“Oh, my God, what luck! It’s broken for me. I’ll sell this yam to every newspaper in the country. Gentlemen, stay right where you are until I can get a photographer and a line to the papers.”

  Grabbing the telephone receiver, he jiggled the hook in an ecstasy of haste.

  Sergeant Ackley, his forehead wash-boarded, turned to Lester Leith.

  “Leith, did you tell Striker of your suspicions before or after you got the money?”

  It was a seemingly innocent question, but Lester Leith smiled. “After, of course, my dear sergeant.”

  Ackley cursed inaudibly under his breath.

  “And the only lips that can contradict that …” he began, then glanced at the corpse.

  “Are dead,” supplemented Lester Leith, as smilingly debonair as ever.

  Cold Clews

  CHAPTER I

  Sergeant Ackley Sends a Visitor

  Lester Leith, stretched at indolent ease upon the reclining chair in his bachelor apartment, regarded his valet, who besides being a valet was a police undercover man spying upon him, and smiled.

  “Scuttle, there is altogether too much emphasis placed upon the detection of crime. In reality it’s a simple matter.”

  The “valet” straightened to attention. Six foot two of him, there was, with a heavy face flanked on either side by the sweep of black mustaches. His black eyes were round and bulging, like the eyes of a boiled lobster. “I’ve heard you say so before, sir.”

  Lester Leith reached for a cigarette with a lazy gesture of utter disinterest with life.

  “Yes, indeed, Scuttle,” he remarked, and tapped the cigarette upon the arm of his chair.

  The valet cleared his throat. “What made you say so at this particular time? If I may ask, sir.”

  “Because I just happened to think of it, Scuttle. I was thinking of the general inefficiency of the police department.”

  The big man flushed beneath the sallow skin of his bulging cheeks. His lips opened as though to emit some blasting bellow of rage, but he took a deep breath and controlled himself.

  “Perhaps the police are more efficient than you think, sir.” Lester Leith lit the cigarette, extinguished the match with a single smoky exhalation; took another deep drag and exhaled the smoke in twin streams through appreciative nostrils. “Perhaps,“ he agreed lazily.

  But the valet did not let it drop at that. He was bristling, like a huge dog looking for trouble.

  “You don’t know what the police are up against, sir; if you don’t mind my saying so, sir. You have me save the crime clippings from the newspaper. Every so often I read them to you. You pick out some particular crime which interests you. It’s your theory that many times the newspaper accounts contain enough facts to enable the crime to be solved.”

  Lester Leith stretched his well-knit arms high above his shoulders and yawned prodigiously. “Well, Scuttle, what’s all that got to do with it?”

  “Just this, sir. You hand-pick a particular crime and go out and solve it from the data given in the newspaper clippings. The police can’t do that. They have to take every crime that comes along. You pick one out of a hundred or more!”

  Lester Leith half turned in the chair and surveyed the police spy with lazy-lidded eyes in which there was a glint of inscrutable humor.

  “Tut, tut, Scuttle. Don’t say ‘go out and solve’ the crimes. What you mean is that I study out an academic solution from the newspaper accounts.”

  The valet, still bristling, stuck doggedly to his guns. “You always go out, sir.”

  Lester Leith took another drag at the cigarette, sent a twisting spiral of smoke toward the raftered ceiling. “Before, or after the solution of the crime has been worked out, Scuttle?”

  The valet blurted his reply in unthinking haste. “I wish to God I knew!”

  Lester Leith took the cigarette from his month and surveyed his valet with eyes that glittered frostily. “What was that, Scuttle?”

  The valet squirmed. “What I meant to say, sir, was that Sergeant Ackley believes you solve the crimes, and then go out and hi-jack the criminal of his spoils. Therefore, he thinks you solve the crime first, and then go out.”

  Lester Leith laughed outright. “The dear sergeant! How simple he is! And how utterly asinine. Why, Scuttle, the very idea is preposterous. For more than a year now he’s had shadows tailing me, following me every place I went. He’s hounded me to death. Surely, if his suspicions were justified he’d have proved his case before now.”

