“Yes, sir.”

  “Yes indeed, Scuttle. And the further fact that the other suspect was a woman. That complicated matters. The store hardly cared to assume the responsibility of having its special officer search the woman. They were almost forced to wait until they got to a matron.”

  “Yes, sir. And now the police feel that there may be something in Cripely’s story. They say it was a physical impossibility for him to have ditched the necklace anywhere.”

  “I see, Scuttle. They searched the package that the alarm clock was in, of course?”

  “Yes indeed, sir. They even took the alarm clock to pieces and searched it.”

  Silence fell on the room. Lester Leith continued to blow smoke rings. “I have heard,” he said, after awhile, “of crooks pulling a swindle something like that. One of them chews gum and sticks the gum to the underside of the counter. The other pushes a gem up into the gum. Then, later on, he comes back to the store and pulls the gum from the counter.”

  The valet snorted.

  “Old stuff, sir! The police have gone over the under sides of the counters. And you’ve got to remember, sir, that this was no mere isolated stone. This was a necklace of diamonds. Not very large stones, to be sure, yet fairly large and well matched.”

  Lester Leith nodded, yawned. “Well, what other crimes have we?”

  The valet’s face darkened. “Nothing, sir. I thought you’d be interested in that crime, sir.”

  “Why, Scuttle?”

  “Because you always are, sir, in crimes where the loot isn’t recovered, and —er—”

  Lester Leith finished for him.

  “And Sergeant Ackley thinks I solve such crimes, go out and locate the missing loot, hi-jack the criminal out of it and return to my life of lazy indolence, eh, Scuttle?”

  The valet squirmed, gulped.

  “Yes, sir. That’s about the size of it, sir.”

  He waited for further comment, but a series of twisting smoke rings that drifted toward the ceiling was his only response.

  “Do you think the clerk was guilty?” asked the valet, after a bit.

  Lester Leith yawned.

  “It’s hard to say, Scuttle. This is once where the newspaper hasn’t given sufficient details to interest me. And there are so many ways in which Cripely could have committed the crime that it’s hard to tell just what did happen.”

  “So many ways in which Cripely could have committed the crime!” echoed the astonished valet. “Why, sir, the police simply can’t figure out a single way in which he could have possibly committed the crime. That’s what makes them suspect the clerk.”

  “Yes?” drawled Lester Leith. “How about the woman? She was wandering all around the store. She wasn’t searched until sometime later. Cripely might have slipped the stones to her.”

  “But the clerk swears he is certain the stones were all genuine up until the moment the alarm clock went off. And, while they didn’t search the woman at once, sir, they did keep her under such close watch that it was impossible for her to have slipped anything from her person, or to have planted anything.”

  Lester Leith stretched, yawned, threw the cigarette into the fireplace.

  “It is really too early to take any great interest in anything. And I don’t like the sound of that damned riveter. I’m afraid I shall have to go out—and I don’t know where to go.

  “By the way, Scuttle, one point. Was that imitation necklace rather cleverly made, or was it very crude?”

  The valet jumped, snapped to rigid attention. “Why do you ask that question, sir?”

  “Because I want to know, Scuttle.”

  The valet flushed.

  “That’s one of the peculiar features of the case, sir. The imitation was so crude that it’s hardly conceivable any one could have been imposed on by it even for a minute. It was nothing but glass, sir, strung on a thread, and the particles of glass weren’t even cut to make them glisten. It was a frightfully crude piece of work.”

  Lester Leith reached for another cigarette, lit it, inhaled a great drag and sent twin streams of blue smoke pouring from his nostrils.

  “Ah, yes,” he drawled, and there was something in his tone that was like the purr of a stalking cat approaching its prey. “Do you know, I rather fancied as much.”

  “But,” protested the valet, “that’s the point that baffles the police.”

  “It would,” smokily agreed Leith.

  “But,” continued the valet, conscious of that spying contrivance which reported the conversation to the listening police, “If they were going to use an imitation at all, why not use a good one? Whoever used that imitation must have used it to cover up the theft. Why not put in an imitation that would not have been discovered for an hour or two, perhaps a day or two?”

