Гарднер Эрл Стенли

Something Like a Pelican

Erle Stanley Gardner

Something Like a Pelican

It was approximately two-thirty in the afternoon, and Lester Leith, strolling idly along a backwash in the shopping district, was very frankly interested in a pair of straight-seamed silk stockings — not those which were in the hosiery display of the window to his right, but those which were very animatedly displayed on the legs of a short-skirted young woman some fifty feet in front of him.

In such matters Lester Leith was a connoisseur, but because his interest verged upon the abstract, he made no effort to shorten the distance. Leith liked to stroll and watch the panorama of life streaming past. A few seconds from now his interest might be claimed by a face which showed character, or some passing pedestrian might interest him. At the moment it was a shapely pair of legs.

Half a block away a woman’s head protruded from a fourth-floor window. Above the sounds of traffic could be heard her shrill screams.

“Help! Police! POLICE!!”

Almost instantly a dark furry object was thrown from the window. For a half-second it fell as a compact ball; then the resistance of the air opened it out into what seemed to be a fur cape. This cape, like the proverbial young man on the flying trapeze, sailed through the air with the greatest of ease, to come to rest finally upon a metallic crosspiece which supported a street sign four stories below.

At his right, Lester Leith heard cynical laughter, and his eyes, seeking the source, encountered the grinning face on one of those cocksure individuals who is never at a loss to explain the significance of anything that has happened.

“Advertising stunt,” the man said, catching Leith’s eye. “That’s a fur company up there. Just throwing fur capes away. Get it? They’ve hatched up something which will give ’em a lot of newspaper publicity.”

Leith heard the sound of a police whistle and the pound of authoritative feet as the traffic officer from the corner came down the sidewalk.

For reasons of his own, Leith preferred to avoid contact with police officers who were rushing to the scene of a crime. His methods were far too subtle and delicately balanced to invite risk by blundering into some police dragnet.

“Thanks for the tip,” he said to the omniscient stranger. “I was just about to fall for it. As it is, I won’t be late for my appointment.”

And Leith deliberately turned his back upon the scene of excited confusion.

Lester Leith, slender and debonair in his full-dress evening clothes, stood in the lobby of the theater at the end of the first act and debated whether to wait and see the rest of the show.

The usual opening-night audience of celebrities, sophisticates, and the social upper crust either promenaded around the lobby or formed in little clusters where they engaged in low-voiced conversations.

Many a feminine eye, drifting in the direction of the straight-shouldered, slim-hipped young man, registered approval, but Lester Leith was, for the moment, engrossed in the problem which had been gnawing at the back of his consciousness all evening. Why should a young woman trying on a silver fox cape in a furrier’s on the fourth floor of a loft building abruptly toss the cape out of the window, nonchalantly pay the purchase price in cash, and leave the premises, apparently seeing nothing unusual in the incident?

Melodious chimes announced that the show would resume in exactly two minutes. People began pinching out cigarettes and drifting through the curtained doorways to the rows of seats. Lester Leith still hesitated.

The show, he was forced to admit, was better than average, but his mind simply refused to let the entertainment on the stage exclude from his consideration the mysterious young woman who had so casually tossed a valuable fur cape out of a fourth-story window.

Lester Leith inserted his thumb and forefinger in the pocket of his waistcoat and removed the folded clipping which he had taken from the evening paper. Despite the fact that he knew it almost by heart, he read it once more.

Pedestrians on Beacon Street were startled this afternoon by the screams of a young woman who leaned from a window of the Gilbert Furrier Company in the Cooperative Loft Building four stories above the sidewalk calling for the police. Looking up, they saw a silver fox cape come plummeting toward the sidewalk. The cape spread out, caught the breeze, and finally fell across a rod supporting the sign of the Nelson Optical Company, where it lodged just out of reach of the clutching fingers of dozens of eager feminine shoppers. The screaming woman was later identified as Miss Fanny Gillmeyer, 321 East Grove Street, an employee of the furrier company.

Officer James C. Haggerty, on duty at the intersection, left his post to rush with drawn revolver into the loft building, commandeering an elevator which rushed him up to the fourth floor. As the officer came running down the corridor, he was greeted by F. G. Gilbert, head of the Gilbert Furrier Company, who explained that the screamed alarm had been a mistake.

