“Rather an unusual size of shot for a man to use in repelling a bandit, Scuttle!”
“Yes, sir, it is. But, as Mr. Mills explained to the police, one is less apt to miss with a charge of small shot. And he was most anxious, as he expressed it, to leave his marks on the bandit.”
Lester Leith waved his hand in a careless gesture.
“Quite right, Scuttle. Number Eight shot will make a most uniform pattern, and it’s deadly if the range is short. What happened next?”
“Well, sir, the back door of the candy store was open, because the proprietor was moving out some boxes and refuse. But the store hadn’t been opened for business, so the front door was locked.
“The proprietor of the candy store ran out and locked the back door. The bandit was trapped. It took a key to open the front door and the proprietor had taken that key with him when he ran out the back door.
“The police besieged the place with tear gas and machine guns. They killed the bandit, riddled him with bullets, sir.”
Lester Leith nodded. “Recovered the gems and closed the case, I take it, Scuttle?”
“No, sir. That’s the funny part of it. The bandit had fifteen or twenty minutes in the candy store, and he hid the stones so cleverly that the police haven’t been able to find them. They recovered the brief case, of course, and the penciled designs, and perhaps half a dozen loose stones. But there were literally dozens of the stones concealed so cleverly the police have been completely baffled.
“They identified the bandit. He was a man named Grigsby, known in the underworld as Griggy the Gat, and he had a long criminal record.”
Lester Leith blew another smoke ring, extended the forefinger of his right hand, and traced the perimeter of the swirling smoke.
“I see, Scuttle. Then Griggy the Gat must have concealed the gems somewhere between Mills’s shop and the candy store, or somewhere in the candy store, when he knew that capture was inevitable?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the police can’t find them, you say, Scuttle?”
“No, sir. They’ve looked everywhere. They’ve searched every inch of the candy store. They’ve even searched the car in which Griggy the Gat tried to make his escape from Mills’s place. They simply can’t find a single trace of the stones.”
Lester Leith’s eyes were bright now; and the valet watched him as a cat watches a mouse hole.
“Scuttle, you interest me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The candy shop was wholesale or retail, Scuttle?”
“Both, sir. It’s a small factory too — in the rear, sir.”
“And the rubies were worth a great deal of money, Scuttle?”
“Yes, sir. Of course, the newspaper account, valuing them at a million dollars, was exaggerated. But the rajah has offered a reward of twenty thousand dollars for their return.”
Leith lapsed into thought once more. Finally he flipped the cigarette into the fireplace and chuckled.
“You’ve thought of something, sir?”
Lester Leith regarded the valet coldly.
“One always is thinking of something, Scuttle.”
The valet’s face turned brick-red.
“Yes, sir. I had thought perhaps you had worked out a solution, sir.”
“Scuttle, are you crazy? How could I work out a solution of where the gems are?”
The valet shrugged. “You’ve done it before, sir.”
“Done what before, Scuttle?”
“Solved intricate crime problems just from reading what the newspapers had to say about them.”
Lester Leith laughed. “Tut, tut, Scuttle, you’re getting as bad as Sergeant Ackley! Many times I’ve thought out possible solutions, but no more. True, Sergeant Ackley has a theory I must be guilty of something just because I take an interest in crime clippings. He keeps hounding me with his infernal activities, suspecting me of this, suspecting me of that. And he tortures the facts to make them fit his theories. Do you know, Scuttle, an impartial observer hearing Ackley’s theories might come to the conclusion I was guilty of some crime or other?”
Lester Leith watched his valet with narrowed eyes.
The valet, mindful of his duties as a valet, yet recollecting also that he was an undercover man for the police, and anxious to trap Lester Leith into some damaging admission, nodded sagely.
“Yes, sir. I’ve thought so myself at times.”
“Thought what?”
“How convincing the sergeant’s theories are, sir. You’ve got to admit that there’s some mastermind who is doping out the solutions of baffling crimes in advance of the police. By the time the police solve the crime, this mastermind has scooped up the loot and gone. The police have only the empty satisfaction of solving the crime. They never recover the loot.”
Lester Leith yawned prodigiously.
“And so Sergeant Ackley has convinced you that I’m that mastermind?”
The valet spoke cautiously, aware that ho was treading on dangerous ground.
“I didn’t say so, sir. I merely mentioned that sometimes Sergeant Ackley’s theories sound convincing.”
Lester Leith lit another cigarette.
“Tut, tut, Scuttle. You should know better. If I were this mysterious criminal the sergeant talks so much about, it stands to reason I’d have been caught long ago. You must remember the sergeant has had shadows tail me everywhere I go. He’s continually popped into the apartment with his wild accusations and submitted me to search. But he’s never discovered a single shred of evidence. Surely, he’d have had some proof by this time if he were at all correct.”
The valet shrugged again.
“Perhaps, sir.”
“Perhaps, Scuttle! You don’t sound at all convinced by my line of reasoning.”
“Well, sir, you must remember that it’s the most difficult sort of a crime to prove — the robbing of robbers. Naturally, the one who is robbed doesn’t dare to complain, since to do so would brand him as a criminal.”
“Pshaw, Scuttle. Your reasoning is getting to be like that of the police. Besides, I think the sergeant is making a mistake.”
“How so, sir?”
“In concentrating so much on the hijacker that he lets the real criminals slip away. After all, this mysterious mastermind of the sergeant’s, no matter who he may be, is a public benefactor.”
“A benefactor, sir?”
“Certainly, Scuttle. If we concede the man exists outside the imagination of Sergeant Ackley, we must admit that he makes it his business to detect crimes in time to strip the criminal of his ill-gotten gains. That’s all society would do with the criminal if Sergeant Ackley apprehended him. The court would confiscate his loot, perhaps imprison him; but too often some slick lawyer would get him off.”
“Perhaps, sir.”
“No doubt about it, Scuttle!”
“No, sir, perhaps not. But you must admit that you have a mysterious trust fund which keeps growing, sir. True, that trust fund is administered for needy widows and orphans, but I understand the fund has grown so large that you have to employ a clerical staff to handle its disbursements.”
Lester Leith’s eye glittered.
“Indeed, Scuttle. And where did you get such detailed information about my private affairs?”
“Sergeant Ackley,” blurted the valet. “He insisted on stopping me on the street and telling me his suspicions. He thinks you are just the type of man who would enjoy doping out crime solution, levying tribute from the criminal, and then turning the money into a trust fund for the unfortunate.”
Lester Leith began to laugh.
“The dear sergeant! The overzealous, stupid, blundering incompetent! But we have digressed. We were talking about Mills, Griggy the Gat, and a million dollars’ worth of rare gems. Do you know, Scuttle, the crime does interest me. How thoroughly have the police searched?”