He rubbed a fat hand over a very bald head, and fastened gimlet eyes upon Lester Leith. Those eyes were the eyes of one who takes nothing for granted.

  “Over the telephone,” he said, “you offered me within two hundred dollars of what I paid for the old car.”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “Isn’t that rather a high allowance?” ventured Mr. Petterman.

  “We can lower it if you feel it is unfair,” remarked Lester Leith.

  Petterman’s lips damped into a thin line.

  “You’re the one that’s making the figure,” he snapped.

  “Precisely,” said Lester Leith. “We are making the figure rather high because it is to our advantage to be able to point to customers who buy our cars year after year. You can step to the window and see the new car. It’s in front.”

  Mr. Petterman heaved himself from the chair. After the manner of corporation lawyers who have spent their profitable lives at desks and in directors’ rooms, he waddled to the window, looked down at the street.

  Lester Leith joined him.

  He could see the old car with the doorman guarding it, could see the new car behind it, and, across the street, he saw two cars parked, cars which contained drivers who were staring across at the office building.

  Lester Leith regarded these men with a smile. They were police shadows, delegated by Sergeant Ackley to tail Lester Leith and report on his every move. Many times before, Lester Leith had managed to give the police shadows the slip, and this time Sergeant Ackley had arranged an elaborate plan to have Leith under espionage virtually every minute of the time.

  “That’s a new car?” asked Petterman, suspiciously. “It isn’t a demonstrator, or a car that was sold once and came back?”

  “Absolutely not. You can pick out any other car on our floor if you don’t like this one.”

  “I think,” remarked Petterman, “I’ll just drive down to the agency and look the other cars over. I want to talk with Mr. Garner about this deal, anyway.”

  Lester Leith was cheerfully acquiescent, as became an automobile salesman dealing with an important customer. “Certainly. There’s one little matter that I’ve got to check up on, though. Mr. Petterman. I’ve got to make a complete examination of your old car before I confirm that offer.”

  “But you already made the offer.”

  “Subject to the car’s being in ordinary condition.”

  “Well, it’s A-1 !”

  “Very well, but I have to look it over to make a report. I wonder if you’d mind coming downstairs with me while I check it over. It won’t take over a few minutes.”

  Petterman reached for his hat. “Won’t be back any more this evening,” he called to his secretary. “I’m buying a new car. If Blanchard calls up about his minute book, tell him it’ll be ready tomorrow. Good night.” And he waddled his portly way in portentous dignity to the elevator.

  The elevator operator spoke to him obsequiously. The starter wished him a good night as he left the building. The doorman raised his hat.

  Charles Petterman crawled behind the steering wheel of the new car. “Seems all right,” he said.

  Lester Leith nodded and started about the examination of the old car. Across the street, the two police shadows made notes of everything Leith did.

  And his examination was, to say the least, peculiar.

  He took a pressure gauge from his pocket and tested the pressure in the two front tires. He took a hydrometer from another pocket and sampled the specific gravity of the water from the radiator. Then he took a bit of stiff wire, went to the gasoline tank, and seemed to measure the gasoline in the tank. Next he lifted the hood and pulled one of the wires from the spark-plug, stared owl-ishly at the contact point, muttered something, replaced the wire and lowered the hood.

  “Yes,” he said to Mr. Petterman, “I shall be pleased to confirm the offer on the car.”

  “Okay,” said the lawyer. “I’ll drive this new car to Gamer’s. You drive the old car, I won’t touch the damned thing again. It’s hoodooed.”

  Leith nodded, climbed into the car with the red stripe around the upper part of the body, and stepped on the starter.

  CHAPTER VII

  A New Car—Second-Hand

  As he purred away from the curb, the cars of the police shadows fell in behind him. Nor did they make any attempt to conceal the fact that they were shadowing him.

  In the past Lester Leith might have slipped through their fingers, but this time they were going to see that nothing of the sort happened.