Officer Haggerty insisted upon an investigation which disclosed that a young woman customer, whose name the company refused to divulge, had been trying on silver fox capes. Abruptly, she had said, “I’ll take this one,” wadded it into a roll, and tossed it out of the window. Miss Gillmeyer, the clerk who had been making the sale, thinking that she was encountering a new form of shoplifting, promptly proceeded to shout for police.

By the time Mr. Gilbert, the proprietor, appeared upon the scene, the customer was quite calmly counting out bills to the amount of the purchase price. She offered no explanation as to why she had thrown the cape out of the window, and quite casually left instructions covering the delivery of the cape when it was recovered. During the confusion which ensued just prior to the arrival of officer Haggerty, the young woman, who was described as a dazzlingly beautiful blonde some twenty-five years of age, left the building.

Officer Haggerty was inclined to believe the young woman was an actress who was intent upon getting publicity. If this was true, her desire was foiled by the refusal of the furrier company to divulge her name and address. The cape was subsequently retrieved and, after being cleaned, presumably delivered by the Gilbert Furrier Company to the eccentric purchaser.

The dimming lights announced that the second act of the play was about to start. Lester Leith, returning the clipping to his pocket, reached a decision and turned toward the street. A waiting taxi took him to the Cooperative Loft Building on Beacon Street.

There was nothing about the appearance of the Cooperative Loft Building which offered a clue to the strange behavior of the purchaser of the fur cape. The Gilbert Furrier Company occupied the entire fourth floor. The window from which the fur cape had been thrown was evidently the one directly over the sign of the Nelson Optical Company.

Leith noticed, on the opposite side of the street, two men who were evidently waiting for some event which they felt would take place in the not too distant future.

The manner in which they “loafed” on opposite sides of the entrance of the Rust Commercial Building, directly across the street from the Cooperative Loft Building — the manner in which they completely ignored each other, yet managed to turn their heads in unison whenever the sound of a clanging elevator door came from the lobby of the office building — indicated a certain common purpose. Moreover, whenever one of the belated office workers left the building, these men converged upon the doorway, only to move casually away again as soon as they got a good look.

Leith got back in his cab and said to the driver, “We’ll wait here.”

The cabbie smiled knowingly. “Want the radio on?” he asked.

Leith said, “No, thanks,” and settled back to a cigarette and a period of watchful waiting which was terminated after about twenty minutes when a slim, youthful woman in a blue skirt and jacket wearing a rakish, tight-fitting hat perched at an angle over her right car, walked out from the elevators across the lobby to the entrance her trim, smooth-swinging legs carrying her at a rapid pace.

The two watchers swung once more toward the door. This time they didn’t veer apart. As the young woman stepped out, each man possessed himself of an elbow. They hurried her across the sidewalk into a car which had mysteriously appeared from nowhere and slid to a quick stop just in time for the young woman to be catapulted into the interior.

Lester Leith pinched out his cigarette and said to the cabbie. “We’ll follow that car.”

The cab driver made a quick U-turn which placed him behind his quarry, and a red traffic signal enabled him to slide up into an advantageous position.

“No rough stuff?” he asked dubiously.

“Certainly not,” Leith said. “Just a matter of curiosity.”

The cab driver studied the license plate of the car ahead. “It ain’t the law, is it?”

Leith said, “That is precisely what I am endeavoring to ascertain at the moment.”

The cab driver seemed not too enthusiastic, but he competently followed the other machine until it came to a stop in front of a downtown office building. His expert eye appraised the trio who emerged. “They’re G-men,” he said.

“I doubt it,” Lester Leith commented. “The obviousness of their methods, their desire for mutual support, and their complete lack of subtlety arc more indicative of police officers of the old school. My personal opinion is they’re operatives from a private detective agency.”

The cab driver looked at him with sudden respect. “Say,” he said, “I bet you’re a G-man yourself.”

“With whom,” Lester Leith asked, “did you bet?”

The cab driver grinned. “Myself.”

Leith said solemnly, “That’s a break for you. You can’t lose.”

Edward H. Beaver served Lester Leith in the capacity of valet, but his obsequious loyalty was a carefully assumed mask covering his true character.