  The valet was not so certain, but he concealed his feelings under a mask of awkward diplomacy.

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I wasn’t insinuating there was any ground for his suspicions. I merely mentioned that he had them. Of course, sir, you must admit there is some mysterious hi-jacker who is, beating the police to the solution of important crimes and robbing criminals of their plunder.”

  Lester Leith blew a smoke ring, watched it twisting and turning upon its writhing course upward toward the dark shadows of the ceiling.

  “Possibly, Scuttle. Sergeant Ackley claims to have proof of it. But I’m not concerned. In fact my sympathies are with this hi-jacker. After all he’s only punishing criminals as they deserve. But we digress, Scuttle, and digression is a dangerous habit since it indicates lack of concentration.

  “You were speaking. I believe, about how the police had to consider every crime that was committed, while I only picked out particular crimes for consideration.”

  The valet nodded, his eyes glittering with hatred. “Yes, sir.”

  Lester Leith blew another smoke ring, traced its perimeter with an idle forefinger. “Perhaps you’re right, Scuttle,” he said with that patronizing air which was so irritating to the police spy. And then, after a long moment, he added, almost dreamily, “But I don’t think so.” And he resumed his smoking.

  The valet’s face purpled. He started to say something, choked back the comment, and was seized with a fit of coughing.

  “Really, Scuttle,” drawled Lester Leith without looking around, “you must do something for that cough. Cough drops, perhaps. I’ve never tried them, but there’s a certain charm about the rugged faces of the bearded brothers as they appear on the box that seems to be an assurance of remedial efficiency.”

  The valet took a deep breath. His great hands clenched into twin fists. The taut skin over his knuckles showed drawn and white.

  And, at that precise moment, as though the interruption had been timed, there sounded a buzzing noise from the reception hallway.

  “Someone at the door, Scuttle.” drawled Lester Leith.

  The valet seemed to welcome the interruption. He strode toward the door with swift haste. Lester Leith continued smoking, not bothering to give the valet so much as a glance. There was the sound of the outer door opening and closing. The valet’s heavy voice rumbled some comment, and was answered by a soft feminine voice.

  The valet thrust his head into the door of the living room. “Miss Rhoda Bromley to see you, sir.”

  “Have her come in, Scuttle, have her come in!” said Lester Leith, and got to his feet with that rippling motion of easy grace which bespeaks a strength and muscular coordination far above the average. As the young woman entered the door, Lester Leith bowed formally, from the hips.

  “This is Mr. Leith, Miss Bromley.”

  “Will you have a chair and explain to me if there is of some way in which I can be of service to you?”

  She walked directly to him and regarded his face with anxious eyes. Then she put out her hand.

  Lester Leith took the hand with a gesture of courtly deference.

  “It is indeed a pleasure,” he murmured, and escorted the young woman to a chair.

  From the chair she continued to study him with clear gray eyes that were entirely frank in their appraisal. Then she settled back, crossed silken knees and smiled. “Sergeant Ackley said you would help me.”

  “Sergeant Ackley!”

  And something in Lester Leith’s tone caused the smile to fade from her face.

  “Why, yes. I—er—I gathered you were great friends. He said you were the only man in the city who had sufficient ability to help me, and that you were one student of crime who thought the police were wrong about nine-tenths of the time!”

  And swift tears moistened the gray eyes. Suddenly she shook her head and smiled again.

  “I mustn’t bawl about it. Gimme a cigarette and I’ll quit the baby act. After all, if there’s been a mistake made, it’s my fault. I thought you were a detective.”

  CHAPTER II

  Leith Takes a Case

  The valet moved forward with the box of cigarettes, but Lester Leith was at her side in a single stride, extending his jeweled cigarette case.

  “My dear Miss Bromley, pardon me if I seemed rude. It happens that the dear sergeant was indulging in a little sarcasm, and you doubtless took his comments at their face value. But that’s neither here nor there. If there is some way in which I can help you, you have only to suggest it.”

