“I have always contended that a man should have some mental exercise to develop his brain, just as he uses a physical exercise to develop his muscles.”

  The spy nodded eagerly.

  It was apparent that he was trying with all of the wiles at his command to interest Lester Leith in the matter he was about to present.

  “Yes, sir, quite so, sir. And you’re right, sir. And this matter I have to discuss, sir, is one of the most unique of all crimes. It’s going to be a most celebrated case. There are more than fifty thousand dollars in diamonds missing, sir.

  “And the murder of the woman was so cowardly, so utterly brutal…”

  Lester Leith yawned, patted his mouth with four polite fingers to conceal the yawn, reached for a cigarette.

  “But, Scuttle, you overlook the main fact,” he remonstrated. “This over-zealous, bungling, heavy-handed Sergeant Ackley got wind, somehow, of the fact that I was interested in crime news; and he immediately jumped at the conclusion that I was solving crimes in advance of the police, ferreting out the criminal, stripping him of his ill-gotten gains, and using the proceeds to swell the funds I gave to charity, despite the fact that a large portion of those gifts are to the Police Protective Association. Those last funds, Scuttle, are for the exclusive benefit of the widows and orphans of officers killed in the line of duty.

  “Now I like to turn my mind on crime problems, Scuttle, but Sergeant Ackley is a boor, a bore and a boob, I don’t like him, and I don’t like the type of officer he stands for. There are lots of good men in the department, Scuttle, but this Ackley person has declared a private feud with me. They say he neglects everything else to harass me, hoping to get…”

  The valet who was not a valet; but an undercover man, acting under the direct orders of this same Sergeant Ackley, broke in on the conversation.

  “Yes, sir, I know, sir, and I know you’ll pardon me, sir. But if I’m to give you the details of this crime in ten minutes, sir, I’ll have to begin immediately, sir!”

  “Well put, Scuttle, well put, indeed! I grudgingly give you ten minutes to impart information, and then start railing against the police force. Go ahead, Scuttle. I’ll wait. What is it?”

  And Lester Leith flung himself down in a reclining chair, crossed his ankles, tilted his head back and regarded the curling smoke from his cigarette with meditative eyes.

  The spy, big, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, with little gleaming black eyes which peered suspiciously at the world from under bushy black brows, bowed deferentially.

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir. The crime is the robbery and murder of Mrs. Conrad Steele.”

  Lester Leith flicked a quickly questioning glance to the spy’s face.

  “I read something about it, Scuttle. The woman went to her home, I believe. Robbers had entered the house searched for the stones, found that the woman was wearing them, and deliberately awaited her return. When she entered the little reception hall they struck her down from behind, stripped the gems from her, and then made their escape. Is that the case?”

  The spy twisted his thick lips in a smile. “Well, now,” he said “that’s part of it.”

  “Indeed?” he commented.

  The spy nodded, an emphatic nod of oily affirmation, of ponderous emphasis.

  “Yes, sir. There have been more recent discoveries. For instance, sir, the chauffeur, Bert Meggs, sir.”

  “What about him, Scuttle?”

  “You remember that the back window had been forced with a bar, sir? Well the edge of that bar had a peculiar dent in it, and that dent impressed itself upon the soft wood so that the police were able to know exactly what bar it was that was used to force the window “They found the bar in the garage. It had the fingerprints of the chauffeur on it.

  “You’ll remember, sir, that the police were tipped off to the crime. That is, there was a telephone call. If you read the newspaper accounts of the crime, you’ll remember that the police received their first intimation of the murder by this mysterious call.

  “The man on the other end of the line seemed all excited. He said he had gone with two other men to steal some diamonds from a house, that the diamonds weren’t there, that while they were waiting in the house for some coffee to get hot there was a sound at the door and the woman came in, wearing the diamonds.

  “He said that the other two men struck her down and ripped off the jewels. That made it first degree murder for all three, but this man wouldn’t have anything to do with it. He ran out, refused to share in the loot, telephoned the police.

  “Well, sir, the police have about concluded that this call came from the chauffeur. Their theory is that the chauffeur trapped Mrs. Steele, took two professional crooks into his confidence and was to split the spoils with them.

  “Then, when they murdered the woman, instead of just robbing her, the chauffeur got frightened and ran away. Anyhow, the bar that opened the window had been used by the chauffeur. The chauffeur was missing. They finally located him. He refused to talk about the case.

  “But, sir, when the body of Mrs. Steele was being examined at the inquest, the coroner found a note tucked in her stocking, down at the sole of her foot. That note was from the chauffeur, Bert Meggs, and shows that he and the woman had an appointment at the house. She was to go to the reception at Mrs. Stanwood’s, pretend to be taken ill, go home early.

  “Mrs. Steele’s husband, Conrad Steele, the lawyer, was working at his office, dictating an important brief that had to be in the hands of the printer in the morning. He had arranged with his secretary to be there and work all night.