For some time police had suspected Lester Leith of being a unique super-detective — a man whose keen mind unraveled tangled threads in the skein of crime. But all those crimes to which Lester Leith devoted his attention had one peculiar and uniform denouement. When the police, following a sometimes devious but always accurate trail blazed for them by Leith’s activities, reached their objectives, they invariably found a somewhat dazed criminal completely stripped of his ill-gotten gains.

It was because of this the police had “planted” an undercover man to act as Leith’s valet. Yet, much as the police wanted to catch Leith red-handed, so far the spy’s activities had been no more productive of results than the efforts of those committees selected from an audience to supervise a stage magician in his feats of legerdemain.

The spy was waiting up when Leith fitted his latchkey to the door of the penthouse apartment.

“Good evening, sir.”

“What, Scuttle, waiting up?”

“Yes, sir. I thought perhaps you’d like a Scotch and soda, sir. I have the things all ready. Your coat? Your hat? Your stick? Your gloves? Yes, sir. Now, do you wish to put on your dressing gown and house slippers?”

Leith said, “No. I think I’ll remain dressed for a while, Scuttle. You might bring me the Scotch and soda.”

Leith stretched out on the chaise longue and thoughtfully sipped the drink which the spy had placed at his elbow, while Beaver hovered around solicitously.

“Scuttle,” Leith said at length, “you make it a point to read the crime news, I believe?”

The spy coughed apologetically. “You’ll pardon me for saying so, but ever since you outlined your theory that the newspaper accounts frequently contain some significant fact which points to the criminal, I’ve made it a habit to read the crime news. Sort of a mental game I play with myself.”

Lester Leith waited until he had taken two more leisurely sips from his glass before saying. “A fascinating pastime, isn’t it, Scuttle?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But make certain that your solutions are always merely academic — that you keep them only in your mind. You know how Sergeant Ackley is, Scuttle — overzealous, unreasonable — and he has that inherent suspicion which is the unfailing indication of the prejudiced mind.”

Leith yawned and patted back the yawn with polite fingers. “Scuttle, in your crime reading, have you perhaps run across an account of some crime which took place in the Rust Commercial Building?”

“The Rust Commercial Building? No, sir. I can’t say that I have.”

Leith said, “I notice, Scuttle, that on the sixth floor of the Rust Commercial Building is a whole string of offices occupied by the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company, more generally referred to, I believe, as Pidico. Have you heard of any crime which has been committed there?”

“No, sir, I haven’t.”

Leith stretched, yawned, and said, “Most annoying, Scuttle.”

“What is, may I ask?”

“To depend upon the newspapers for information — to know that something in which you arc interested has happened and that it will be twelve to twenty-four hours before you can read about it.”

Beaver kept his surprise concealed behind a rigidly immobile poker countenance. His eves held burning curiosity, but his manner was merely deferential as he said, “Is there anything that I could do to help you, sir?”

Lester Leith gave frowning consideration to the spy’s overtures. “Scuttle, could I trust you?”

“With your very life, sir.”

“All right, Scuttle, I’ll give you an assignment — a very confidential one... In the Channing Commercial Building there’s a private detective agency. I didn’t bother to look it up. Some men took a young woman there about ten o’clock tonight. They questioned her. Perhaps they turned her loose, perhaps not. If my reasoning is correct, she was an employee of the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company. Find out if that is the case. If so, report to me her name and address. If the facts aren’t as I’ve outlined them, then I’m not interested in the matter at all.”

“Yes, sir. And if it turns out you’re right, sir, may I ask the nature and extent of your interest?”

Leith replied, “Simply to put my mind at case by making a logical explanation of an event which has puzzled me.”

“May I ask what the event was?”

“The throwing of a silver fox cape out of a four-story window.”

The spy’s eyes glittered. “Oh, yes, sir. I read about that in the paper.”

“Indeed, Scuttle? Did you have any theories about it?”

“Yes, sir. I gave that matter quite a bit of thought and reached a very satisfactory conclusion. I said to myself — if you won’t think it’s presumptuous, sir — I’ll pretend that I’m Lester Leith reading that newspaper clipping and try to find in it the significant clue which the police have overlooked.”

“And what did you conclude?”

“That the woman was merely a cog in a machine, a part of a very clever scheme.”

“Scuttle, you amaze me!”