  She took a cigarette, lit it and inhaled with the satisfaction which comes only to women who smoke because they like it rather than because they have cultivated the habit as an intriguing gesture to the opposite sex. “He’s arrested my brother,” she said.

  Lester Leith bowed. “He would,” he remarked, and his tone contained a contempt which indicated that Miss Bromley’s brother must be—like the wife of Caesar—above reproach.

  She smiled her thanks.

  “Evidently your opinion of Sergeant Ackley’s intelligence is about the same as mine.”

  Lester Leith returned to his chair, shrugged his shoulders.

  “Sergeant Ackley’s intelligence is like that of so many of the policemen who have been selected for brawn rather than brains—virtually nil.”

  And the valet, standing in the background, bat ears strained to catch every word of the conversation, was seized with another fit of coughing.

  “Precisely what,” asked Lester Leith, “did Sergeant Ackley arrest your brother for?”

  Her eyes blazed with indignation. “For nothing but walking down the street! That’s the honest truth. Carl was walking along the sidewalk, maybe he was running a little bit. He had a date, and he wanted to get the street car at the corner.

  “A police machine came skidding around the turn, slammed on the brakes and two officers jumped out, grabbed Carl and started to curse him. They accused him of having held up Mr. Riggers, the jeweler, and taken a rare necklace. They flung him into the police car, took him to jail and had Mr. Riggers come down to see him.

  “They put him on a platform and turned bright lights on him, and asked Mr. Riggers if that was the man. And Mr. Riggers made what they call a ‘partial identification.’ He said the man who had robbed him wore a suit of almost that color, and that his shoes were the same type, and that he was about the same build and general appearance as Carl. And they locked Carl up on suspicion.”

  Lester Leith looked at her with eyes that were closed to mere slits. “You’re not telling me all,” he said.

  “Well,” she admitted, “Carl was in trouble once before, a matter of a check that wasn’t good, and the police were very hard-boiled about it. I made up the check out of my account, but they insisted upon going ahead with the case and putting Carl on probation.”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s typical police reasoning. If a man ever gets in trouble and happens to be found near the scene of a crime, no matter if it’s years afterward, then he must be the criminal. I take it that Riggers was robbed near the place your brother was picked up?”

  She shook her head in a gesture of swift negation. “Not even that. But I guess the real robber was near there all right. You see he escaped in a stolen car, and the car didn’t have much gasoline in it. He ran out of gas and coasted into a service station and asked for some gasoline in a hurry.

  “The police had lost his trail, but were cruising around, looking for a car of that description. The robber was standing at the gasoline tank, holding the hose. The service station man was turning the pump, when, all of a sudden, the police drove on the scene.

  “Even then they might not have noticed the parked car in the gasoline station. But the boy had a guilty conscience, and he started to run. It looked as though the police were going to catch him easily. But it happened there was a motor cycle rider who came up to the service station at just that moment and got off his motor cycle. The robber hopped on and started away. That time he ditched the police for good.”

  Lester Leith’s eyes clouded in thought. “The man at the service station,” he asked, almost dreamily, “does he identify your brother as the man who got the gasoline?”

  “Yes!” she blazed, “and he’s a dirty, pimple-faced liar! The police have coached him. I know they have. You can tell it from the shifty-eyed way he looks at you when you talk with him! He says he thinks it was Carl all right, and then he shifts his eyes all around the room. He just won’t look you square in the face and say it was Carl.”

  Lester Leith nodded slowly.

  “The police have been known to do things like that. You understand that identification is a very difficult matter. Many times a man is in doubt about identifications. But by the time the police get a witness in court he’s positive, invariably positive…Carl, of course, says he knows nothing about it?”

  She nodded.

  “And,” continued Lester Leith, “Sergeant Ackley sent you to me?”