  “So the chauffeur and the wife were to meet in the man’s own house. Those were the plans. The note’s in the chauffeur’s handwriting. There’s no question of that. It was addressed to the wife under an assumed name and sent through the mail. That is, the envelope had the false address, but the note started out ‘Dear Vivian,‘ and it was to the woman all right, was in the chauffeur’s handwriting, and mentioned that he knew Conrad Steele was going to be working until well after midnight.

  “That’s enough to hang the crime right on the neck of this Bert Meggs. He knew it and skipped out, but the police caught him and took him to jail.”

  The spy paused, watching Lester Leith’s face. That face contained no faintest flicker of interest, so the spy thrust forward the bait once more.

  “The diamonds, sir! They’re worth fifty thousand dollars, sir. They’re even insured for forty thousand.”

  CHAPTER II

  A Love Pirate

  Lester Leith blew a smoke ring, watched the twisting smoke spiraling upon itself, nodded, and finally spoke. His tone was cold and distant.

  “Tut, tut, Scuttle. You’re getting a tabloid mind. I’ve warned you against it before, Scuttle. You become interested in problems of the eternal triangle, of love nests and beauty. You gloat over the discovery of women in compromising situations. You want to pry into things which are none of your dammed business.

  “So far as I am concerned, I regret very much that Mrs. Steele is dead, I regret ten times more the fact that the circumstances of her death were such that her name can be bandied about by a morbid population which gloats upon scandal.”

  The valet wet his lips.

  “You forget the diamonds, sir,” he reminded, reproachfully.

  Lester Leith shook his head. “I forget nothing, Scuttle. I am not interested.”

  He got to his feet, straightened out his coat, glanced at his wrist watch.

  “But the crime, sir. The newspapers are simply crammed with it. There are photographs, diagrams, interviews.”

  Lester Leith yawned, and this time made no attempt to disguise that he was yawning. He started for the door of his sumptuously furnished bachelor apartment.

  The spy followed him.

  “But there’s still another angle, sir. A beautiful woman was the accomplice of the chauffeur. And it may be the real motive of the crime wasn’t robbery at all. The pilfering of the diamonds was merely an incident, sir.”

  Lester Leith paused, hand on the knob of the door. “Let’s hear it, Scuttle.”

  “The secretary of Mr. Conrad Steele, the lawyer, was in on it too, sir. She had said that she didn’t know the chauffeur, had never met any of the members of the attorney’s family, sir. That was when the police first interrogated her, just as a matter of routine, sir.

  “Then, when the chauffeur was arrested, a woman called up and wanted to get in touch with the chauffeur. She seemed very much disturbed. She didn’t want to give her name.

  “In a case of that sort, it’s customary for the police to run down every clew, particularly every woman element, so the police held the woman on the line and trace the call. It was coming from a pay station in a drug store.

  “The police asked the woman if she had any particular interest in the man, and she said she was his wife. So they told her they would let her speak with the chauffeur if she would hold the line until they got him from his cell. They left her holding the line and rushed a patrol to the drug store.

  “They found the woman still waiting at the telephone. And when they arrested her, sir, and took her to headquarters, they found that she was really the woman who worked in the attorney’s office, the one who had sworn she had never even met Bert Meggs.”

  The spy paused, waiting to see if this last bit of information had proven of interest.

  Lester Leith remained, hand on the knob of the door. “When they arrested her, did you say, Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The police arrested her, Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  “Why, of course, Scuttle?”

  “Because they have an entirely new theory now, sir. They feel that the chauffeur might have had a rendezvous with the lawyer’s wife, that the girl who worked as secretary for the husband might have been wise, might have caught the pair together and struck down Mrs. Steel. The rage and hatred of a woman under such circumstances, sir, knows no bounds. There are many cases on the police records to prove that.

  “Then the police feel that Meggs might have made up with the girl, that they might have stripped the corpse of the jewels, and tried to make it appear that the crime was the work of burglars, instead of being a crime of vengeance.

  “They did that by ransacking the place, jimmying a window.

  Then the girl rushed back to the lawyer’s office. The chauffeur telephoned the police with the story about the three men who had broken into the house, and then tried to run away.

  “It’s the old story, sir. The man had a charm fatal to women. He preyed upon them. But when he was caught by the secretary, when the lawyer’s wife had been murdered, then the chauffeur decided to play the hare that would draw the hounds off the real criminal—the woman who worked in the lawyer’s officer.”

  Lester Leith’s hand dropped from the doorknob. “Scuttle,” he said, “you are beginning to interest me.”

  Relief flooded the concerned face of the spy. “Yes, sir,” he said, and sighed.

  Lester Leith frowned thoughtfully. “So the police are going to make the lawyer’s secretary the goat, eh, Scuttle?”

  “Not the goat, sir. If she’s guilty, then the police will ferret it out, and she’ll have to pay the penalty.”

  Lester Leith made a wry face.

  “And in the meantime she’ll be the goat of the press. Her good name is all gone right now. The public will lick its chops over the girl’s predicament…What’s her name, Scuttle?”

  The valet spy smirked. “The name that she goes by, sir, is Jean Joy.”

  “Why say it in that way, Scuttle, the name she goes by?”

  “Because, sir, it’s undoubtedly an assumed name. It’s the sort of the name a motion picture actress would assume.”