“Yes, sir. I decided that her sole function was to distract the attention of everyone in the place while a clever confederate worked a foolproof scheme.”

“What was the scheme, Scuttle?”

“Switching price tags, sir.”

“Can you give me a few more details?”

“Yes, sir. Some coats are second-grade or imitation and valued at seventy-five to a hundred dollars. Others arc the real thing and valued at from twelve hundred to twenty-five hundred. Obviously, a person who could switch price tags would be able to take advantage of the situation and for a relatively small amount get a high-priced coat.”

“Marvelous, Scuttle!” Lester Leith said. “You’re doing splendidly.”

“Thank you, sir. And do you think that’s what happened?”

“Certainly not, but you’re improving, Scuttle.”

“You mean you don’t think that happened?”

“No, Scuttle.”

“But it’s an entirely logical explanation,” the valet insisted.

Leith yawned again. “That’s why I don’t think it happened, Scuttle, and now I think I’ll go to bed. Don’t call me before nine in the morning.”

Incandescent lights blazed down on the cigarette-charred desk of Sergeant Ackley. The air in the building held that peculiar stench which comes to jails, police headquarters, and other places which arc inhabited twenty-four hours a day. Beaver sat across the desk from Sergeant Ackley and said, “I just called on the off chance you hadn’t gone to bed.”

Ackley yawned, ran his fingers through his hair, and said, “That’s all right, Beaver. I’d get up in the middle of the night to catch this crook. You say you need this information before nine o’clock in the morning?”

“That’s right.”

Ackley pressed a button and, when an officer appeared, said, “Find out what detective agency is in the Channing Commercial Building and get the guy in charge on the line.”

When the officer had left the room, Ackley rubbed his hand around the back of his neck, yawned, then fished in his waistcoat pocket for a cigar. “And you think it’s connected up with this goofy shoplifting stunt at the Gilbert place?”

“It seems to be,” Beaver said.

Sergeant Ackley lit his cigar, puffed thoughtfully for a few moments, then shook his head emphatically and said, “Nope, Beaver. That’s a blind. That business at the furrier company was a price-tag switch, just the way you doped it out. My guess is Gilbert will be squawking his head off tomorrow that someone walked out with a two-thousand-dollar mink coat by making the payoff for a seventy-five-dollar rabbit imitation.”

Beaver nodded his head. “That was what I thought. Leith thinks different.”

Sergeant Ackley said, “That’s just the line of hooey he’s giving you to keep you from knowing what he really has in mind.”

“He’s fallen for me this time, Sergeant. He’s really going to take me into his confidence.”

Sergeant Ackley rolled the cigar around to the other corner of his mouth. “Nope,” he said, “he’s playing you for a sucker, Beaver. That business about the silver fox cape is proof that he’s stringing you along. I’ll bet there wasn’t anything that happened over in the Instrument—”

He broke off as the phone rang. He scooped up the receiver and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Hello — Sergeant Ackley talking.”

There was a moment’s silence in the room, then Ackley pulled the cigar out of his mouth and said, in a voice suddenly crisp with authority, “Oh, this is the Planetary International Detective Service in the Channing Commercial Building, is it? And you’re in charge? Okay. This is Sergeant Ackley at headquarters. Now get this, and get it straight because I don’t want any fumbling. Have you got a client, the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company? Oh, you have, eh? I see. Now, what kind of work are you doing right now for that company? I don’t care whether it’s confidential or not! This is police headquarters. We’re working on a case, and we think that angle enters into it... Never mind how we knew about it. We’re asking for information... No, you aren’t going to stall along while you call up your client. I’m asking for information, and I want it. We let you guys get by with a lot of stuff, but right now... Well, that’s better. Okay, go ahead and shoot.”

There was almost three minutes of complete silence while Sergeant Ackley scowled at the telephone transmitter, listening to the voice which poured words through the receiver into his attentive left ear. Then he said, “How do you know this dame is the one?... I see... Where is she now?... All right, you guys should have reported that in the first place. That’s a crime. That’s burglary... Sure, they don’t want any notoriety, but they don’t need to have it. We can keep things under cover the same as anyone else. Do you eggs up there think you can do better work than the police department?... Well, that’s better. Tell him the truth. Tell him headquarters called up about it and demanded a report. Tell him we’re on our toes enough so we know about crimes even when the victims try to keep ’em secret, and you can tell him that Sergeant Ackley is working on the case personally. Tell him I’ve made substantial progress toward a solution. In the meantime, you eggs keep us posted, see?... That’s right, Sergeant Ackley.”

