The valet spy was never more at sea than when Lester Leith drawled at him in this patronizing tone. But it was apparent that he had achieved the result he had started for. Lester Leith was going to turn his mind on the problem of this case. So the police spy bowed deferentially, as became a well trained servant, and said tonelessly:

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lester Leith walked to the reclining chair, dropped into it again, lit another cigarette.

  “Do you know, Scuttle, the thing that started my interest in this case was what I read in the newspaper account about the woman’s purse.”

  The spy raised his eyebrows. “You mean the large sum of money it contained, sir?”

  “Partially, Scuttle. The report said that the purse had over five thousand dollars in bills, a compact, a bottle opener, a latchkey to the front door, a lead pencil, a fountain pen, some visiting cards and a check book.”

  The spy nodded.

  “Yes, sir. I believe so, sir. The purse was untouched, sir. Robbery was the motive of the crime right enough, sir; but it was robbery of the diamonds, sir.”

  Lester Leith regarded twisting smoke spirals.

  “The murderer must have known her habits intimately, Scuttle.”

  “Yes, sir. So it would seem.”

  “Funny that he’d not think to look in the purse.”

  “You say ‘he,’ sir.”

  Leith nodded. “I can’t bring myself to that hypothesis that the woman did it.”

  “You mean then that the chauffeur must have done it?”

  “No, Scuttle. I am inclined to take things at their face value. That is where I differ from the police. The police never take things at their face value. The police always believe everyone is lying. Now why not believe, Scuttle, that the persons who have been so unfortunate as to become involved in this affair are telling the truth. In other words, Scuttle, why not look for the two robbers who are missing, the two men who broke into the house?”

  The police undercover man was dubious. “That’s all very well, sir,” he said; “if you want to fall for that line of hooey. The police have about abandoned that theory of the case.”

  Lester Leith said nothing for several minutes, but below small smoke rings which went hurtling through larger smoke rings.

  “What clews are there, Scuttle, to the missing men? It seems to me that I read in the paper something about these men having cooked themselves a lunch, or robbed the ice box or something.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the spy. “That is correct. The three men broke into the house, searched for the jewels, and could not find them. Then they sat down, apparently to await the return of the woman. They cooked coffee. There were three cups with dregs in them, which gave the police the theory that there had been three men. There was an apple pie in the ice box, and the men ate it all up. They also drank a bottle of milk, and ate half a chocolate layer cake.”

  “These men, then,” said Lester Leith, “must have been hardened criminals.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the mystified undercover man.

  Leith frowned into his cigarette smoke, pursed his lips, stroked his chin, Then his eyes twinkled into a smile. He slowly nodded his head, after the manner of a man who gradually sees the light of reason and logic, breaking through a cloud bank of mystery.

  “Yes, Scuttle, I think I have it,” he said.

  “Have what, sir?” asked the spy eagerly.

  “Have the correct method of procedure. You see, Scuttle, there were three crooks. Let us act upon the assumption that one of these crooks has eliminated himself. He was either the chauffeur, in which event the police have eliminated him from our search; or else he was not the chauffeur, in which event he has fled in a panic.

  “What’s more, Scuttle, that third man, regardless of what the law may have to say on the subject, isn’t really a murderer. He telephoned the police, and he refused to share in the spoils. Therefore, Scuttle, we should eliminate him from our search.

  “What we should search for, Scuttle, is a pair of seasoned crooks who have a fondness for apple pie and chocolate layer cake.”

  CHAPTER IV

  The Garbage Can Business

  “Now it’s almost a certainty that men who could do a murder with such casual disregard of human suffering are men who are old hands at the game. They’ve probably served terms before.

  “Now we know that this pair didn’t get any money from their loot. They couldn’t sell those diamonds right now. The stones are hot. They dare not move them. And they overlooked the money that was in the purse.

  “Therefore, Scuttle, these men are broke. They are looking for an opportunity to lay low for a while, until they dare to dispose of their hot diamonds.

