“Because it’s a lot of hooey, sir. If you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”

  Lester Leith’s smile faded. He frowned.

  “But I do mind your saying so, Scuttle. Astrology is believed in by a large number of people, Scuttle. No belief which is shared in by so great a number can possibly be what you describe as a lot of hooey. Even if it is nothing else, it is a reflection of the inner thoughts of a great number of people. In other words, Scuttle, it would become an index of human credulity.”

  The spy sighed, a ponderous heave of the awkward shoulders.

  “Very good, sir. I can’t follow you, sir, so I shan’t try. You wished the exact hour of Blinky Bings’s death, sir?”

  “Yes, Scuttle. The exact hour and minute. The very second, if possible. And, by the way, Scuttle, I wish you would get me a list of the astrologers in the city. I want only the best. Those who cast a horoscope and tell the past, present, and future for a small stipend do not interest me. I want someone who charges large sums.

  “You can get me that list within the next hour, also find out what time the robber cashed in his checks. I’m going out for a while. Get me my clothes, Scuttle. I must leave here by five minutes past eight at the latest.”

  The valet’s brows knitted. “I didn’t know you had an appointment to-night, sir.”

  He waited, hoping that information as to the nature of the appointment would be forthcoming.

  Lester Leith smiled blandly.

  “I have an appointment, Scuttle, to follow in the footsteps of a dead man.”

  The valet’s surprise showed itself in a single explosive: “Huh!”

  Lester Leith arose, flexed his muscles, smiled tantalizingly.

  “I see that you understand, Scuttle. Now my evening clothes, my hat, coat and stick.”

  And the valet, recognizing that Lester Leith was not going to give out any further information, realizing also that he was in most deadly earnest about going out to follow in the footsteps of a dead man fetched the hat and coat and stick.

  By eight five on the dot Lester Leith, faultlessly attired in evening clothes, swinging a stick in careless hand, waved good-by to his valet.

  “Ta-ta, Scuttle. I’ll be back within an hour or so, and you can have the information I wanted at that time.”

  Lester Leith slammed the door.

  The spy glided to the window, raised and lowered the shade twice, a signal to those who waited outside, ready to shadow Lester Leith wherever he might go.

  CHAPTER V

  Eight Fifty-Six

  Nor did the police shadows go to any great trouble to conceal their presence. Lester Leith emerged from his garage in his powerful roadster. The shadows started and the police car fell in behind.

  Meanwhile, Scuttle, the spy, went to the telephone and reported to Sergeant Ackley. “He’s got something up his sleeve on this Milne robbery, sergeant.”

  There was a grunt at the other end of the wire.

  “If he has, he’s got more than anybody else has. We can’t trace that bag from the time it hit the depot. We can’t even find out where the bills came from, or what kind of bills they were. They may have been in thousands, or hundreds or ten thousands.”

  The undercover man muttered an assent.

  “And he wants to get a list of astrologers and find out exactly what time Blinky cashed in,” he said.

  “He what?” yelled Sergeant Ackley.

  “Yes, sir. He’s dabbling around with something or other, sir. You know how he is. He’s got the astrology bug now, and he wants to get the exact time Blinky passed out.”

  Sergeant Ackley sighed.

  “All right. I’ll get a list of astrologers, and I’ll look up the reports and find out just when Blinky went west—that is, if it’s noted. It probably ain’t. G’-bye.”

  He hung up the telephone. The spy walked over to a humidor, helped himself to a fifty-cent perfecto, sprawled out in Lester Leith’s favorite chair, and gave himself up to meditation.

  He was interrupted by the frantic ringing of the telephone. Arousing himself from his half sleep, the spy shook the ashes from the perfecto, now down to its last inch, and lazily removed the receiver.

  “Yeah,” he said, “h’lo.”

  Sergeant Ackley’s voice smote his ear with explosive force.

  “Lis’n. Beaver, you’re on a hot trail. Leith’s working on this Milne case a’right and he’s getting somewhere. I’ve just had a report from the men that shadowed him. He drove out to the corner of Bradley and Washington, stopped his car and waited. He looked at his watch once or twice, seemed to be waiting for just the right time, so the shadows noted the exact time.