  Lester Leith sighed. “And what are the police doing, Scuttle?”

  “They are giving the chauffeur the works, hoping that he’ll crack.”

  “And has he cracked, Scuttle?”

  “Not entirely. Not on the major points. But the police raided his apartment over the garage on the Steele property, and found a trunkful of love notes. There were notes in the hand-writing of Mrs. Steele, and notes in the handwriting of this Jean Joy, as well as notes from forty or fifty other women. He was regular love pirate. That’s what he was, sir!”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “Doubtless, Scuttle. I’m not particularly interested in him. But I am interested in this Jean Joy. Mark you, Scuttle, she does nothing save allow her emotions to be ensnared by this love pirate, and calls up to find out about him at the jail—and that’s only natural, Scuttle—and the police swoop down upon her.

  “It gives the police a lot of free publicity. It solves the mystery and saves the police the embarrassment of locating the two robbers who were in the house, awaiting the return of the attorney’s wife.

  “That’s typical police reasoning, Scuttle. If their first theory is correct, and the chauffeur was the one who telephoned in the tip about the murder, then the chauffeur was the innocent one. Not in the eyes of the law, perhaps, since he’d entered the house feloniously, along with the other two, And, as I understand the law, Scuttle, when a man does that, and one of his associates commits murder in furtherance of the joint felony, then it becomes first degree murder for all of them.

  “But mind you this, Scuttle. If that same police theory is correct, then the two who actually struck the fatal blow, the two who actually stole the diamonds, are the ones that are missing.

  “Then this girl shows up. She has been unfortunate in an affair of the heart. And what happens? She is immediately thrust forward as the one who did the murder. The police act on the theory that the other two bandits weren’t there at all. They were, claim the police, just a stall on the apart of the chauffeur to protect the secretary! Bah!

  “The real truth of the matter, Scuttle, is that the police know there’s no romance and no advertising in having a pair of thugs kill a woman and strip off her jewels. But there’s opportunity for any amount of sob sister stuff in the business of a secret wife killing another woman over her husband’s affection.”

  And Lester Leith made snorting noises of disgust.

  CHAPTER III

  Hungry Crooks

  The spy fidgeted during the arraignment of the police, muttered under his breath, but preserved the outward semblance of servility. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “And, of course,” added Lester Leith, “the police have the added advantage with this new theory of having the culprit they want to convict behind the bars. It might prove embarrassing for the police if they threw out a dragnet for the other two robbers, and then couldn’t find them.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the spy.

  “Tell me,” said Lester Leith, “was this secretary really his wife?”

  “Probably not, sir. There was a sort of common law marriage, but it’s not legal. The police want to be certain that it wasn’t really legal, sir.”

  “Why, Scuttle?”

  “So they can force the chauffeur to confess and testify against his wife. Under the law, a husband can’t testify against his wife.”

  Lester Leith smiled without amusement.

  “So the police will show the marriage is illegal, eh, Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But what time was the murder committed, Scuttle?”

  “About ten o’clock, sir.”

  “But, Scuttle, this girl, Jean Joy was in the attorney’s office. Wasn’t she writing on this brief? Can’t Steele himself give her an alibi?”

  The valet shook his head. “He claims he can, sir. The police claim he can’t.”

  “Why, Scuttle?”

  “Because Steele was in his private office with the door dosed and locked, dictating to a dictating machine. The girl was in the outer office transcribing the records that Steele brought her from time to time.

  “That’s the way Steele dictated his briefs. He would shut himself in, get a whole bunch of wax cylinders, and work on his brief. When he had a bunch of cylinders dictated, he would take them to the outer office, give them to the girl. Then he’d go back and dictate some more.

  “Now he claims that the girl was working steadily. He says he could hear her typewriter going all the time. He was in his own room, dictating, but the sound of the typewriter could be heard through the closed door.

  “The police claim that the girl could have had a confederate who slipped in, put the tubes of the transcribing machine to her ears and went right on with brief.

  “Steele admits that he started on a fresh batch of records around nine thirty, and that he didn’t emerge from the office with them until the police had called him on the telephone to notify him of the death of his wife. And the police can prove that, because the dictated cylinders are still there.

  “So that’s the way it stands, sir. The lawyer feels that his secretary is innocent, and is going to try and swear to an alibi for her. The police feel she is guilty. The chauffeur holds the key to the situation.”

  “I take it,” said Lester Leith, his eyes shifted in thought, “that they will be sweating this chauffeur, Scuttle.”

  The laugh of the spy was harsh and vindictive.

  “Sweating him is right, sir. That man’s going to get a third degree that’ll make him think he’s been some place. You can’t hold out on the police. A crook has to cave, sooner or later. There never was a crook who didn’t crack some time or other, or would have, if the police could have had him long enough without some lawyer butting in.”

  Lester Leith paced to the window, stared out at the street lights, glanced down at the passing automobiles, pursed his lips and nodded.

  “Yes, Scuttle,” he said, “I am interested in that case. Do you know, Scuttle, in many ways it’s a curious case. It offers an opportunity for speculative mental exercise.”