Ackley banged down the receiver and then grinned across the desk at the undercover man. “The chief’s gonna get a kick out of that,” he said. “They were trying to keep it secret. That bird up at the detective agency nearly fainted, wonderin’ how we knew about it.”

“How we knew about what?” Beaver asked.

Ackley said, “An inventor by the name of Nicholas Hodge worked out an improved submarine detector and locator. He made a rough model which seemed to do the work. He took it up with Washington and the thing got snowed under with red tape. Then he made a contact with one of the rear admirals who arranged for a definite test but insisted that a completely finished instrument be installed for the test, one that looked good enough to impress the big shots in the Navy. The Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company was picked for the job.

“Naturally, the thing was carried out in great secrecy. Jason Bellview, the president of the company, and his confidential secretary, a girl by the name of Bernice Lamen, were the only ones who knew what it was all about and where the master blueprints were kept. Those offices of the instrument company are just the designing offices — the factory is about a mile out of town. Bellview’s idea was that he’d split the thing up into parts, have workmen make the separate parts, and then, at the last minute, he, using a pair of trusted assistants, would assemble them himself.”

“And something happened to the blueprints?” Beaver asked. “Vanished into thin air.”

“This detective agency is working on it?”

“That’s right. They’re under contract to take care of all the Instrument Company’s business. Bellview called them as soon as he knew what had happened. They suspected Bernice Lamen, laid some sort of a trap for her, and she walked into it. They nabbed her and are giving her a third degree and getting no place with it.”

“So we take over?” Beaver grinned.

Sergeant Ackley grinned also. “We take over,” he said, “but not until old Jason Bellview comes crawling in on his belly and begs us to. He was afraid of the publicity. If it ever gets out that those blueprints aren’t in bis office, or if be can’t guarantee that while they were out of his possession no one made copies of them, the Precision Instrument Company is in one sweet mess.”

Abruptly the grin left Beaver’s face. He frowned thoughtfully.

“Well,” Ackley asked, “what is it?”

“How the devil did Lester Leith know all about this?”

Ackley’s eyes reflected the mental jolt this question gave him.

Beaver said, “It was something that had to do with pitching that silver fox cape out of that window.”

“Nonsense, Beaver. That’s just a blind he’s using.”

Beaver said suddenly, “Look here, Sergeant, the Instrument Company’s offices arc right across the street from the fur company. Do you suppose you could see into the—”

Sergeant Ackley shook his head authoritatively. “The Instrument Company is on the sixth floor. The furrier’s on the fourth.”

Beaver said doggedly, “Well, the furrier’s in a loft building, and the fourth floor of that building might be on a level with the sixth floor of the office building.”

Sergeant Ackley’s eyebrows leveled. “You may have something there,” he admitted. Then he added hastily, “But I doubt it.”

Lester Leith, over a breakfast of coffee, toast, and crisp bacon, listened to the valet’s report.

“Very interesting, Scuttle, and I should say quite complete. How did you get your facts?”

The spy coughed. “A young woman in whom I’m interested is keeping company with a police detective,” he said.

“Oh, that’s right. You’ve mentioned that before. I’m not certain that I approve of the ethical aspects of the situation, Scuttle, but the relationship seems to have been signally productive of information.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re quite certain that Jason Bellview consulted the police?”

“Yes, sir. After midnight.”

“Let’s run over the story once more, Scuttle.”

“Yes, sir. Bellview placed the master blueprints in his vault. The big door is kept open during the day but is closed and locked at night. Nicholas Hodge, the inventor of the device, and Bellview had just finished a preliminary conference. The blueprints had been placed in the vault. Bellview had an important matter to attend to and excused himself for a few moments, leaving Hodge waiting in an office which adjoined his private office. Bernice Lamen, Bellview’s secretary, had opened and sorted the early afternoon mail in her own office and was just bringing it to Mr. Bellview’s private office — so she said. She had just entered the office when she heard the screaming from across the street. Naturally, many of the employees ran to the windows to look out. Bernice Lamen says she heard the door slam in the private office — the exit door as though someone had hurriedly run out. She assumed at the moment it was Mr. Bellview. That’s what she says.”

