The nurse regarded it with color mounting her cheeks. “I can’t accept that!”

  Lester Leith shrugged his shoulders. “Call my valet. Let’s get packed up.”

  The girl still regarded the check.

  "I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but—”

  Lester Leith grinned at her.

  “Don’t be finicky. You’re going out of here with me. After that I’ll probably never see you again and you’ll never see me. There are no strings on that check. You saved my life and you went dangerously close to being blacklisted for insubordination. That’s compensation. It’s a business valuation on my part of the value of what you saved me.”

  And he suddenly became frosty in his cold reserve, treating the girl merely as an employee.

  She smiled at him, her eyes misty.

  “And you’re being so damned impersonal just so I’ll accept the money!” she said.

  Her hand sought his, gave it a squeeze. Her eyes were starry. But Lester Leith still retained his air of impersonal formality.

  “My valet, please.”

  She sighed, looked as though she intended to kiss him, then folded the check and walked to the telephone.

  Thirty minutes later Lester Leith left the hospital. Within an hour he was driving the police shadows frantic by rushing his car from the scene of the holdup to the depot, checking bags, mailing himself the checks, then rushing to the house on Milpas Street. Occasionally he would stop at a checking stand to leave a bag, stopping later to pick it up. The shadows came to regard the entire matter as one of routine. They tagged along, spiritless, making notes of the time.

  Traffic was heavy, and Lester Leith was unable to make the trip within forty-five minutes of the time Blinky Bings must have made it in, provided he had clone as the police claimed.

  Sergeant Ackley, getting reports from his men, compared the growing list of time schedules and frowned.

  Then, abruptly, Lester Leith ceased making his trips and resumed the even tenor of his ways.

  CHAPTER XII

  Scuttle Will Be Damned

  It was ten days later. The newspapers had featured the mysterious killing of Samuel Milne. Undoubtedly the attorney had been “taken for a ride.” He had been discharged from the hospital, gone to the country to recuperate. He had tried to make the trip in secrecy.

  But the bullet-riddled body of the attorney had been found by the side of the road. There were no clews to the killers.

  Sergeant Ackley scanned the reports with puzzled brows, started checking certain records. He chewed cigar after cigar, ran his fingers through his coarse hair, scraped his thumb nail along the angle of his jaw.

  Suddenly an idea struck him.

  He gave vent to an exclamation, a curse, sat himself down in his office chair after the manner of a man who had received a sudden and violent blow in the solar plexus.

  “Great guns!” he yelled, and started on a clumsy run for the door.

  He broke all speed limits getting to the apartment of Lester Leith. Nor did he stand on ceremony as he banged his fists upon the door. As soon as Beaver opened it, Ackley burst into the room.

  Lester Leith, attired in silken dressing gown and pyjamas, was smoking lazily, indolently.

  “Ah, good morning, sergeant. Or is it afternoon?”

  Sergeant Ackley wasted no time in greetings. He stood in the middle of the floor,’ his feet apart, his eyes glittering.

  “I should have seen it all from the start!” he yelled.

  “Seen what, sergeant ?”

  “What you did, you damned hijacker! You figured out that Blinky Bings couldn’t have done the holdup, then gone to the depot and checked the bag, got the car out to Milpas Street, and been there when the police arrived.

  “Therefore something had to be wrong. Either the time element, or where he had been. But the time of the shots was fixed, and the time of his death was fixed. There was only one other solution. Those shots were not the shots that accompanied the taking of the bag. That meant the bag had already been lifted and they didn’t dare to report it as having been stolen—not from the place it was taken.

  “That bag didn’t contain fifty-grand in cold cash. It contained fifty grand in hot cash, and it was red hot, pay-off money to some higher up.

  “But Blinky Bings knew Sam Milne. Milne had defended Bings. It’s in the court records. I just got ‘em today. And it looks as though Sam Milne planted the whole car business. A crook wouldn’t have taken such a distinctive car to pull a robbery.

  “And there was a parcel-checking station in the lower floor of the office building where Milne has his office. And you went there twice, got a bag and took it to the depot.

