Sergeant Ackley heaved a great sigh.
“It sounds reasonable,” he admitted, “and yet it’s so obvious, why didn’t we think of that? Go on.”
The clubman shrugged his shoulders.
“The rest was easy, sergeant, too easy. I secured some kunzite made into a necklace. That stone has almost as much fire as a diamond. Against white cotton it will fool anyone who is not an expert. By a process of suggestion I made everyone think it was a very valuable diamond necklace. Then I had my valet bring it to Garland.
“I knew he would be tempted. So I arranged to speed up the affair a bit. I had Louise Huntington come in with an empty gun and claim the necklace was stolen, that she had the police on the way. And I primed her with a story to tell, after Scuttle had taken the gun away from her, that would appeal to the ears of Garland alone.
“It was a story that sounded foolish unless its object had been to make the police enter the place to search the printery. Of course, Garland saw the scheme immediately. He thought I was onto him, and that the police were on the way. He had to get away rapidly and take what loot he could with him, so he decided he might as well take this well-matched diamond necklace too.
“I, of course, was waiting in the printery, watching and listening, and I was armed. I waited until Garland had come into the place, had rushed to his secret hiding place, had given unmistakable proof of his guilt, and then I tried to arrest him.
“I made him throw up his hands. And then, when I had taken his gun away from him, he surprised me. He had a second weapon on him, one that, it now appears, he had taken away from my valet.
“He surprised me with that weapon. We struggled. He overpowered me and made his escape with the kunzite necklace and the cream of the loot from the Demarest affair. But I have no doubt he had to leave a lot of his plunder. We might look, sergeant?”
The sergeant was on his feet. “Come on, men. Take Leith with us. See that he has no chance to escape. I’m not entirely satisfied yet.”
They entered the printery, found a light switch, flooded the shop with light, and, instantly, the correctness of Leith’s reasoning was disclosed.
There was a secret panel in the wall. Inside it was a motley collection. There were rolled curtains of some fabrikoid material which were arranged with snaps to be fastened onto the side of a car. They bore in big letters Proctor & Peabody. There were gems, quantities of gold settings, and some coin. There remained none of the better class of stones or any of the currency. It appeared as though someone had scooped out about as much as could conveniently be carried.
Sergeant Ackley surveyed the secret hiding place, checked through the plunder which remained.
“It’s the stolen stuff all right,” he admitted. “There’s around fifty thousand dollars of bulky stuff here. The man must have escaped with around two hundred thousand dollars, in round figures, if we count both the currency and the stones together.”
Leith nodded.
“Too bad he got away,” he said.
Sergeant Ackley looked at the clubman long and earnestly. He stroked the angle of his jaw with a spade-like thumbnail, and the gray stubble gave forth little rasping noises.
“If your plan had worked, you’d have had him cornered here in the printery,” he said.
Lester Leith nodded.
“And he’d have had about two hundred thousand dollars on him. And you two men would have been here alone.”
Leith shrugged his shoulders. “Until I could have summoned the police, of course.”
“Of course!” echoed Sergeant Ackley, and there was no attempt to disguise the sarcasm of his voice. “And we have been on your trail for a year as a hijacker. Now suppose you had made the arrest and then signified to Garland that he could escape if he left the loot behind. And then suppose you had ruffled yourself all up and claimed you’d been in a struggle, and told the same story you now tell. You’d be just two hundred thousand dollars to the good.”
Lester Leith smiled faintly. “You wouldn’t accuse me of a crime in the presence of witnesses unless you had some ground for the accusation.”
“Certainly,” agreed the officer, his voice still dripping sarcasm. “I wouldn’t think of it for a moment. I was only mentioning that if the circumstances had been different, and if you had told the same story you now tell, the circumstances would appear the same as we now have them.
“Under the circumstances, I think I’ll make a complete search of your person, Leith, and I’ll have my men go through this printery with a fine-tooth comb, looking for a concealed package somewhere.”
“Certainly,” said Leith, repeating the word and tone of the officer. “I would like you to do that so I would be relieved of any suspicion.”
They searched him, and they found nothing. They searched the printery and they found nothing, and then there came a wild exclamation from the undercover man.
“Good God! The fat girl! She took the Flyer!”
Ackley frowned at him.
“Spill it, quick!”
“And her suitcase was in the printery! If she’d set it down there, and then Garland had locked the door and gone to his hiding place, and Leith had hijacked the stolen gems from him, and simply put them in the fat girl’s suitcase, and the fat girl had gone to the train, she wouldn’t have ever suspected the contents of the suitcase until...”
Sergeant Ackley gave a bellow of inarticulate rage.
“Get to the telephone! The idea of letting anything like that go on under your nose!”
“I was handcuffed,” reminded Scuttle.
“Seems to me,” remarked Lester Leith, “that, for a valet, you show a most official and officious type of mind. I’m afraid you might instill a suspicion into the head of our dear but overzealous sergeant.”
“Suspicion, hell!” yelled Ackley. “It’s a certainty. Here, let me at that telephone.”
He grabbed the instrument and began to throw out a dragnet. The Flyer left at ten o’clock. He assigned men to cover the depot, the gatemen, the taxicabs, and soon the reports began to filter in.
The telephone announced that special officers, covering the train, had reported a very fat woman who had held a ticket to a drawing room. She was carrying a suitcase, and the suitcase was constantly in her hand. She had been escorted aboard the train with difficulty, the suitcase with her. She had almost jammed in the door of the drawing room. It had taken assistance to get her in.
Sergeant Ackley got into immediate action. He ordered the arrest of the woman at a suburban stop where the Flyer was scheduled to make its last stop for through passengers.
Lester Leith gazed at him reproachfully.
“If you arrest that woman you will be responsible for a grave injustice and subject yourself to a suit for false arrest,” he said.
“You admit you purchased the ticket on which she’s traveling?” asked Ackley, his eye on Scuttle.
Lester Leith clamped his lips shut.
“You have accused me of a crime. I could explain this whole affair in a few words. As it is, I shall say nothing until I have counsel present. But I want the witnesses to remember that I warned you against arresting this woman.”
Sergeant Ackley’s only comment was a sneer of triumph.
“You came so close to getting away with it, no wonder you’re sore. If I hadn’t thought of that fat woman, you’d have pulled one of the slickest jobs of all time.”
Ten minutes passed. The telephone shrilled its summons. A report came in from the suburban town. They had caught the train, arrested the woman, taken her from the drawing room. The suitcase she carried had been opened. It contained a green silk jacket and some shorts, rather a skimpy costume for a fat woman in a side show.