  “Yes. I can see now it was just his idea of a joke. I told him that I thought the police were a bunch of boobs, and he said that you were another one who had the same idea, that you would undoubtedly be glad to cooperate with me in proving they were mistaken about Carl.

  “I asked him about your fees, if they were high, and he laughed in that coarse way he has, and said I wouldn’t have any trouble with you over that, none whatever. I didn’t get his meaning at the time. Now…”

  She broke off and a flush suffused her cheeks. “Oh, well,” she said, and sighed, “it’s all in the day’s work. Guess I’ll ankle along and try another lead.”

  Lester Leith raised his hand in a gesture of restraint. “You’re working?” he asked.

  The gray eyes regarded him steadily. “Yes. I’m a dancer, a stage dancer.”

  “Playing here in town?”

  “I have the lead in a burlesque show at the Baltimore Theater.” And the gray eyes seemed to be waiting for something. Lester Leith bowed his head. “You have talent and intelligence,” he said, “you’ll succeed in the dramatic profession.”

  She sighed. “Well, you’re about the first man that ever gave me a break. Usually when I tell ‘em I’m in burlesque they start wisecracking right away. ‘I’ll have to get a ticket.’ ‘I’d like to see more of you’—that’s one of their favorite lines. As a matter of fact, I studied dramatic art and studied it hard. When I tried to crash in, all I could land was a job in the burlesque. I’ve worked up, though, out of the chorus, into one of the leads.

  “It’s not what I care for, but I started out to be an actress, and, by God, I’ll be an actress if I have to crawl on my hands and knees through every dance hall in the city!”

  Lester Leith nodded his approval. “Oh, Scuttle,” he drawled.

  The eager valet leaned forward. “Sir?”

  “You’ve been saving the crime clippings, Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir, of course, sir.”

  “And you’re familiar with the facts of this Riggers robbery, Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir, as the newspaper gives them, sir.”

  “Yes, Scuttle. You were commenting, I believe, that it was rather easy to hand-pick a crime and work out a solution. Let’s see what we can do by taking them as they come, the way you said the police had to.”

  The valet wriggled his head and neck in a gesture of assent, eager assent that caused his eyes to sparkle. “Yes, sir.”

  “When did the crime take place, Scuttle?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, sir.”

  “Get me the newspaper clippings.”

  The big valet nodded and oozed from the room.

  The gray eyes of the actress regarded Lester Leith frankly.

  “Listen, I came to you because Sergeant Ackley got smart. I can see you’re wealthy.” She broke off to wave her hand in an inclusive gesture at the rich furniture of the sumptuous apartment. “So let’s not have any misunderstandings about … about compensation.”

  And the eyes regarded him with unfaltering frankness.

  Lester Leith smiled.

  “We won’t have any misunderstandings, Miss Bromley, not about anything. I like to study crime and look for a possible solution just as some people like to solve chess problems, others to play cards. It’s my hobby.”

  She took a deep breath. “If you help me you’ll be paid for it—understand?”

  He bowed. “To help you would be ample compensation—and, then again, think how gratified the dear sergeant would be if we were able to demonstrate that he was wrong again. He would be so pleased to think he had sent you to me!”

  She laughed at that, and settled herself in her chair, seemed to relax. It was as though she was commencing to feel very much at home with Lester Leith.

  CHAPTER III

  Stolen Diamonds

  Scuttle pussyfooted his huge bulk into the room with half a dozen newspaper clippings. “Shall I give you a summary, sir?”

  “Yes, Scuttle. Get Miss Bromley a glass of that prescription port, and put some cigarettes at her elbow. Then tell us the gist of the newspaper reports.”

  The valet moved swiftly, brought out the bottle, the glasses, placed the cigarettes, laid the clippings in order on the table.

  “Mr. Samuel Riggers, sir, is a well-known jeweler.” Lester Leith nodded, dreamily, sipped his wine.

  “He deals very largely in large transactions, sir. He purchases collections of stones, and pays for them at good prices. His establishment has been in operation for years and he is known throughout the world.