“Only then I searched them servants’ rooms, meanin’ to put on that act and then take Althea’s room down inch by inch — and, Chief, you could ’a’ knocked me down with a postage stamp when I opened that locket in the cook’s room and seen that picture o’ Altoona Red, the gem crook. Well, his moll is Laughin’ Kate Ryan and extra good herself, and while I never seen Kate I beat it down to the kitchen and let the fat dame gimme some finger-prints on my cigarette case.
“Then I started lookin’ at them little cakes. Chief, that doll is an artist, whatever she does! Every cake was absolutely smooth and perfect, except this one she had a little to the side, and that had a small finger-mark on the icing, and also there was a touch o’ lipstick on that cigarette butt — and she was wearin’ the same color lipstick!
“Well, when she started tellin’ me how she was sendin’ out some o’ these cakes by her brother, I started tryin’ things together and... well, you heard her when the bulls brought her up and made her sing. She’d been on this cookin’ job only three weeks and she was only there on account of her Altoona was after that stone. They had it fixed he was to come in and crack the box tonight, only when the rock disappeared that way she had to change her plans quick. She snuck up the back stairs whilst they were dinin’ and went over the study and found the rock in one o’ them bronze bowls over the fireplace — and did you see the face on Althea when she spilled that, after her gettin’ the idea Kester had been in and took it, and tryin’ to cover him on the cigarette butt! Well, it seemed Kate already stole about half o’ Althea’s cigarettes, so she doped out that little frame-up for Kester, in case they called in the cops or somebody like me. I always heard, Chief, that Laughin’ Kate is very, very slick.”
“You ain’t so bad yourself, Batey,” the Chief admitted. “Go on with the bedtime story.”
“Go on to where?” George yawned happily. “The bulls yanked me out before I could heft that one cake and, I gotta admit, I was on pins and needles till we got back and I dug it out o’ the box she had packed with food; and, Chief, compared to the others, it weighed a ton, so I seen I guessed right, like I always do. At that, we stuck a plainclothes guy outside the house, first off, so nothing could get took away, and when we finally come back by the basement door, very quiet, to make the pinch—”
“Well, in Heaven’s name, Batey,” the Chief demanded hotly, “why didn’t you grab this cake in the first place, get out the rock and give it to Atterford, instead of—”
“On account of I was followin’ Mr. Laverv’s instructions to the letter, like you said, and puttin’ on a good show!” Mr. Batey replied just as hotly. “And any more instructions this nut give me will also get followed to the letter, and what’s more—”
“There’ll be no more!” the Chief snapped. “Lavery muffed that Ewing job this afternoon and I canned him.”
“Oh, yeah?” George Batey said, brightening. “Then, supposin’ we have to have an assistant manager, give yourself a break and—”
“We don’t! Go on!”
“There’s nothin’ else,” Mr. Batey sighed, as he deflated, “except I gave Kester the once-over to make sure he ain’t one o’ these babies that uses lipstick. That was while they were checkin’ up the fingerprints down to headquarters and — hey! This is my corner!”
And so, George reflected as he entered the three-and-bath whistling all is well that don’t end otherwise, as the feller says, and in a couple of days the kid could be riding him home in her new crate. It seemed she was staring at the box he carried.
“Just a few cakes I picked up,” Mr. Batey beamed.
“Well, Georgie, don’t I make nice enough cakes for you?” Sugar asked and her eyes filled. “I baked a surprise cake for your birthday.”
“In that case,” Mr. Batey grinned, “chuck ’em in the garbage pail.”
“No! You spent money for them.”
So it seemed he now had the cue to gather the kid into his arms and get this one squared. George Batey chuckled — and then ceased his chuckling, on aсcount of it looked like something funny was going on here. What he meant, the kid was about to have a fit! She had picked a small piece of wrapping-paper off the cakes and was reading something on it, and she had turned bright red.
“Who is Pinky?” she demanded. “Is there somebody that calls you Pinky?”
She was now not more than six inches from him and about to burst into flame.
“ ‘To Pinky from Anna, in case he gets back,’ ” she hissed, reading from the paper. “So who is Anna?”