  “So I think we’ll start a new philanthropy, Scuttle. We’ll open an employment bureau for ex-crooks. We’ll cater only to tough guys, Scuttle. We’ll try and get men who have served at least one term in some penitentiary.

  “And we’ll have a free lunch, Scuttle, just like in the days of the old saloon. And that lunch will have, among other things, chocolate layer cake and apple pie and milk. Also, Scuttle, we’ll have coffee.

  “Now we’ll have an intelligent girl, one who’s beautiful enough to attract attention anywhere, to serve the pies and cakes. And she’ll keep a little record, Scuttle, under the counter where it won’t show. It’ll mark the amount of pie and cake each man eats. In that way we’ll find out the crooks who are particularly fond of pie!”

  And Lester Leith regarded the spy who posed as his valet, with that expectant look which a child gives to its mother when it has just done something for which it anticipates praise.

  The spy gulped a couple of time. “I was not joking, sir,” he said with dignity. “This is a murder case, and most unfortunate.”

  Lester Leith let his eyes widen with synthetic astonishment. “But, Scuttle,” he said in a tone that held every whit as much of wounded dignity as had that of the spy, “I was not joking.”

  The spy wet his lips, spoke with a voice that quivered slightly. “Of course, sir, you have the right to make sport of me if you wish, sir. I am in your employ, and you can do as you damned please. But if you think all of this apple pie stuff—”

  “Scuttle, please listen to reason. Remember, in the first place, I don’t want actually to solve any crime problem, not practically. That is the purpose of the police. And also remember, Scuttle, that I have no authority such as the police have. I have no organization. The police would round up every man with a criminal record, put them through a third degree, to make them account for the way they spent their time on the night of the murder. Then they’d weed out their suspects by getting the ones who couldn’t tell where they were, and sweating them. That procedure would sound entirely logical to you, Scuttle. Am I right?”

  The man blinked. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Lester Leith smiled affably.

  “Quite so, Scuttle. That is because that particular method has been used so often that you have become accustomed to it. Now my methods have to be makeshifts, Scuttle, because I haven’t any organization to back me. In fact, Sergeant Ackley has the entire force at his disposal, hampering and harassing me in everything I do. Therefore, Scuttle, I have to employ other methods, and, bearing in mind all the time that I do not want to catch any criminal but merely work out a possible, theoretical solution for a crime problem. Do I make myself plain, Scuttle?”

  “Er…yes, sir. I guess so, sir.”

  Lester Leith beamed.

  “That’s fine, Scuttle. Then you’ll understand. Now I’ll want to talk with this husband, the lawyer. But I wouldn’t want to intrude upon his grief. It would be indelicate to walk in upon him in his private office, and say; ‘You’ll pardon me, I’m not a real detective, nor am I a reporter. I’m just a man who wants to intrude upon your private affairs through a sense of curiosity.’ That sort of an approach wouldn’t do, Scuttle. But I could approach him as a salesman, perhaps, and solicit his business.

  “Ah, Scuttle, I have it. I noticed in a mechanical magazine, devoted to inventions, that a man had invented a new form of garbage pail. Instead of the ugly, galvanized iron receptacle, which gets all smeared up and smelly after use, this man has invented a very fine, white enameled garbage can which enameled garbage can which contains some mixture which keeps the flies and ants away. Then the garbage isn’t put in this pail at all, but in a paper filler which hangs in the pail from specially designed clamps.

  “The garbage man merely lifts this paper receptacle from the pail and slips in a fresh one when he comes by to collect the garbage. There are no smells, no soiled hands, no spilling of some food. The paper is treated in some way to make it a deodorant.

  “Do you know, Scuttle, that sounds so neat and gentlemanly and I think I should like to have an interest in that business. I clipped out the article at the time. Here it is. You might go to this man, tell him he can keep the patent, but I want the sales agency for this city, and I’ll pay enough for it to give him some working capital.

