leith said, “You look happy.”

  “I am. But what in the world are you doing with all the arsenal?”

  Leith said, “I am in the depths of despondency.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “I worked so hard on my story”—Leith sighed—“and now it’s been rejected.”

  “Where did you submit it?”

  “To the Pidico News. Your editor, Frank Packerson, was uninterested.”

  “Good heavens,” she said, “he doesn’t have any money to buy outside manuscripts.”

  Leith said, “Money wasn’t the big inducement. I wanted to see my name in print.”

  She studied him with a puzzled frown, drawing her finely arched brows into a straighter line. “Are you serious?”

  “Never more serious in my life, but let’s not talk about my troubles. What makes you look so happy?”

  She said, “I’ve just received a personal apology from Jason Bellview and instructions to return to work.”

  “You mean you’ve been exonerated?”

  “Well, at least they’ve decided I can go back to work.”

  Leith said thoughtfully, “I don’t see that as any cause of jubilation.”

  “You would if you were dependent on a salary and if being let out under suspicious circumstances would prevent you from getting a job anywhere else.”

  “That bad?” Leith asked.

  “That bad, and worse.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Leith announced, “we need a drink. You to celebrate, I to recuperate.”

  “I’ve got to go to work.”

  Leith said, “On the contrary, that is the worst thing you could do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where’s your sense of independence? Are you going to let them insult you, drag you down to the office of a private detective, grill you, have the police take over, give you the third degree, be smeared with the brush of suspicion, held up to the ridicule of your fellow employees, and then grasp eagerly at the first sop they hand you and rush back to work?”

  “Why not?”