  “Promptly at eight thirty-two, he jumped in his car and started smashing speed records. He went up Washington Boulevard fifty miles an hour. He drove like a crazy guy, went to the Union Depot, jumped out, took a bag from the back end of his roadster, rushed to the ticket window, bought a ticket for Centerville and checked the bag. Then he put the bag check in an envelope, dropped the envelope in the mail box, sprinted for his car, and burned up the roads to the place where Blinky Bings got his—6478 Milpas Street.

  “Just as soon as he reached there he seemed like a changed man.. He quit speedin’, stopped his car, lit a cigarette, and drove away, just as though he had nothing to do an’ all night to do it in.

  “Of course we telephoned the baggage man and had the bag held. Then we had the depot police go through it. It didn’t have a damned thing in it except some old newspapers and a couple of magazines.

  “Now I’ve gone into the time that Blinky Bings was killed. He got bumped sometime around ten minutes to nine, maybe a little sooner than that. You can figure right around five or ten minutes to nine. If he wants an exact time tell him eight fifty-six. Sergeant Crothers figures he got out there about ten minutes to nine. It took him a few minutes to look the ground over. Then he and Blinky smoked it out, and Crothers telephoned in for the ambulance at five minutes after nine.

  “I’m sending one of the boys around with a list of the astrologers. Don’t pay much attention to that stuff. Looks like a blind. But he may have something up his sleeve. Don’t overlook nothin’, an’ try and get him to tell you what he was rushing around for. G’-by.”

  And Ackley, having given his instructions, terminated the conversation with that calm superiority which was so irritating to his men.

  Beaver, the undercover man, called “Scuttle” by Lester Leith because of a fancied resemblance to a reincarnated pirate, took a knife from his pocket, impaled the tip of the cigar, and smacked his lips over the aroma. By using the knife blade he was able to smoke the weed to the very last, long after the burning tip would have made any other form of handling impossible,

  A knock at the door, in the code used by the police, announced the arrival of a list of the astrologers doing business in the city. The undercover man took that list, folded it in his pocket, contemplated the humidor longingly while he debated whether or not he could count upon sufficient time to smoke another cigar.

  Lester Leith solved his indecision by fitting his key to the outer door of the bachelor apartment. The valet had assumed a deferential attitude by the time Leith had swung open the door.

  Lester Leith was chuckling as he handed the spy his hat and coat. He dropped into the easy chair, took a cigarette from a pocket case, struck a match.

  The spy watched him warily.

  Leith lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, extinguished the match, and grinned at his valet.

  “You’ve got the information I wanted, Scuttle?’’

  “Yes, sir.”

  “At exactly what time did Blinky Bings die?”

  “I don’t know, sir. The police arrived at the house where he was hiding at about ten minutes to nine. They took a few minutes to look over the ground. Then they arrested Bings. He fought it out with them. Crothers telephoned for the dead wagon at five minutes past nine. The best guess any one can make as to the exact time of death is eight fifty-six.”

  Lester Leith frowned, regarded the curling smoke from the cigarette with slitted eyes.

  “Eight fifty-six,” he repeated, half musingly.

  For a long moment he remained in that attitude of thoughtful concentration. Then he turned to the valet. “You have the list of astrologers, Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The valet handed over a typewritten list. Leith scrutinized it with speculative eyes.

  “Tut, tut, Scuttle,” he remarked.

  “Sir?” asked the valet-spy, hurt in his tone.

  “I was rebuking you for mentioning that astrology was a lot of hooey, Scuttle. Yet you will notice the number of people who have made it a life work.”

  The spy grunted.

  “The number of grafters who live from it, you mean, sir.”

  Lester Leith smiled urbanely. “Even so, Scuttle, it would not be hooey. Any profession that can support such a number of people is worthy of profound investigation…Ah, Scuttle, notice this name. Mme. Zazzah! What could be better? Zazzah! The very sound of the name has a subtle fascination. Can’t you see a dimly lit room, smelling of incense, a lighted crystal, a chart of the various zodiacal signs, a woman with mystic brown eyes?”