  Lester Leith took them for a nice little ride. He didn’t go directly to the automobile agency of Mr. Booth Garner. Instead, he swung out into the boulevard, put the car through its paces, and tried the brakes as well as the acceleration.

  Hence it was that he arrived at the automobile agency fully ten minutes after the corporation lawyer had arrived. And there was an irate reception committee to greet him.

  The portly lawyer with florid features was wiping the perspiration from his indignant forehead. The manager of the business was fairly dancing in his rage.

  “What sort of a sap are you!” yelled Garner. “You can’t make that sort of a thing stick. Mr. Petterman is a lawyer, and he says you can’t.”

  “What sort of thing?” asked Leith innocently.

  “Guaranteeing to sell a car a day and then going out and making damn-fool trade offers. Any fool could sell a car every five minutes if he offered to take in a two-year-old car at two hundred dollars off its list.

  “I’ll have you understand, Mr. Society Smartaleck, the salesmen don’t have a damned thing to say about the trade-in price of the old cars. I have an appraiser who makes that price, and that price will be exactly what Mr. Petterman receives for his old car.

  “But, since you’ve nearly ruined a good customer’s business for me, and since I happen to have five hundred dollars of your money on deposit here. I’ll just make up the difference between the appraised value of this car and the price you quoted Mr. Petterman out of that five hundred dollars, and take the balance from your commission!”

  And the voice of the automobile manager rose to a roar. “That,” said Lester Leith with a smile, “impresses me as being entirely fair. How does it impress you, Mr. Petterman?”

  The lawyer’s jaw sagged.

  Booth Garner acted as though he could not believe his ears.

  “And,” said Lester Leith, “if the margin is still inadequate, I will make it up in cash. Has Mr. Petterman selected his car yet?”

  Booth Garner looked about him sheepishly.

  “I,” said Mr. Charles Petterman, “will be damned!”

  Lester Leith got from the old car. “Will you kindly send out the appraiser, Mr. Gamer?” he asked.

  And because Booth Garner was primarily an automobile merchant who knew his profession well and thoroughly, the sale from that point proceeded with neatness and dispatch. A puzzled, but satisfied corporation lawyer drove a brand-new automobile from the show room. An appraiser tied a pink slip of pasteboard to the steering wheel of the second-hand car and Lester Leith took it into the garage where second-hand cars were stored, walked to his dog, untied the leash, and ensconced the bulldog into the rear seat of the car with the red body stripe.

  Then he went into the office of Booth Gamer.

  The automobile manager regarded his new salesman with a dour look.

  “Now.” he said, “what’s the idea?”

  Lester Leith was mild but firm.

  “In the future,” he said, “let’s not stage our quarrels in front of our customers. It isn’t good business.”

  Mr. Garner flushed. He didn’t need to be reminded of that.

  “I fixed what I thought was a fair price on the car,” said Lester Leith. “Your appraiser was hundreds of dollars too low.”

  Garner was on familiar ground now. He sneered.

  “That’s what the salesmen always say. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I’m the one that’s running this business.”

  “Not at all,” said Lester Leith. “As you mention, you’re the one that’s running it.” And he smiled, then added, “You didn’t say in what direction.”

  Gamer’s face purpled with rage. “Of all the damned crazy, exasperating—”

  Lester Leith held up his hand.

  “To show my good faith in the matter. I am willing to buy the old Petterman car. I will buy it at the price I quoted Petterman. I had that in mind all along, if your appraiser was too low.”

  And Lester Leith took a well-filled billfold from his breast pocket and started counting out money.

  “But,” he added, raising his eyes to Mr. Garner’s startled countenance, “you must remember that the car is mine, and that if there’s any profit on it, I make it, subject, of course, to a deduction of the usual sales commission if any other salesman closes the deal.”

  Garner sighed. “Look here, Leith,” he said, not unkindly, “you may mean all right but you don’t know a damned thing about business, and you’re simply crazy on this deal. You’ll lose more money than you’ll make in two months of hard work.”