  CHAPTER III

  Lester Makes a Wager

  Lester Leith blew a smoke ring, traced its perimeter with the tip of a well-manicured forefinger.

  “You haven’t answered my question, sir,” muttered the valet, reproachfully.

  Lester Leith grinned. “I haven’t, have I, Scuttle?”

  The face of the spurious valet purpled with rage. “Probably because you don’t know,” he gritted. “It’s damned easy to sit there and blow smoke rings. You can sit in an easy chair and patronize the police, but if you were put in their place you couldn’t do any better!”

  Lester Leith half turned to one side to survey his enraged servant.

  “Tut, tut, Scuttle. There seems to be a certain feeling in your remarks. One would gather that you had a certain sympathy with the police.”

  The valet, conscious of his slip, reminded also that the critical ears of his superior had been listening in on the conversation, became suddenly humble, cringing:

  “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean it that way, sir, but I have a beastly headache, sir, and I’m a little nervous. I couldn’t help but think that you hadn’t made a single constructive suggestion. In fact, sir, you never do. You read the newspaper accounts of crime, sir, but, if you find any solution, you don’t communicate it, sir. You use it yourself—er—that is, sir, you keep it to yourself.”

  Leith smiled.

  “Therefore, you think that I haven’t found anything out? H’mmm!

  Well, now, Scuttle, I’ll just make a bit of a wager with you.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Yes, I’ll just wager I could go into that same jewelry store, with a female companion, and work exactly the same crime on the same clerk, in the same manner. And I’ll bet the police couldn’t find a single clew, couldn’t find the necklace I stole.”

  The valet gasped, that raised his voice so that no word of the incriminating conversation would be lost upon the ears of the stenographers in the police room below.

  “Do—you—mean—that—you—would—steal—a—necklace?” he asked, pausing carefully between each word so there could be no possibility of talking too fast for the stenographers.

  Lester Leith walked blithely into the trap he had avoided for so many weeks.

  “I mean that exactly, Scuttle. I could go down to Goldman’s, have a female companion, look at necklaces, steal one of the necklaces, and the police, summoned instantly, of course, would be unable to find a trace of the gems. Of course, Scuttle, I would have to introduce a little variation, just a little. I wouldn’t have my companion carry an alarm clock into the store. I would have her carry something else.”

  The coarse lips of the police spy quivered in their slavering anxiety.

  “You mean to actually steal? Not to take as a joke, not to subsequently return, but to actually steal?”

  Lester Leith sighed. “Tut, tut, Scuttle, you’re painfully obtuse this morning. Perhaps it’s the early hours. Perhaps it’s that automatic riveter. Yes, I said steal, and I meant steal. Of course, Scuttle, I’d want your word of honor that you wouldn’t betray me.”

  The eager valet nodded. “Oh, yes, sir, of course. That would go without saying.”

  Lester Leith smiled. “Quite right. That would go without saying.”

  “You—er—you’d keep the diamond necklace, sir?”

  “Of course I would. Come, come, there’s no need for all this beating around the bush. For a long time you’ve really suspected I was the mysterious phantom hi-jacker that’s been flitting around here in criminal circles, robbing crooks of their loot.

  “You might as well admit it, Scuttle. Deep down in your heart you’ve felt that I had you read these crime clippings for a purpose. Come now, haven’t you?”

  The valet nodded. “Yes, sir, I have. If you’ll just confide in me, sir, I promise you that I’ll assist you to the limit, sir. To hell with laws.

  They’re made for the rich to usurp the poor. I wouldn’t hesitate a minute to help you break the laws!”

  Lester Leith sat bolt upright in his chair. He himself began to talk with slow, distinct articulation.

  “Tut, tut, Scuttle. Let’s not misunderstand one another. I am telling you nothing. I admit nothing. I only offer to wager you that I could, now mind you, I don’t say that I will, I only say that I could, go to the same store and commit the same sort of a robbery.”

  The valet sneered. “I thought so! Always leaving a loophole, always hedging. I offered you loyal support, and what do you give me? Nothing except a lot of cheap talk. Talk’s cheap. All right, if you’re so confident you could go down there and rob a diamond necklace, let’s see you do it!”

