She stared at the masked figure.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“Just a crook,” he told her.
“I’ve got nothing,” she said. “I’m a manicurist, and I work for my living.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, “you don’t answer your doorbell.”
The eyes stared at him and grew wide, drinking in every detail of his appearance.
“Do you mean to say that you’re the one who was pushing the buzzer half an hour or so ago?”
“It wasn’t that long,” he told her. “Not over ten minutes. It took me a little time to get into the apartment house, and then I found that you had the bolt on the inside of the door, so it became necessary for me to come in via the fire escape.”
“There’s something phoney about you,” she declared. “What are you trying to do?”
“To find that necklace,” he said.
“You’re crazy,” she told him, but her eyes flinched under the steady gaze which beat upon her from behind the black mask.
“You don’t seem to be very convincing, somehow or other,” Crowder told her, sitting down on the edge of the bed, as though he felt perfectly at home.
She stood staring at him for a moment, then looked down at her thin silk pajamas. “If you’d be so good as to take a chair,” she said, “I’d get back into bed.”
He shook his head and said, “You’d better get some clothes on.”
“Are you crazy?” she asked. “Or drunk?”
“Neither,” he said — “Not right at the moment anyway, although I have been troubled with acute symptoms of the latter ailment, if you might call it that. But it happens that right at the present time I’m both sober and sane, and I’m very much in earnest when I tell you that I’m looking for that necklace.”
“And I’m equally in earnest,” she said, “when I tell you that I’m a manicurist and know nothing whatever about it.”
“You’re not very convincing,” he said. “Why didn’t you scream when I came into the room? Why don’t you try to make a noise and raise the apartment house? Why don’t you make the usual threats to notify the police?”
She fidgeted uneasily.
“Why did you come here?” she asked.
“To be perfectly frank,” he told her, “I’m beating the police to it.”
Her face showed as suddenly drained of color.
“Just what do you mean?” she asked in a voice that sounded thin and frightened.
“You,” he said, “are Miss Trixie Monette, a manicurist. You have been running around with Jim Halmer, who is known sometimes as ‘Gentleman Jim,’ the slickest gem thief in the country.
“Some thirty days ago, Frank Belman’s residence was robbed of some rather valuable jewelry. The most valuable, by far, of all of the loot was the matched pearl necklace which is reputed to be worth from forty-five to fifty thousand dollars. In fact, there’s a reward offered of ten thousand dollars for it, and the police naturally are breaking their necks to uncover it.
“At the time, Gentleman Jim was suspected, but they couldn’t prove anything. However, they kept him under surveillance and, by accident, managed to trace a diamond ring to him. The diamond ring was part of the loot which was taken at the same time the necklace was stolen. The police arrested Gentleman Jim and gave him pretty much of a third degree. He finally admitted the crime, but said he had given the necklace to a lady friend for safe keeping. He wouldn’t divulge her name, but told the police he would make arrangements to have the necklace returned. He wasn’t going to get the woman mixed into it.
“Then one of his accomplices hired an attorney, and about the time the police thought they had Gentleman Jim sewed up, the attorney came busting in with a habeas corpus, and Gentleman Jim was admitted to bail.
“His liberty was rather short-lived because the police got him on another charge and threw him in. But, in the meantime, Jim had had ample opportunity to consult with his attorney. The betting is better than even that the police never recover the necklace. The attorney is already negotiating directly with Belman to see that the necklace is returned in the event Belman refuses to prosecute.”
“That doesn’t tell me why you’re here,” she said.
“Oh yes it does,” he told her. “You were running around a little bit with Jim Halmer. I started in ahead of the police checking up on Halmer’s lady friends, and I’m telling you it was quite a job. However, I finally got you spotted.”
“Listen,” she told him, suddenly eager, anxious and apprehensive, “nobody knows that I knew Jim.”
“Oh yes they do,” he told her. “I know it, and the person who tipped me off knows it.”
“Who was that person?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“And who are you?”
“Well,” he said, “you might call me a crook. You know I’m anxious to recover that necklace, and they say it takes a crook to catch a crook.”
“I don’t think you’re a crook,” she told him.
He shrugged his shoulders and laughed lightly.
“Isn’t it an irony of fate,” he said, “that you’re trying to convince me you’re honest, and aren’t able to do so, and I’m trying to convince you that I’m a crook, and you won’t believe me.”
“And you say the police are coming here?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “they’ll get hold of the information that I uncovered some time during the next few hours. When they do, they’ll come busting in here.”
“What will they do?” she asked.
“Turn the place upside down,” he told her. “Drag you down to the station house, give you a third degree, turn the newspaper reporters loose on you, have your pictures decorating the front pages of the newspapers, get you fingerprinted, and...”
“Listen,” she told him, “will you believe me if I come through on the square?”
“That,” he said, “depends on the impression you make, but you’ve everything to gain and nothing to lose, so why not try it?”
“Look here,” she said. “I don’t know who you are, or anything about you, but you seem like a gentleman, and I’m in a jam. I did go around with Jim Halmer. I didn’t know he was a crook at the time. It wasn’t until after he had taken me out several times that I found out about it, and then I wouldn’t go out with him anymore. I’m a manicurist, and I peroxide my hair, but I’m on the level.”
“One of these virtuous heroines?” he asked.
“No,” she told him bitterly. “But I’m a working girl, and I’m playing the game on the square.”
Crowder stared at her with steady, contemplative eyes.
“Well,” he said, “what about it?”
“Do you believe me?” she asked.
“I’m thinking it over.”
“Well,” she told him, “if what you say is true, I think I know where that necklace is. If there’s going to be a reward offered for it, I can use some of that money. Now, what I want to know is whether you’re really a crook.”
Crowder reached up to his forehead, lifted off the black mask, folded it and slipped it into an inside pocket.
“Lady,” he said with mock deference, “take a look at my honest pan. Notice my steady honest eyes; notice the straight nose and the firm mouth — features, I may say, which are accepted everywhere as indications of integrity. Notice that my face is clean-shaven; that I am free from dandruff and halitosis. Come closer and observe that I am free from B.O. There is no reason why my friends shouldn’t like me. Listerine, Life Buoy Soap, Ipana toothpaste and Absorbine Junior are my daily companions.
“I have neither athelete’s foot nor pink tooth brush. I...”
“You’re kidding me,” she said savagely.