“It wasn’t Bellview?”

“No, sir. Mr. Bellview says he was in another part of the building. Whoever it was got the plans out of the vault. He seemed to know just where to go for them.”

“Any chance someone entered the offices from the outside?”

“No, sir. Frank Packerson, who has charge of the firm’s house organ, had been trapshooting over the weekend. He’d brought his gun to the office and, as soon as he heard the commotion across the street, he grabbed the gun, loaded it, and jumped out into the corridor. Hodge, the inventor, was the only man who appeared who wasn’t connected with the company. And, of course, I lodge would hardly steal his own blueprints.”

Lester Leith frowned thoughtfully. “How about Bernice Lamen?”

“The detectives watched the building last night. Miss Lamen returned to the offices. She said she was behind in her work. The detectives regarded that as being highly suspicious, so they nabbed her. You see, sir, a guard was instantly placed at the door to see that no one took the blueprints out. They must still be concealed in the offices. The thief removed them from the safe and hid them.”

Leith said, “The detectives searched Miss Lamen and found nothing?”

“No, sir.”

Leith smiled.

“You’re planning to do something about it, sir?” Beaver asked. Leith raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Do something?”

“Well, sir, that is, I was wondering if you had any more theories you wanted to check.”

“I think not, Scuttle. I find myself irritated by the stupidity with which the police have handled the entire matter, but there’s no call for me to do anything. My interest in these matters, Scuttle, is purely abstract — merely an academic speculation.”

The woman who ran the theatrical employment agency looked up at Lester Leith. At first her smile was merely a professional blandishment, but as her eyes took in the well-knit figure, the keen, alert eyes, the straight nose and smiling lips, her manner suddenly became more personal.

“Good morning,” she said, in a tone which had far more cordiality than was customarily given to unknown visitors.

Lester Leith smiled down at her. “I would like to write stories,” he said.

The smile struggled against a frown and lost. “There’s absolutely no opening for writers,” she said. “We don’t handle literary stuff ourselves, but unless you’ve had some experience—”

“Feature writing,” Lester Leith went on, “writing from an unusual angle — the human interest behind the news.”

The frown faded somewhat. “It sounds quite interesting, but I’m afraid we couldn’t—”

“Oh,” Leith interposed airily, “it’s just a hobby. I don’t care to make any money out of it, and I’m not asking you to place my work.”

“What did you want then?”

“An actress who would not be adverse to publicity.”

The woman at the desk said, “None of them arc adverse to publicity.”

“I want an actress,” Leith said, “who has what it takes, a trouper, a—”

“You won’t find those anymore,” the woman interrupted wearily. “Young people these days think only in terms of Hollywood. They regard the stage only as a springboard to help them jump into the movies.”

Lester Leith said, “My actress doesn’t necessarily need to be youthful. I want someone who has character and that something which is known as being a good sport.”

She regarded him somewhat quizzically. “There’s one waiting in the outer office,” she said, “who has done everything from stock companies to vaudeville. She really has talent, but — well, she isn’t young any more.”

“How old?” Leith asked.

She smiled. “She says thirty and looks thirty-three. I would say she was around forty. I have to admire her for the way she keeps up her courage.”

“What’s her name?”

“Winnie Gail.”

“Would she be interested in doing a job for me — as a model?”

“I don’t think so. She wants to be an actress or nothing, but you can talk with her.”

Leith said, “Let’s get her in.”

Winnie Gail proved to be a woman who was impatient of subterfuges and wanted to know exactly where she stood. She interrupted Lester Leith’s preliminary talk with a curt question. “Have you ever done any writing?”

“No,” Lester Leith said. “This is a new venture.”

“Listen, you haven’t the chance of the proverbial snowball,” she said impatiently.

“Tut, tut. I was afraid of that. Don’t go, Miss Gail.”

“Why not?”

“Fortunately, I am not dependent on my writing as a source of income.”

“Well, I’m dependent on my time as a source of income, and I haven’t any to waste.”

Leith said, “I want you to pose for photographs and a story with a human interest slant. The compensation would be two hundred and fifty dollars for two hours’ work — plus, of course, a fur coat.”

“Plus a what?”

