“Don’t tell me who you are; I know. I can tell from the slow appraisal of your eyes. I can tell from the cynical twist at the corner of your lips, and yet you’re not the type I expected at all. I would think a detective would be more the deductive type. Your training was acquired. You didn’t take up the profession because of a natural aptitude. It shows in a hundred unconscious mannerisms. You’re a big man, physically strong. You hold your hands awkwardly, as though you didn’t know what to do with them. That’s merely the external manifestation of a subconscious condition. You have learned to make a livelihood by deductive reasoning. You are naturally fitted to engage in a business calling for more physical activity. Therefore, your mind finds your body in the way. It’s too big, too strong — that’s the reason you hold your hands the way you do.”
She stopped, stepped back, tilted her head from side to side, as a canary might appraise a dish of bird seed, nodded her head and smiled in self-satisfied triumph.
“See that!” exclaimed Du Nord triumphantly. “Isn’t that wonderful? Give her one of your cards, Strickland, and see how much she can tell about you from your business card.”
Strickland took a card from his card case, handed it to her. Mrs. Carver pounced upon it, held it in her bony-fingered, blue-veined hand.
“Ha,” she said. “Scotch — economical — this card has been used several times — very loyal to your employers — self effacing — that’s apparent from the modest manner in which you have the name, ‘Peter B. Strickland,’ down in the left hand corner, while the words ‘MANUFACTURER’S INVESTIGATING BUREAU’ are prominently displayed.”
Strickland nodded, reached for the card, took it from her hand and replaced it in his case.
“Oh,” she beamed, “I was just joking about the Scotch part; that’s an old joke.”
“It ain’t a joke with me, ma’am,” Strickland said, “the agency makes us pay for our own cards.”
She laughed, flashed a glance at Du Nord.
“And tell me, Mr. Strickland,” she said, “do you go in for the study of applied psychology?”
“Not the way you do,” he said, “mine’s sort of a rule of thumb business. The man on the street didn’t know what psychology was when I was getting my education.”
She graciously indicated a chair, snapped her left elbow into a position to consult her wristwatch, rattled on with swift efficiency. “Sit down, Mr. Strickland. Mr. Du Nord, your boat docks in exactly twenty-seven minutes. I have instructed your chauffeur to be in readiness at the Market Street entrance, and—”
She broke off abruptly, glanced through the glass partitions of the office to a corridor where a young woman with very blue eyes, an impertinent nose, and a chin that was tilted aggressively forward, was walking with quick purposeful steps.
“Quick,” she said, “look at her, Mr. Strickland, that’s the one. That’s Anita Lyle. Note the characteristics of the clenched hands as she walks. That shows a furtive disposition. That shape of the nose indicates one who wants the good things of life and doesn’t care how she gets them. She’s the one you’ve got to convict. She’s the one that did it.”
Du Nord frowned as the swiftly walking figure vanished beyond the edge of the glass partition.
“She’s got her hat on. What’s she doing going out? I wanted her to be here so Mr. Strickland could observe her habits, and arrange a plan of campaign.”
“We can’t help it,” Mrs. Carver said. “It’s not her afternoon off under our new schedule of hours, but she had traded with one of the other girls. She said she wanted to get off particularly this afternoon, and I couldn’t have upset the arrangement with out making her suspicious.”
Both of them looked at Strickland. Strickland said nothing.
“You tell him, Mrs. Carver,” Du Nord said.
Mrs. Carver needed no second invitation; her voice rattled on Strickland’s eardrums.
“There are three of the trusted employees,” she said, “who have access to the vaults. Anita Lyle, Nell Brent and Mabel Walker — those are the only three. We know that one of them must be dishonest. I made a test of their honesty. I left rings in the wash-room, a purse on the sidewalk. I slipped an extra twenty dollar bill in Anita Lyle’s cash drawer, so that her cash would be twenty dollars over at night. All of them responded satisfactorily to the honesty test except Anita. She didn’t report an overage in cash. Therefore, she was dishonest and kept the money. To my mind, the evidence is conclusive. It’s up to you now to catch her red handed.”
“If you know who it is,” Strickland said, “why not fire her?”
“We can’t; she’s under contract. She’d sue us. We’ve got to have something specific.”
“Maybe it’s a leak from the designing room,” Strickland suggested.
“It can’t be. The designers are well paid and above suspicion. They work at a long table under the constant supervision of a foreman. Even the wastebaskets are not emptied into the general hopper, but the contents are collected and burnt. Jacqueline — that’s my own daughter — has charge of the room; I mean keeping it clean and so forth. After the designs are created, they’re submitted to us for approval. Those we approve are placed in the vault.
“No, Mr. Strickland, unfortunately there can’t be the slightest doubt about the identity of the culprit. The habit of walking with clenched hands shows a furtive, secretive disposition. If she had been honest she would have reported the cash overage. My applied psychology has definitely picked out the criminal for you. It’s up to you to get the evidence to convict her.”
“Maybe someone slipped the twenty out of the cash drawer before she made up the cash,” Strickland suggested.
Mrs. Carver’s significant, scornful silence branded the remark as being puerile.
“If you’ll step this way,” she said, “I’ll show you the room where the designers work... Ah, there’s my daughter now. Jacqueline! Jacqueline, come here please. Yes, step right in this way.”
A slender girl with a flat chest, her mother’s eyes, and a quick restlessness of manner, which had also been inherited, opened the door just far enough to enable her slender body to slip into the private office.
“Jacqueline,” said Mrs. Carver, “this is—” She broke off, as an office boy carrying a file of papers entered through another door. She frowned at the office boy, paused for words, then had a sudden inspiration.
“Show her your card,” she said to Strickland.
Strickland sighed once more, took a card from his card case, and handed it to the young woman.
Jacqueline Carver studied the card. Her face showed sudden comprehension.
“Oh,” she said, and nodded, then set the card down on a corner of Du Nord’s desk.
“I understand,” she said.
Strickland leaned forward, retrieved the card, started to put it back in the card case, then frowned as he saw a black, grease-like smear on the back of the card. He ran his thumb over it in frowning contemplation, sighed, and dropped the card into the wastebasket.
Mrs. Carver tittered.
“So sorry,” she said, “it only did its duty twice, didn’t it, Mr. Strickland?”
“Three times,” he corrected her. “I sent it in to Mr. Du Nord — and I guess I hadn’t better leave it around in the wastebasket either.”
He leaned forward, picked up the card, and pushed it carelessly into his side pocket. Jacqueline Carver inspected her right hand, frowned, and scrubbed at the fingers with a handkerchief, wiping a black smudge from her right thumb.