  “Here’s what happened. Milne had the hot cash. He wanted to cop it without being taken for a ride. So he checked the bag in the checking station, picked up another bag he’d planted there before. And he’d staged things so Blinky would hold him up, take that bag and beat it. And he’d planned to double cross Blinky, leaving a plain trail to Bings, knowing Bings would cash in his chips trying to smoke his way out.

  “Bings went to the depot with the bag all right, but it was a bag that had been taken before the shooting at Bradley and Washington Boulevard. And the bag was a frame up. It was filled with junk, maybe a layer of money on top, probably not.

  “After Blinky took it, Sam Milne didn’t care whether he found out the double cross or not. Milne had it fixed so the law would take care of Blinky. Blinky was just the goat.

  “You figured it all out. You managed to get taken to the hospital where Milne was holed up. Somehow or other you lifted the claim check for the bag Sam Milne had checked, and you took it to the depot and checked it, right under our noses. But you’d been doing the same thing so long that we got tired of trying to check up on those bags. We figured you were just experimenting with the time element.

  “Damn it, I’m going to pinch you for this. I can show there was nothing the matter with you when you went to the hospital — “

  Lester Leith held up a well-manicured hand.

  “On the contrary, my dear sergeant, a most reputable surgeon diagnosed my case as appendicitis. He rushed me to the hospital. He was the one who insisted that I go there without a second’s delay. No, no, my dear sergeant, you’re barking up a wrong tree again.

  “But your deductions are most interesting. Of course, you’ve hardly followed them to their logical conclusion. If the fifty grand was hot cash for a pay-off, as you term it, then Dumoe must have been mixed in it, and—”

  The telephone bell had been ringing frantically. Beaver, the spy, reluctantly answered, came into the room waving his hands.

  “For you, sergeant. The chief calling. He wants you on the wire right away.”

  Sergeant Ackley grunted, stepped into the soundproof closet. Five minutes later he returned. His eyes were sullen, his forehead beaded with perspiration.

  “Well,” he grunted, “you’re in luck. The chief says to lay off that Milne case. As far as the department is concerned the case is closed —and he didn’t mean maybe, either!”

  Lester Leith laughed.

  “Perhaps it was hot cash, after all, sergeant. Wouldn’t it be discouraging if you had really worked out a perfect solution, only to have the higher-ups call you off?”

  Sergeant Ackley fairly danced in an agony of exasperation. “Shut up!” he bellowed.

  Lester Leith smiled, aggravatingly. “Tut, tut, sergeant—your blood pressure, you know! But you interest me. Tell me more of your theory.”

  Sergeant Ackley clenched his fists, took a deep breath, regained control of himself.

  “You’ve got some sort of a rabbit’s foot,” he said, slowly, impressively. “You manage to pull off crimes right under a police guard, yet never leave any proof. But one of these days I’m going to get you!”

  Lester Leith blew a couple of smoke rings, watched one go through the other. He smiled.

  “Tut, tut, sergeant. You can never convict me when I can prove that police shadows have been on my trail all the time. A jury wouldn’t believe your wild theories. I wish you’d put on a couple of additional men. They give me such perfect alibis. If you find your allotment of funds short I’d even pay for them myself. I just made rather a handsome clean-up in a—er—business matter.”

  Sergeant Ackley started to say something, choked on the words, whirled on his heel, banged the door.

  Lester Leith beamed upon the spy, who was staring with wide eyes and open mouth.

  “Most irascible, Scuttle. Can you imagine such a wild theory?” Lester Leith let his eyes cloud in thought. “And yet, Scuttle, if that holdup had been of hot cash, if Sam Milne had planned to make a goat of Blinky Bings, if Milne had ditched the bag of currency… well, there’s just a chance, Scuttle, and, mind you, I say just a bare chance that someone who had been shrewd enough to think out the proper solution could have done what Sergeant Ackley suggests.”

  And Lester Leith blew another smoke ring, traced its perimeter with a well manicured forefinger.

  A reminiscent smile played about the corners of his sensitive mouth.

  The spy still stared, open mouthed, incredulous, dazed.

  His shoe button eyes glinted with unwilling admiration. “I,” he said, dropping his manner of synthetic servility, “will be damned!”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised, Scuttle,” he agreed.