“A fur coat — a silver fox cape.”

Winnie Gail abruptly sat down. “Now listen,” she said, “is this on the up-and-up?”

Leith nodded.

“You’re not wrapping a proposition in a cellophane package?”

He shook his head.

“I get this dough in cash?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Throw a fur cape out of a window, and then tell me exactly how you felt when you did it.”

Winnie Gail glanced at the startled woman behind the desk, then looked up at Lester Leith. “You’re crazy,” she said. “But if you have two hundred and fifty dollars in cash on you, I’m with you.”

Lester Leith opened his wallet and counted out five fifty-dollar bills. As the currency fluttered to the desk of the woman who ran the theatrical employment agency, Winnie Gail said softly, “I haven’t seen confetti like that since I played Mother Was a Lady in the old Pelman House.”

F. G. Gilbert, head of the Gilbert Furrier Company, regarded Lester Leith with cold, calculating eyes.

“So you see,” Leith explained affably, indicating the photographer who stood on his left, a big studio-type camera in a carrying case and a tripod over his shoulder, “I’ve brought my photographer to make a series of pictures, and” — indicating Winnie Gail, who wore her made-over, somewhat shabby clothes with an air of distinction — “I’ve brought my own customer. I will, of course, buy the silver fox cape at retail prices.”

Gilbert shook his head.

“Of course,” Lester Leith went on affably, “Miss Gail is an actress. Just between you and me, she expects to get considerable publicity out of this, and, as far as you’re concerned — well, having the Gilbert Furrier Company mentioned prominently in connection with news and magazine stories shouldn’t do you any harm.”

Gilbert frowned through his glasses. “You aren’t a newspaper reporter?”

“No.”

“A press agent?”

“Well, in a way. I have Miss Gail’s publicity at heart.”

Gilbert’s appraisal of Miss Gail spoke volumes. “I’m not certain this store desires that sort of publicity.”

Leith shrugged his shoulders. “As you wish,” he said. “Of course, there’s the purchase of a silver fox cape.”

Gilbert said, “Just a minute. I’ll have to confer with my advertising manager. I’ll be right back.”

He stepped into his private office and called police headquarters. “A man by the name of Lester Leith,” he said, “claims to be a feature writer. He’s here with an actress who wants to pitch another silver fox cape out of the window and, at the same time, have Miss Fanny Gillmeyer, who was the clerk who screamed for the police yesterday, do the same thing all over again today. Is there any objection to my kicking him downstairs?”

The desk sergeant said, “Hold the phone. I’ll put you in touch with Sergeant Ackley.”

A moment later Sergeant Ackley came on the wire, and Gilbert explained the matter in detail.

Ackley’s voice was eager. “Any objections? Listen, don’t let him change his mind. Stall him along for fifteen minutes. That’s all I want — fifteen minutes.”

“And it’s okay after that?” Gilbert asked dubiously.

“Is it okay!” Sergeant Ackley exclaimed. “You listen to me. If you let this opportunity slip through your fingers, I’ll... I’ll... I’ll close your joint up for handling stolen goods!”

Gilbert returned to the outer office. “Okay,” he said, “but if you want Miss Gillmeyer to wait on you personally, it’ll take a few minutes, because she’s busy with another customer. However, I suppose you’ll want to set up your cameras and do a little rehearsing?”

Lester Leith took charge of operations with that meticulous attention to detail which characterizes the highest-priced directors in the picture business.

“You see,” Leith explained, “yesterday the fox cape hit on the support of a sign and didn’t get to the sidewalk, but that was only because an element of chance entered into the situation. Today undoubtedly the cape will reach the sidewalk. Now, then, what will happen? Will someone pick it up and hurry away with it, or will the person who finds it be honest and return it? In any event, we want a whole series of action photographs.”

The photographer set up the big studio camera, placed a speed graphic on the floor where it would be within easy reach. He also placed another speed camera on a smaller tripod. “Now listen,” he said to Leith, “when the action stairs, I’ve got to work fast. Be sure people keep out of my way.”

Lester Leith nodded.

Gilbert looked at his watch, then motioned to the young woman who was standing nearby. “All right, Miss Gillmeyer,” he said, “come on over here. You can go ahead any time now,” he said to Lester Leith.