  “He lives right here in the city. You see his name is listed here. And you could arrange with him that I’d pay him one thousand dollars for the sales rights for ten days, another thousand dollars at the end of that time, and then a thousand dollars a month for each month I keep the sales rights.

  “But have it understood I can quit at any time, Scuttle. And arrange for a dozen cans and paper containers to be sent to my order right away. And you’d better speak to Sergeant Ackley, Scuttle, and tell him I’m interested in those two robbers who escaped from the house. I’ve had so many misunderstandings with the Sergeant, let’s let him in on the ground floor this time.

  “And about the pies, Scuttle. Were they home-cooked? You know the ones I mean, the ones that were in the Steele residence.”

  The spy nodded.

  “Mrs. Beechwood cooked the pies, sir. She’s the housekeeper, and then there’s Shinshara Kosimosto, the Japanese houseboy. They were out the night of the murder. It was their night off, you know.”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “Yes, Scuttle, and, as I remember the account of the crime which I read in the newspapers, Mrs. Steele was attending the reception when the telephone rang. Someone asked for her. She went to the telephone, and returned, white to the lips, said she was ill and asked to be excused. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did anyone trace that call? Or did it sound as though it came from a Japanese?”

  The valet shook his head, his eyes wide.

  Lester Leith yawned, as though bored by the whole affair. “No matter, Scuttle. Just a fancy I had, a sort of a hunch. Forget it. You go ahead and make the preliminary arrangements. You needn’t wait up for me. I’m going to that confounded dinner dance. I promised them I’d be there personally, and I hate to back down on a promise. But this crime interests me so much. It gives me something to think about. Ask Sergeant Ackley what he thinks about mental exercise for strengthening the brain. After all, he’s on the job every day, wrestling with these crime problems. Ask him, Scuttle, if he thinks it’s developed his brain. And now, Scuttle, good night!”

  And Lester Leith adjusted his tie, took his gloves, cane, hat, coat, smiled at the spy and banged the door behind him.

  CHAPTER V

  The Bird Dog

  Sergeant Ackley and the spy sat in a room that was blue with smoke. The Sergeant, a massive figure of a men with suspicious eyes and a spade like thumbnail that scratched the bristles along the angles of his bony jaw when he was thinking, spoke positively.

  “That’s the play, Beaver. I’ve got it doped out.”

  The spy made a grunting noise.

  “You just think you’ve got it doped out. Nobody ever dopes out anything on that bozo. He acts sensible for a while, and then he seems to go plumb crazy. He acts like a guy that was about half shot trying to burlesque a detective. But, so help me, it’s when you think he’s crazy that he’s using sense. This thing sounded so crazy to me that I thought he was kidding me. But he ain’t. He’ll slip the thing around somehow so that it’ll all click into place, and, presto, he’ll have pulled another fast one, right under our noses!”

  Sergeant Ackley smiled, a paternal, patronizing smile.

  “I can see just how you feel about it, Beaver. When he baffles a man with that chain lightning mind of his, it’s mighty confusing. But when you get to see through his little schemes, they aren’t complicated at all.”

  The spy made a single withering comment. “Oh, yeah?” he drawled.

  Sergeant Ackley nodded. The smile was leaving his features now. “Yeah,” he grunted, “and you don’t need to be so damned skeptical about it, Beaver. The trouble with you is that this man gets on your nerves and makes you so mad you can’t think. He never calls you by your right name, you tell me, but by that nickname he wished off on you because he says you look like a reincarnated pirate. That’s part of his game. A man who’s mad can’t think. He keeps you mad all the time. And when he’s slipping over a fast one. He tries to make us all madder than ever.

  “He used to fool me, and I used to get mad. But no more. He can’t make me mad now, not at all.

  “I see through his little schemes.

  “He plays them funny, yet with a certain system. He slips over a fast one, but he wraps it up in so much honey that we don’t pay attention to it.

  “Now take this little scheme of his right now, all about the crooks and the apple pie. It’s all just a big lot of hooey. What he really wants is a chance to interview the servants. He doesn’t give a damn for anything else.