  The valet-spy continued to talk, after the manner of a man who is thinking aloud.

  “You insisted on a nurse who was born on the 17th of July so you could disrupt the hospital routine with a birthday party. You had me get those diamonds and the cash so you’d have so much of value in the safe the girl in charge would never think of you as a crook. You consulted the astrologer just so you would have a chance to get sick and go to the hospital in an ambulance—”

  “Scuttle!” Lester Leith roared.

  The valet gulped, dropped back into character. “Yes, sir.”

  “Scuttle, do you believe all that, or were you merely thinking as Sergeant Ackley was thinking?”

  The valet squirmed. “Beg your pardon, sir. I was just saying some of the things that Sergeant Ackley must have been thinking about.” Lester Leith smiled.

  “Of course, Scuttle, you wouldn’t believe such things?”

  “Oh, no, sir.”

  Lester Leith’s smile broadened. “And I think you’re quite right, Scuttle.” The valet’s face flushed eagerly.

  “About the crime, sir?”

  “No, Scuttle. About the fact that you will be damned.”

  And Lester Leith’s smile became a chuckle as he watched the discomfited spy try to preserve his veneer of deferential servility.

  A Tip from Scuttle

  Lester Leith let himself into his bachelor apartment, handed hat, coat, and gloves to his valet, and sank into the deep chair by the fire. “Coffee, sir?”

  “Yes, Scuttle. Rather strong. Ho—ho—hum!”

  Leith stretched his arms high above his head. His valet watched him with a hard intensity, eyes like gleaming coals above the sweep of dark mustache. Leith had nicknamed him “Scuttle” because of his resemblance to a pirate’s picture. Now, with the firelight catching the hard lines of the valet’s face, the nickname seemed peculiarly apropos.

  “Fat women should never give formal dinners,” remarked Lester Leith.

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Scuttle.

  Leith half turned his slim body, surveyed the valet with twinkling eyes.

  “You know, Scuttle, there’s something flattering about you. It’s very reassuring to see a man of such ferocious appearance so ready to acquiesce in any statement I make.”

  “Yes, sir.’

  “And you know, Scuttle, Mrs. Ponsonby is fat. In the privacy of my apartment I can call it that. To her friends I said she was looking ‘well.’ Perhaps I might have said she was ‘pleasingly plump.‘ But to you, Scuttle, I’ll confide, she was fat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the dinner was a dreadful bore. She has a daughter who sings. Now, Scuttle, a parent can never judge a daughter’s voice, particularly a fat parent. Do you think so, Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir—er—that is, no, sir.”

  “No, indeed, Scuttle. And fat women, who get past forty and try to act kittenish, are rather cumbersome. How’s the coffee, Scuttle?”

  “Coming, sir.”

  “Ah—It’s good to be in one’s own home where one may yawn and stretch, and not bother to place conventional ringers over one’s lips, Scuttle, why should convention decree that the hand be placed over a yawning mouth? It doesn’t conceal the yawn. And, now that everyone has his tonsils removed, there’d seem to be no good reason—But we digress, Scuttle. My mind is merely running off at random. Come, this will never do. I’m losing interest in life, I’m afraid. I must put in more time considering subjects that interest me. Crime, for instance. Have you clipped me the crime news of the day. Scuttle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good! I see the coffee’s ready. Pour me a cup and sit down here, Scuttle. Read me the crime news. Better yet, tell me the most interesting bit of criminal activity.”

  There was the clink of cup on saucer, the dropping of sugar, the rasp of a spoon, the rustling of paper, and then Scuttle’s voice came in a monotone.

  “The Fancher murder, sir. The woman was found nude, two shots in her head, sir. Fancher was last seen with her—”

  Lester Leith’s drawling voice interrupted. “Anything taken, Scuttle? Any loot?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Dear me, Scuttle. I’m afraid your crime tastes need to be cultivated. You’re getting a tabloid mind, Scuttle. Mere nudity and violence cannot make an artistic crime. Skip the Fancher murder, Scuttle. What else have you?”

  Scuttle’s thumb and finger turned the clippings, selected from various papers. “The Follingsby diamonds, sir.”