  Leith nodded absently, passed over the money.

  “With my five hundred dollars, and the sales commission on the new car, this makes the balance of the purchase price. Will you kindly execute the necessary documents to pass title to me?”

  Booth Gamer sighed. “You’ll never learn any younger,” he said, and reached for his pen.

  Lester Leith smoked while the automobile manager made out the necessary transfer, passed it across.

  “It is now past five o’clock. I don’t think I can sell any more cars tonight,” said Lester Leith. “I’ll leave my car here, and ill leave my dog in the car. I don’t think they’d care to have me keep him in my apartment until after I’d made arrangements with the janitor. I’ll be back to feed him. There’s a night man on duty?”

  Gamer nodded.

  “Kindly give me a note to the night man, telling him I’m a new salesman, and that I own the car with the red stripe.”

  Once more Garner scribbled a note. “Don’t think I’m taking advantage of you on that deal, Leith,” he said, not unkindly. “It was your own proposition.”

  Leith nodded. “And when I sell it at a profit don’t think I’m taking advantage of your low appraisal,” he said. “By the way, I guess I’d better put the new resale price on that car.”

  And he walked back into the shop, took out his pencil and crossed out the figure which the appraiser had placed on the red ticket, and put in its place another figure.

  Garner leaned forward to read that figure and then gasped. It was seven hundred and fifty dollars more than the car had cost when it was new.

  “You,” he said with the certainty of absolute and final conviction, “are crazy!”

  Lester Leith smiled at him. “That,” he said, “is precisely what my valet thinks. And good night, Mr. Garner.”

  He spoke to the dog, strolled to the street, and caught a passing taxicab.

  Garner, almost willing to believe his eyes had deceived him, reached for the price ticket once more. There was a growl and a flash of motion. He jerked his hand back just in time to avoid the clashing jaws of the ferocious watch dog. “Damn!” said the profane and utterly exasperated Mr. Garner.

  CHAPTER VIII

  An Early Customer

  Lester Leith smiled at his valet as he adjusted the tie on his evening clothes.

  “Do you know, Scuttle, I enjoy working for a living very, very much.”

  The valet was bursting with curiosity, but he managed to control himself. “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, indeed, Scuttle. And I made the sale to Petterman this afternoon. Now I’ve got to look around for a prospect for tomorrow. I wonder if Sergeant Ackley would be interested in a new car.”

  The valet coughed. “I hardly think so, sir.”

  “Well, Scuttle, can’t you think up some prospect for me?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “Tut, tut, Scuttle. You should be of more assistance. You got me the stove?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The dice?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The drill?”

  “Yes, sir. There’s no need to go over it item by item, sir. I got everything you asked for. The vise, the silk-cord, the drill, the dice, the stove, everything.”

  “Very good, Scuttle. Where are they?”

  “The stove is at the hardware company, awaiting instructions for deliverers. The rest of the things are here.”

  Lester Leith nodded, gave his reflection a last survey in the mirror.

  “But you were telling me about your experiences selling automobiles,” reminded the valet, eagerly.

  Lester Leith smiled benignly at him. “Yes, Scuttle, I was, wasn’t I?”

  And with nothing more than that to encourage the eager ears of the spy, he put on his hat and coat and went out into the night. Behind him, the valet shook a ham-like fist at the door and cursed bitterly.

  On the lower floor two police shadows picked him up, followed him to a restaurant where he ordered a large portion of choice steak and some bones wrapped up in paper, paid for the same, and took a taxicab to Booth Garner’s automobile agency.

  The card which Garner had given him, a cigar and a good-natured greeting, contrived to make a friend out of the night man in charge.

  Lester Leith walked back to his red striped car and was gratified to notice that Bobo, the savage watchdog, wagged his stump of a tail at the approach of his new master.

  Lester Leith took him from the car, let him run for a few minutes, saw that the dog was well fed from the rich meat he had secured at the restaurant, placed a pan of water in the car, and bedded the dog down for the night.