  “And he’s probably right. There’s something in the business that’s fishy. And the servants may be in on it. It was their night out, but we’ve never checked into things very strongly to prove their alibis “

  “Now he senses that that’s where we’ve slipped up. He’ll talk pies to the housekeeper, and get her to make him a bunch of apple pies, but, back of it all will be some scheme to shake her down.

  “She might have been pretty close to the mistress, you know. Servants take sides in every household. And servants ain’t so dumb as husbands when it come to certain things.

  “I bet you anything you want to bet that this housekeeper, Mrs. Beechwood, knows the whole thing about the affair between the lawyer’s wife and the chauffeur, and even knows about the affair with the secretary.”

  “And I’ve got some more news for you, another funny development. The chauffeur has caved.”

  The spy sat up very straight, rigid at attention. “Yeah? What’d he say?”

  “Well, he said that had a date with Mrs. Steele all right, and then the note she had in her stocking was in his handwriting, all right. He admitted that they’d been making dates through the maid. She was getting her mail under an assumed name, the name that was on the note.

  “And he says he came there to meet her, that he was on time to the minute. That everything was all fixed up, she’d let the servants go for the night, and she’d pretended to be sick so she would slip back from the reception. The chauffeur came up to the house, just the way he’d intended to.

  “He said the front door was locked with the night latch, which was the way they always kept it. That he gave the low whistle that would let Mrs. Steel know that he was there. And there wasn’t any answer. He kept whistling, and then the very silence of the place surprised him, and make him feel that everything wasn’t right.

  “So he sneaked around the house, and saw a window open. He crawled through the window, and found the remains of the evening meal on the table. He was just about to heat it, when he glimpsed the woman’s foot through an open door.

  “He ran to her, and found she was dead. She’d been batted on the head right after she’d entered the room. The body was lying just the way we found it, just inside the little reception hallway. Well, he beat it. He knew he’d be dragged into it somehow, and he just made tracks. That’s his story.”

  “Did he telephone the police?” asked the spy.

  “Nope. Claims he didn’t.”

  The spy yawned.

  “Hell!” he said. “If he’s cracked that much, he’ll crack the rest of the way. He’ll be confessing the whole business before noon tomorrow.”

  Sergeant Ackley frowned.

  “That’s the funny thing,” he said. “He caved all the way before he made this admission. You know how he was sweating and pacing the floor. And the boys were shooting questions at him, and he’d hesitate before he answered, and all of that business.

  “Well now he acts just like a man who had got it all off his chest. He snaps answers out to questions, and he seems like a big load was off his mind. You can’t trip him up anywhere along the line, and he rings true all the way along.”

  Beaver shook his head skeptically. “Well, that ain’t the story. He may claim it is right now, but you keep sweating him, and he’ll be singing a different tune.”

  Ackley scratched his chin.

  “Well, Captain Walker’s in charge of that end of the case. And you know how Walker is. He’s one of those two-fisted guys that jump all over a guy when he’s lying, but when he starts telling the truth, Walker’ll stick up for him. And Walker claims this chauffeur is telling the truth now, and says he is going to stick up for him.”

  Beaver made a single exclamation.

  “Hell!” he said, scornfully. “How about the broad?”

  “The broad’s sitting tight. Can’t shake her story a damned bit. She says she was working in the office. That when she heard the chauffeur had been arrested she wanted to talk with him just to tell him she loved him. That’s her story, and damned if she ain’t got old E. R. Walker sold on that.”

  Beaver frowned.

  “What’s gettin’ into Walker? He usually knows when they’re tellin’ the truth.”

  Sergeant Ackley shook his head. “Hard to tell,” he grunted.

  Beaver leaned forward. “We can get farther by pinnin’ the crime on the broad. The newspapers’ll eat it up. The secretary in the office, in love with the chauffeur, trying to get him a make their marriage legal. The chauffeur, trifling with the love of the wife of his employer, stalling off the honest working girl!