  Lester Leith paused, the coffee cup half raised to his lips. His eyes suddenly snapped into hard attention. “Not the necklace that the newspapers made such a fuss about a year ago?”

  “Yes, sir. It was stolen, sir.”

  Lester Leith abandoned himself to the luxury of soft mirth. “How proud of it they were! It was a typical gesture of the newly rich! Reporters were called in to see Follingsby present it to his wife. They had pictures of the check that paid for the stones, and a lot of blah about the multi-millionaire owners.

  “Bah. Follingsby made his money profiteering on war contracts. He should have gone to jail. I’m glad they’ve lost the necklace. Any clews, Scuttle?”

  “No clews, sir. That is, sir, they have the criminal. But they haven’t found the stones as yet.”

  The mirth slipped from Leith’s face as hot sirup glides from a mount of ice cream.

  “Ah-h-h-h! Give me a summary of the facts, Scuttle.”

  “Mr. Follingsby was away, sir. Mrs. Follingsby had been wearing the diamonds, and she was nervous, sir. She had her social secretary occupy Mr. Follingsby’s room for the night. The two rooms adjoined, with a connecting bath. Both the doors and windows were locked from the inside.

  “Mrs. Follingsby left the diamonds on the top of her dressing table while she disrobed. The secretary was in and out of the room. Then Mrs. Follingsby started to put the gems in the safe, noticed that they seemed to have lost their fire, and made a more careful inspection. That inspection showed that a paste imitation had been substituted for the original string.

  “She noticed also that the secretary’s purse was lying on her dressing table, near where the diamonds lay. The assumption is that the secretary had been awaiting her chance, had been carrying the paste imitation, watching for an opportunity to substitute it.

  “But she became alarmed, took the paste imitation from her handbag, grabbed the gems, rushed away and forgot her handbag. Of course, if Mrs. Follingsby hadn’t stopped to make a careful examination it might have been days before the theft was discovered. That seems to be about all of the facts, sir.”

  “Humph!” commented Leith, his eyes as hard as twin flints, the untouched coffee still held in his hand. “And Mrs. Follingsby summoned the police, had the secretary arrested?”

  “Yes, sir. The girl, Miss Dixie Stagud, a young Norwegian, was arrested. The police found a single diamond in the pocket of her fur coat. It was a diamond clipped from the necklace. It is the only one of the missing gems found, sir.”

  Lester Leith shook his head sadly.

  “It’s a trait of the newly rich to make rash accusations against servants. Let me see, what time is it? I broke away from that dreadful dinner early. Ah, ten-fifteen. Rather late for a call, but nevertheless, Scuttle, I wish you’d telephone Mr. Follingsby, give him my compliments, and tell him that I would like to see him in about an hour upon a matter of the gravest importance. Tell him that it concerns his diamond necklace. And now, my coat, hat, and gloves, Scuttle.”

  Lester Leith set down his untouched coffee, slipped to his feet with a motion of lithe grace, and became instantly transformed. The ennui of the social butterfly dropped from him. His motions were swiftly efficient. Within a matter of seconds he had emerged from the apartment.

  Scuttle, in turn, became active. He first placed a call to Mr. Follingsby as requested. When that had been done he called an unlisted number and obtained a wire direct to police headquarters, a wire that was only used by half a dozen detectives on matters of the greatest importance.

  “He’s gone out again,” breathed Scuttle. “It’s the Follingsby diamonds this time. I’ve made an appointment for an hour later at Follingsby’s residence. I haven’t the faintest inkling of what he has in mind.

  The voice that replied was carried from the receiver to every corner of the still room. It was a gruff voice, and its accents were impatient.

  “All right, let’s not slip on this. We know Leith has been hijacking stolen jewels. We can’t get the proof—yet. Most of the time he slips out when we don’t know when or where he goes. Tonight we’ve got him nailed at both ends. You stick on the job at your end. I’ll take care of the other. We can’t afford to pull any boners on those Follingsby diamonds. Report in again in an hour and a half. I’ll keep you posted. You’ve let him slip through your fingers half a dozen times before. Let’s get the proof this time.