  Then, while the attention of the night man was taken from his duties, while the two police shadows watched the exit of the garage, waiting for their man to come out, Lester Leith walked about the automobile with a polishing cloth, rubbing it tenderly and without regard for the fact that his spotless evening clothes were hardly the proper garb for a man polishing an automobile.

  The light was poor in the garage, and Lester Leith was as a flitting shadow. If he did anything to the car beside polishing it, it was impossible for the night man to notice it—as the night man afterward very truthfully confessed to Sergeant Ackley.

  After Lester Leith had puttered around his new car for some thirty minutes, he went out, consulted a uniformed officer as to the location of the nearest telephone, called Miss Rhoda Bromley on the phone, found that which he might have known, that she was at the theater, and called a taxicab to take him to the Baltimore Theater. There was in everything he did a wide-eyed candor which made things exceptionally easy for the men who trailed him. He saw the performance, applauded vigorously at intervals, and waited at the stage door for Miss Bromley.

  She met him with a smile, and a wise crack that was duly noted by the shadowing officers. “Well, you had to see more of me, I observe.”

  Lester Leith’s bow was a model of courtliness.

  “Your talents will not long be wasted here,” he said. “You have rare dramatic talent.”

  She sighed. “Thank God for someone who can look higher than my legs! Are we eating?”

  “We,” Lester Leith assured her, “are eating.”

  Thereafter the reports of the two operatives, duly filed in headquarters, showed that Lester Leith and his lady friend passed a very enjoyable evening with much laughter and dancing. He returned her to her apartment at two o’clock in the morning, refused her invitation to run up for a moment, and engaged a taxicab which took him directly to his bachelor apartment.

  The shadows took up a lonely vigil over that apartment house until they were relieved at six o’clock in the morning. Lester Leith had not left the place.

  In fact, Lester Leith did not even arise until after nine o’clock. At that hour a frantic ringing of the telephone brought Scuttle to the instrument. He listened in puzzled perplexity, and then tiptoed to the bedroom where Lester Leith was deep in serene slumber.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but it seems quite important.” And he took Lester Leith by the shoulder, and shook him none too gently.

  Lester Leith snapped his eyes open, and, for the moment, there was a frosty look of cold hostility in those eyes which sent the police spy back a step, as surely as though he had been struck with a club.

  “I take it, Scuttle,” said Lester Leith, speaking in close clipped accents, “that there is a fire in the apartment house.”

  “No, sir,” said the abashed valet, “it’s your job, sir. You were supposed to be on duty at eight o’clock, sir.”

  Lester Leith reached for a cigarette lit it. “And the time now, Scuttle?”

  “Nine-fifteen, sir.”

  Lester Leith groaned. “The middle of the night, Scuttle, the middle of the night!”

  The valet nodded.

  “But there’s a customer for your car, sir, and the bulldog won’t let anyone come near it. They can’t demonstrate it, they can’t even move it.”

  Lester Leith nodded casually. “Ah, yes, the dog. I must get up to give the doggie a walk, Scuttle.”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Booth Garner is on the phone, sir. He seems very much annoyed, sir. He says there is a young lady who actually desires to pay the price you have marked on the tag. He didn’t mention the amount, sir, but I gathered from his tone that it was very much more than the car was worth. He seems eager to make the deal.”

  Lester Leith yawned prodigiously. “Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Present my compliments to Mr. Booth Garner, and tell him to have the young lady return at two fifteen, at which time I will demonstrate the car. In the meantime no one is to be allowed to touch it.

  “And tell Mr. Garner that I am ill; that I won’t be able to work until this afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir. If Mr. Garner asks what is the matter with you, what shall I tell him?”

  “Tell him that an unexpected and unwelcome interruption has interfered with my sleeping; that I passed virtually a sleepless night. Tell him that the interruption was in the nature of an unwelcome telephone call at nine fourteen this morning, and that I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep. Tell him, also, Scuttle, that I requested him to go jump in the lake until two fifteen.”