  “No, sir!” grunted the valet, speaking from his police experience. “I can’t see nothing of the sort. I can see a dirty room packed with cheap furniture, a lot of imitation foreign tapestries, a blob of glass, a kitchenette in the back, an atmosphere that reeks of garlic, booze, and incense, and a fat woman with three chins. She’ll have rough hands and dirty finger nails. She’ll have eyes like a hawk. She’ll—”

  Lester Leith held up his hand. “Enough, Scuttle! You are ruining my dreams with your damned practicality. Have you no sense of the romantic? Have you no desire to be lifted above the mundane humdrum of everyday life? A plague on you, Scuttle, I shall go and see Mme. Zazzah at once. I shall consult with her professionally.

  “And, do you know, Scuttle, I rather fancy I shall ask the ma-dame if she can solve crimes by the use of astrology. After all, Scuttle, if an astrologer could know the exact horoscope of a criminal she should be able to tell much.”

  The spy blinked his shoe button eyes in sudden thought. “Such as?” he prompted.

  Lester Leith smiled.

  “Well, let us suppose a certain criminal managed to rob a man of fifty thousand dollars in cash and, in a burst of generosity, sent the cash to a girl friend? Don’t you suppose that a good astrologer could tell the sort of a girlfriend he would have? Don’t you suppose she could consult the planets and tell just when this girl friend was born? Don’t you suppose—”

  The spy interrupted.

  “No,” he snapped, forgetting his role of servility for the moment, “I don’t suppose nothing of the sort.”

  Leith’s smile was patronizing, maddening.

  “Quite right, Scuttle,” he said. “I didn’t think you could. My hat, Scuttle. My coat, Scuttle. My stick, Scuttle.”

  The valet regarded him with that impotent fury which always possessed him when Lester Leith adopted that tone of superiority.

  Lester Leith turned at the door.

  “Good night, Scuttle.”

  The spy gulped. His great hands were clenched into fists.

  “Good night,” he snapped, then added after an interval, “sir.” Lester Leith gently closed the door.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Time of the Crime

  Sergeant Arthur Ackley, seated at a battered desk charred in deep grooves by many a careless cigarette, scrutinized the report of the police shadows who had been delegated to tail Lester Leith.

  So complete were those reports that Sergeant Ackley could account for the whereabouts of the man he suspected of being the master crook of the century at any given moment.

  For instance, the sergeant knew that Leith was at this very moment at the office of Mme. Zazzah. He knew that he had previously made a quick run from the scene of the Milne holdup to the house where the robber had been killed.

  The reports in the hands of the officer had been rushed to him following a telephoned report from the shadows. They faithfully chronicled every move Leith had made.

  Sergeant Ackley studied those reports, his feet on a comer of the desk, a soggy cigar in his thick lips, his left thumbnail scraping the bristling stubble along the angle of his jaw.

  One moment he was a hulking figure going through the routine. The next instant his feet left the desk and came to the floor with a bang. The cigar sagged from his parted lips.

  His forefinger jabbed a button. An officer thrust his head in the door.

  “Get Beaver,” snapped Sergeant Ackley.

  The officer took one look at the expression on Sergeant Ackley’s countenance and flashed into swift motion.

  Sergeant Ackley paced the floor, his hands behind his back. From time to time he muttered to himself, low rumbling grunts. He flung away his soggy cigar, groped for another in his vest pocket, tore the end off with his huge horse-like teeth, spat explosively, scraped a match.

  Beaver, the undercover man who acted as valet to Lester Leith, arrived within twenty minutes, but Sergeant Ackley glared accusingly at him.

  “Say,” he bawled, “when I send for you it’s important!” The undercover man nodded. He was breathless.

  “I came here as quick as I could—”

  “All right, all right, never mind!” yelled the sergeant. “You’re a damned fool. No, no, don’t get mad. I’m a damned fool. We’re all fools, all except that supercilious, snooty Lester Leith!”