  Lester Leith hesitated.

  “Go on,” taunted the valet, his purple face thrust close, the lips twitching, the eyes glittering, the veins on the forehead corded into ridges. “Go on! You made your play. I’m calling you. I’ll bet you couldn’t do it. All you could do is talk about how it could be done. Let’s see you actually do it! I’ll accept your wager. Put up or shut up.”

  Lester Leith regarded his valet gravely.

  “Scuttle, you forget yourself! I might offer to wager with you, but you are still my valet, and you must keep your place. I’m sorry now I mentioned the matter. But, since you seem so doubtful of my sincerity in the matter. I’ll just wager you an even hundred dollars that I can and will go down there, take a diamond necklace, and the police will never be able to convict me.”

  “Done!” yelled the valet.

  “Very well, Scuttle, it’s done. But there’s no need for so much noise, no occasion for such an unseemly racket. And, of course, your attitude in this matter has become such that you’ll understand a continuation of our relations is practically impossible.

  “Your taunts, your insolence is hardly that which one expects from a servant in the way of respectful attention. This a servant must have to be valuable. Having lost that attitude, Scuttle, you have lost your value.”

  The valet blinked.

  “Excuse me, please, sir. I assure you, if you overlook it this time I won’t offend again. It was a mere slip, because I differed with you so strongly, sir. It’s a physical impossibility to commit the crime, the way you outline it, sir. Why it couldn’t be done on another jewelry store, to say nothing of being handled in the same way with the same clerk in Goldman’s store, sir.

  “And I felt so positive, sir, that I was perhaps a little out of place, sir. But I beg your pardon, sir.”

  Lester Leith sighed. “For the present, Scuttle, your apology will be accepted. But we’ll discuss the matter later. I’m afraid you’re losing some of your respect for me. Perhaps it’s those constant accusations of Sergeant Ackley’s.

  “However, let it pass for the moment. We have other things to do. If I’m going to win that wager I’d better be getting about it. I shall need certain things. Of course there’ll be the female companion—and then there’ll be certain packages she will have to carry, and then there’ll be the crude necklace to be used as a substitute.

  “Do you know, Scuttle, I think I should have two paper bags. In one of them I want a lemon pie and in the other a layer cake. And I shall want bits of glass strung together.”

  “A lemon pie, sir!”

  “Yes, a lemon pie. And in a paper bag, Scuttle.”

  “And a layer cake?”

  “Yes. A layer cake. That, also, should be in a paper bag.”

  “But what, in heaven’s name, sir, do you want with a lemon pie and a layer cake in a paper bag?”

  “Not in a paper bag, Scuttle. That denotes a singular. I want them in paper bags, Sound the s, meaning plural, two or more bags. I want a layer cake in one paper bag, and I want a lemon pie in the other paper bag. And don’t forget about the glass necklace.

  “I shall leave these matters up to you, Scuttle. As my valet you must assist me, whether your interests as an adverse party to the wager suffer or not.”

  The valet gulped. “Yes, sir. And the female companion? How about her, sir? I can get you a very attractive girl, sir?”

  CHAPTER IV

  Fine Work, Beaver

  Lester Leith shook his head in stern negation.

  “No, no, indeed, Scuttle. A gentleman must always insist upon consulting his personal tastes in the matter of his neckties and his women.

  “No, indeed, Scuttle, I shall get my own accomplice, and I rather fancy I shall get a brunette this time. I shall want a woman with fire, a woman with glossy black hair, a woman with full lips, a woman with an undulating walk. Her every motion must be an invitation, her glance a caress.

  “No, Scuttle, I should hardly trust you to find such a woman. It will, in fact, keep me pleasantly occupied during the rest of the morning. And the difficulty is enhanced by the further fact that such women as I have described are rarely abroad in the morning—unless their sleep is disturbed by a riveter, Scuttle, and that’s hardly likely.”

  The valet watched him with puzzled eyes.

  “A layer cake, a lemon pie, paper bags, glass necklace,” he muttered.

