Clark nodded his appreciation of the girl and the coat, and then got down to business.
“Listen, Gorilla,” he said, “I want you to pull a daylight stick-up for me.”
“Who am I going to stick up, and what do I get?” asked the crook.
“About all you get is the experience and a chance to do me a good turn,” said Clark. “On the other hand, you won’t be running any risk.”
“Do I wear a mask?” inquired Gorilla George.
“No, you don’t have to.”
“Jeez, guy, my map’s pretty well known and pretty easy to identify. They’d have me on the pan inside of three hours.”
“No,” said the criminologist. “This isn’t that kind of a stick up. You’re going to stick up a car, and there’ll be three men in the car. I will be one of the men, and I will have a big diamond in a plain paste board box packed with cotton. You’re supposed to know all about the diamond, and to stick a gun on me and tell me to fork over the sparkler.”
“How big’s the diamond?” asked Gorilla George.
“Did you ever hear of the Clinkoff Diamond?” inquired the criminologist.
“Jeez, guy, you mean the stone that they croaked Millright over?”
“That’s the one.”
Gorilla George twisted his face into a grimace.
“Jeez, guy, you’re gonna get me on the hot squat before you get done.”
“No,” said Clark, “on the contrary, I am going to use you to assist the law. I will give you a letter that I have instructed you to hold me up and take the diamond from me, so that it really won’t be a stick-up at all, and you can use an empty gun. I’ll see to it that there isn’t any resistance.”
“Well,” said Gorilla George, “how about making a good job of it and picking up a little coin on the side? Of course, I wouldn’t take any of yours, but suppose some of these other birds would be dough heavy? There wouldn’t be any harm in taking up a little collection, would there?”
“No,” said the criminologist, “I don’t want you to do that. I want you to pull this job so you don’t have to wear a mask, and you can grab the gem and get away. I want it to be a piece of fast work. The reason I picked on you is because you look the part well enough so that the other boys will know that you’re tough, and won’t make it look as though you’re an assistant of mine.”
“Okay, Chief,” said Gorilla George, “what’s the dope?”
“The dope,” said the criminologist, “is that I am going out to Carson Millright’s home at about three o’clock this afternoon. I will leave there at approximately the hour of three thirty, and there will be two other men in the car with me. One of them will be Phil Bander, the manager of the Interstate Detective Agency here, and the other will probably be Sam Townley, who is the agent for the insurance company that underwrote the safety of the Clinkoff Diamond when Millright bought it.
“We’ll get in the car and start to travel toward an isolated district which will suit our purpose. I would suggest that I pick a rather deserted road in the suburbs. How would that suit you?”
“That suits me jake, Chief.”
“Have you got any suggestions, George? Any place that you’re pretty familiar with?”
“Yeah, sure,” said George. “Some of the boys have got a still out towards Centerville. Suppose you pick a place out there?”
“All right,” said Clark. “Do you know where there’s a deserted house that sits back on a side road with a well in the front yard and a couple of old pear trees? The place is a little bit dilapidated, and...”
“Hell, yes,” said Gorilla George. “The boys have got the still within half a mile of that place.”
“All right,” said Clark. “I’ll go to that place. It will be just about commencing to get dark then. I’ll run in there and pick up the diamond. Then I’ll come out to the car, unwrapping the diamond and looking at it. I want you to be waiting so that you can pull the stick-up before I’ve had a chance to do more than get the car headed back toward town. Just give me a few yards, and then come alongside and pull the stick-up. You can let the air out of the tires, or out of the two front tires, so that we can’t follow. Make an artistic job of it, see?”
Gorilla George nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” said Clark. “That’s all.”
“What do I do with this stone after I get it?” inquired Gorilla George.
“Save it for a souvenir,” said Clark, and closed one eye in a significant wink.
The criminologist shook hands with Gorilla George and the girl, left the cheap rooming house, and went at once into the manufacturing jewelry district. He hunted up a jeweler who was under even greater obligations to him than was Gorilla George.
“Listen,” he told the jeweler, “you’re familiar with the Clinkoff Diamond?”
“I know what it looks like, yes.”
“All right. I want something that will look like the Clinkoff Diamond when it’s in a box packed with cotton around it.”
“That’s quite a large order, Clark.”
“No, it isn’t, because the diamond is never going to be taken out of the box. All I want is something that looks like the diamond. You can take a piece of glass and silver the back of it, or fake it any way you want to. I want something that will stand the first blush of inspection in half light when I take the cover off the box and leave it off for just a second or two.”
“That,” said the jeweler, commencing to grin, “is going to be easy. Are you going to pull a fast one on somebody, Clark?”
“I am going,” said the criminologist, with a frosty smile, “to demonstrate to a skeptical detective the value of concentrating on one clew and following that one clew to a logical ending.”
The man who came dashing from the residence of Carson Millright gave every evidence of excitement. Key-Clew Clark managed to act the part of one who is flushed with triumph, keenly excited. Phil Bander and Sam Townley were flushed of cheek and eye, and they moved with swift, jerky steps.
“My car’s here,” said Bander, “and we’ll go in it.”
“All right,” said Clark. “I think I know exactly where the place is. At any rate, I’ve got complete directions here.”
“It’s funny that your assistant should have telephoned you to come out there to get the gem,” said the detective.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Clark reassured him. “You see, I worked on the theory that it takes a crook to catch a crook. You know that a good many of my friends are sprinkled about through the underworld in various and sundry professions. The person who is acting as my assistant in this matter wouldn’t want to have anyone suspect the connection. Furthermore, you can understand that the possession of the gem, in and by itself, is almost conclusive evidence of first degree murder until the crime is cleaned up.”
“And you haven’t any idea who did it?” asked Bander.
“No,” said Clark shortly, “and I won’t have until after I talk with my assistant.”
“Your assistant is going to meet us there?” Bander inquired.
“No, the gem will be there. My assistant is going to meet me at my apartment later on tonight. Then I’ll know the identity of the murderer, and with the stone that we have you can go ahead and turn the information over to the police, Bander.”
“Hot dog!” exulted the detective. “Won’t it be a feather in my cap if I can walk into the office of the insurance company and plunk that diamond down on the table and say, ‘Okay, boys, here’s your stone. How’s that for fast work?’ ”