  The undercover man widened his boiled lobster eyes until they looked like shoe buttons protruding from the sockets.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “The time, you fool!” Beaver looked at his watch.

  “No, no,” groaned the sergeant, “not the time it is now, but the time of the crime!”

  Beaver’s forehead washboarded with perplexity. “I don’t see—

  “The time, the time, the time! Blinky Bings couldn’t have done it. Leith didn’t do it. He missed it by fifteen minutes. Bings couldn’t have done it. That was what Leith was testing—the time. He spotted it from the newspaper accounts. No one could have done it—”

  Beaver’s jaw sagged.

  “For Heaven’s sake, sir, are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

  Sergeant Ackley heaved a deep sigh, sat himself in the swivel chair, glared at the undercover man.

  “Just this,” he said, slowly, speaking with an evident effort to control himself. “The holdup of Milne took place at exactly 8.32 p.m. The officers cornered Bings by ten minutes to nine. Now Bings couldn’t have driven to the depot, checked a bag, and got back to the house on Milpas Street by ten minutes to nine. He couldn’t possibly have done it. That’s what Leith was testing out. He wanted to make the run at a time when the traffic conditions were exactly the same as when Bings was supposed to have made the trip. So he waited until exactly eight thirty-two, and then he burned up the roads. And still he couldn’t make the run within the time limit. The reports of the shadows show that Leith arrived at Milpas Street around two minutes after nine o’clock.”

  Sergeant Ackley glared at his undercover man as though that individual was responsible.

  Beaver sat down, said, “Huh!” and lapsed into thought. “Then Bings didn’t go to the depot,” he said at length.

  Sergeant Ackley grunted. “The car was seen there.”

  “Then he wasn’t at the holdup.”

  “Milne described the car.”

  “And he must have been at the house on Milpas Street.”

  “Sure,” agreed Sergeant Ackley with heavy sarcasm, “he was there, all right. He got killed there.”

  Beaver blinked.

  Sergeant Ackley took the cigar from his mouth, made jabbing motions with it to emphasize his words.

  “This thing ain’t on the up and up, see? This here bag of money ain’t where they said it was. Maybe Bings had two cars that looked just alike. Maybe he went to the depot before he pulled the crime. The red cap porter ain’t so sure of the time.

  “Anyhow, there’s something fishy about it and that damned Lester Leith is going to whisk the cash right out from under our noses unless we look alive. Now this is important, Beaver, you go back and report every single move that dude makes. You tell me everything he does, remember everything he says.

  “In the meantime, I’m going to have so damned many shadows trailing that man that he won’t be able to move without a shadow dogging every step. You get me?”

  Beaver nodded. “Yes, sir.” Ackley frowned.

  “You wouldn’t think a crook could solve a crime under our noses, hi-jack the swag, and leave us without any evidence to warrant an arrest, much less a conviction, not when we had him shadowed every minute, would you?”

  The question was asked impersonally, more after the manner of one who thinks aloud, but Beaver answered it.

  “He does it all the time,” he said.

  Sergeant Ackley glared at his subordinate.

  “Well, he won’t do it this time. Get the hell outa here and get to work.”

  And Beaver heaved his big bulk to catlike feet and oozed through the door.

  CHAPTER VII

  Within the Sign of Cancer

  It was nearing midnight when Lester Leith slipped his key into the front door of his bachelor apartment. The spy was waiting for him as a cat might wait for a mouse.

  “You saw her, sir?” he asked.

  “Saw whom?” asked Lester Leith.

  “The astrologer, sir.”

  Lester Leith divested himself of his coat and hat, dropped into his favorite chair, lit a cigarette. “Yes, Scuttle, I saw her, the great Mme. Zazzah, herself.”

  “Was she fat?” asked the spy.

  Lester Leith’s nod was gloomy. “Yes, Scuttle, she was fat.”

  “And did the room stink of garlic and incense, sir?”

  “Yes, Scuttle, the room stunk of garlic and incense.”

  The spy fairly beamed. “I told you so, sir.”

  “Yes, Scuttle, you told me so.” Lester Leith’s face was a mask of utter gloom.