  “That’s right. You attend to those details, and I will see about the young lady. If I should send one up here to wait, please see that she’s made comfortable. I shall probably canvass the employment agencies. Good morning, Scuttle!” And Lester Leith, clamping a soft hat upon his head, grasping his stick firmly in his right hand, twisted the knob of the door and shot into the hall after the manner of a man who has urgent business awaiting him.

  Behind him, the spurious valet knitted his brows in puzzled thought, waited a few minutes, then opened the door and oozed into the hall.

  Tiptoeing his ponderous way down the carpeted treads of the stairs, the police spy descended two flights, paused before a door and gave a certain scratching signal upon the panels.

  The door flung open.

  Sergeant Ackley’s beaming features smiled upon his spy. “Fine work, Beaver! Fine work! You’ve got him nailed to the cross. But get a bigger bet. Put me down for a couple of hundred, hell, yes, five hundred, a thousand!”

  The grinning sergeant drew the spy into the room, kicked the door shut.

  At a long table two stenographers were waiting, notebooks covered with pothooks and angles before them. A plain-clothes man tilted a chair against the wall and surveyed the newcomer with languid interest. Sergeant Ackley sank back in his swivel chair, still beaming.

  “Aw, the bet don’t cut no ice,” rumbled Beaver, the man whom Lester Leith had nicknamed Scuttle.

  “The hell it don’t. Look here, the bet is that the police can’t convict him of a crime after he lifts the necklace. Why, it’s a cinch! Even suppose he was so damned slick he could lift the necklace and we couldn’t find it on him. We’ve still got him. This talk you’ve had amounts to criminal conspiracy. When he steals the necklace that’s an overt act. We can use his own statements and get a conviction, even if he could work out some scheme by which he could make the blamed necklace vanish into thin air.

  “Look alive, Beaver. Look alive! I don’t believe you know how good a break you’ve got. You just stumbled into it by accident.”

  The spy grunted.

  “Yes, I did! Fat chance! I’ve been worming my way into his confidence for six months. I’ve been drawing his bath water and pressing his clothes, cooking his breakfasts, cleaning up his cigarette stubs, and putting up with his infernal air of patronizing ridicule. He Scuttles me this, and he Scuttles me that, and he Scuttles me the other, and I’m supposed to keep my temper no matter what happens.”

  Sergeant Ackley nodded grimly as he twisted the end from a black cigar and scraped a match across the bottom of the table.

  “A good man. Beaver, never lets his personal feelings interfere with what he’s doing in the line of duty. A good man never loses his temper. Remember that. Beaver. Write it down if you have to. It’s your one vice.

  “Lord, how I wish the bird had fallen for your suggestion to furnish the broad. We’ve got a couple of police lures that work the streets for mashers that’d do the job to the queen’s taste. But we’ve got him anyway. I’ll be down at Goldman’s myself, and I’ll have a couple of picked men—no—I guess I hadn’t better attract too much attention. I’d better handle it alone.”

  The spy scowled. “Aw, sergeant, don’t hog it all. I’ve worked hard on this thing, and I’d ought to be in on the killing. It won’t hurt you none.”

  The plain-clothes man tilted his chair forward, opened his eyes, started to say something, waited. “No. You don’t understand. It’s not because I wish to hog the credit. It’s simply because too many men will excite suspicion. You forget there’s already a special on duty at the store. No. I shall handle it alone.”

  The plain-clothes man sighed, tilted his chair back against the wall and resumed his gum chewing.

  One of the stenographers flashed the other a broad wink. Beaver, the spy, bowed his head. “Very well.”

  “And you’d better get busy getting those things, Beaver. A layer cake and a lemon pie! Bah! He’s gone nutty.”

  Beaver straightened, his hard, round, boiled-lobster eyes glittered meaningly into Sergeant Ackley’s face.

  “You’d better get busy and figure out what he wants that stuff for. He’s never made a slip yet. He always asks for some fool thing that sounds plumb crazy on the face of it. But, before he gets done, it comes in handy. You’d better watch out or he’ll slip it over on you again.”