She shook her head.
“That was just the story I was to tell.”
Scuttle washboarded his forehead.
“This is all too deep for me. But I’ll get him right now.”
He awkwardly worked the telephone, and got Sergeant Ackley on the wire. While he was talking with the sergeant, Sadie Crane waddled out of the room, her face streaming perspiration with the effort for speed.
Her heavy steps sounded on the short flight of stairs outside the door. Then there was the grinding of gears and her cab rolled away.
It was at that moment Scuttle finished his conversation and dropped the receiver back on the hook.
“There’s more to this than appears on the surface,” he said, fastening his coal-black eyes on Leith. “Ackley says he had you tailed and you slipped the shadow.”
Leith nodded ruefully. He took a cigarette from the torn pocket of his dinner jacket and put it to his lips.
“Admitted, Scuttle. This is one time I made the mistake of actually trying to solve a crime riddle instead of taking only an academic interest in it. Is Sergeant Ackley coming?”
“Right now,” snapped the undercover man.
“I’ll tell him all about it when he gets here,” said Lester Leith. “I’m all out of breath now.”
It was but a matter of minutes before the wailing siren of the police car outside was followed by rapid steps, and Sergeant Ackley at the head of a determined knot of blue-coated men, thrust his way into the room.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
Beaver, the undercover agent, winked warningly at his superior.
“Take off these handcuffs and I’ll tell my story first,” he said.
Sergeant Ackley fitted a key to the cuffs, clicked them open.
“Shoot,” he said.
Beaver, still keeping in the character of Scuttle, the valet, told his story; told it from the standpoint of a puzzled servant who didn’t know what it was all about, but wanted the police to know the facts.
When he had finished, Sergeant Ackley turned to the social secretary.
“Now you.”
The girl hesitated.
“Tell the truth, Louise,” said Lester Leith.
“All of it?” she asked.
“All of it,” said Lester Leith.
“Well, it started after I got my employment at Mr. Leith’s place. Things just didn’t seem right, and I was going to quit. Then Mr. Leith told me I was under suspicion in connection with the Demarest affair — which I knew already, of course. And he thought he knew who was really guilty.
“He told me if I would do just as he instructed he felt confident he could trap the criminal into exposing his guilt. Naturally, I agreed to remain on and follow his orders.
“Then, tonight, Mr. Leith told me to take an empty gun, go here and try to hold up Scuttle, telling him the necklace was stolen. He said Scuttle would take the gun away from me, and that I was to be sure and tell him I had notified you to come here and that the circumstances of your coming were such that you’d search the place.
“If Scuttle didn’t take the gun away from me, I was to take the diamond necklace, run into the printery, and toss the stones out of the window.”
Sergeant Ackley frowned.
Scuttle interposed a comment.
“Lester Leith, of course,” he said significantly, “being concealed in the printery all the time. When it reached that stage he’d have interfered.”
“I didn’t know anything about that,” said the girl.
Sergeant Ackley nodded his approval.
“Good point, Scuttle. I was just about to make it myself when you interrupted.”
The sergeant turned to Lester Leith.
“And now we’ll hear your story. It looks very much as though you’d finally stubbed your toe, my supercilious friend.”
Leith raised a hand in a gesture of deprecation.
“Tut, tut, my dear sergeant, you must learn not to jump at conclusions. Wait until you hear my story. The law requires that a man shall have a hearing before being judged guilty, you know.”
“You’ll have your chance, fast enough,” said Sergeant Ackley, “and just remember that anything you say can be used against you.”
Lester Leith nodded, made some shift to straighten his torn and rumpled garments.
“You’ll pardon my appearance, sergeant?”
“Oh, most certainly,” said the sergeant, with an exaggerated air of nicety.
Lester Leith lit a fresh cigarette.
“Thank you, sergeant. You see, I was interested in the Demarest affair. Of course you know of my penchant for studying the newspaper accounts of crime. And the newspaper clippings of the Demarest robbery pointed to what was, at least to my mind, an obvious clue.”
Sergeant Ackley hitched well forward in his chair.
“Yes, I thought so. What was the clue?”
“The ambulance, sergeant. You see, the ambulance figured as an integral part of the scheme. It had the words Proctor & Peabody painted on it, and everyone agreed that those words were painted quite prominently, too prominently to be in good taste.
“Now Proctor & Peabody run a line of ambulances and of hearses. It is impossible that a car could have their name lettered on it and escape detection. After the Demarest affair the roads were blocked within a given district and all cars within that district subjected to close scrutiny. Yet the ambulance vanished. Now I had a theory about that, but I couldn’t be absolutely certain. I determined to wait for a short time and see if the ambulance wasn’t used again. It was such a good idea and it worked so easily in the Demarest robbery that I felt certain the criminals would use it again.
“You know the answer. It was used, and most effectively. Once more the ambulance vanished from the face of the earth. But by that time I was certain of my theory.
“You see, the invitation presented by Mrs. Pensonboy Forster when she secured admission to the Demarest affair was forged. The engraving was forged perfectly, but the art work — the hand lettering of each guest’s name, added later to the engraved invitation — the lettering showed discrepancies.
“You suspected the social secretary because the forgery of the engraving was so perfect that you felt the invitations must have been left where they would be accessible to the forger. But you overlooked the fact that the lettering was not so faithfully copied.
“Therefore, I came to the conclusion that the person who forged the invitation for Mrs. Pensonboy Forster had had access to the blank engraved invitation, but not to the completed invitation. Yet he was an artist or he wouldn’t have drawn in the name as cleverly as he did.
“And the ambulance affair also pointed to an artist. You see, sergeant, an ambulance legitimately bearing the name of Proctor & Peabody, displayed quite prominently, could never have escaped detection. But a signpainter-artist could easily have lettered the name on flexible curtains which could have been adjusted to a specially-made delivery truck, and made it look like an ambulance.
“The curtains could be snapped on, and the truck changed into an ambulance. They could instantly have been taken off, and the ‘ambulance’ would revert to a commercial truck.
“That suggested a business establishment with a light delivery truck. It suggested a criminal with access to engraving facilities, with access to the Demarest invitations. It suggested a criminal who was also an artist and a sign painter.
“You see, now, sergeant, how the finger of suspicion pointed to Stanley Garland. He had but to fill in an extra, blank invitation with some of his own hand lettering, and his accomplice was passed into the Demarest reception. The rest was easy. His accomplices could be men who were actually employed in the printery. They changed the truck into an ambulance, looted the place, changed the ambulance back into a truck, and went through the police cordon with no difficulty whatever. The police recognized the truck with the sign of the Garland Printery upon it, and raised not so much as a question.”