But nearly ten minutes elapsed before Leith indicated that he was ready.

Then abruptly he said, “All right, go ahead.”

Winnie Gail walked over to the window, hesitated a moment, then tossed out a silver fox cape. Fanny Gillmeyer thrust her head out of the window and screamed for police. Pedestrians on the street below stared up in frozen-faced curiosity. Across the street the office workers in the Rust Commercial Building paused in whatever they were doing to stare. The photographer jumped from one camera to the other, then snatched up the speed graphic, leaned out of the window, and started shooting a series of pictures...

Sergeant Ackley sat in conference with Captain Carmichael at police headquarters. A pile of photographs was on the desk.

“He doesn’t know you’ve got these pictures?” Carmichael asked.

Sergeant Ackley shook his head. “I put the screws on the photographer.”

Captain Carmichael picked up the photographs and studied them thoughtfully. He opened a drawer in his desk, took out a magnifying glass, and moved it over one of the pictures. “Interesting,” he said.

“You got something?” Sergeant Ackley inquired eagerly, walking around to peer over Captain Carmichael’s shoulder.

The police captain tapped a portion of the photograph. “Notice,” he said, “you can actually identify the people who arc at the windows of the Precision Instrument offices. You can even see what’s going on back in the offices themselves. There’s a woman standing in front of the vault door.”

“That’s our own plant,” Sergeant Ackley said. “Believe me, she’s on the job. As soon as she heard the alarm, she didn’t even look to see what it was. She just beat it for the safe and stood there keeping guard. That’s Ann Sherman, and they don’t slip anything over on her!”

Captain Carmichael rubbed his hand thoughtfully over the top of his head. “I wonder,” he said musingly, “if that spoiled things for Leith.”

“How do you mean?”

“He hadn’t counted on the woman who took Bernice Lamen’s place being from headquarters. Perhaps he was hoping the vault would be unguarded, just as it was for a few moments yesterday.”

“But the blueprints have already been swiped,” Sergeant Ackley said. “What good would it do to give somebody the opportunity to steal them again?”

Captain Carmichael pursed his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and blew thoughtfully. Slowly his eyebrows crept together in a portentous scowl. “Sergeant,” he said, “that’s exactly what he wanted, and Ann Sherman’s being on the job kept him from getting results. Hang it, we should have thought of that!

“Don’t you see? Whoever stole those blueprints hasn’t been able to get them out of the building. They are still there, hidden somewhere. The thief has memorized them enough to know the real secret of the device. Now he’d like to get them back into the vault.”

“I don’t see why.”

Captain Carmichael said patiently, “Because every inch of those offices was searched by the police immediately after Jason Bellview got in touch with you. We didn’t get to first base. Tell Jason Bellview to apologize to Bernice Lamen and get her back on the job, then give Lester Leith a free hand.”

“What do you mean by a free hand?”

“Exactly what I said. Have you ever seen the Chinese method of catching fish. Sergeant?”

The exasperated Sergeant Ackley said sarcastically, “That’s another thing I’ve overlooked in connection with the case, and I’ve completely overlooked inspecting the hairs on the head of the last Egyptian mummy through a microscope.”

Captain Carmichael flushed. “Don’t be so irritable,” he growled, “and so blamed ignorant. I was going to tell you that the oriental method of catching fish is to put a rope around the neck of the fish-eating bird, so he can’t swallow. The bird drops into the sea and grabs half a dozen fish. He can’t swallow ’em, so he comes back to the surface, and the wily Chinese has half a dozen nice live fish, caught without any effort on his part.”

Sergeant Ackley’s eves glistened. “What’s the name of that bird?” he asked.

Captain Carmichael frowned. “I think they call it a cormorant.”

Sergeant Ackley said, “Cripes, I’d like to have one of those birds to take up to the lake where I spend my summer vacation! There were fish there that just wouldn’t bite—”

“We’re talking about blueprints,” Captain Carmichael interrupted. “Lester Leith is going to be our cormorant. He’ll get the swag for us and then have to disgorge it.”

“What the heck does a cormorant look like?” Sergeant Ackley asked.

Captain Carmichael said vaguely, “He’s something like a pelican.”

Sergeant Ackley pushed back his chair. “Well, I get the idea all right. We’ll make this guy Leith something like a pelican.”

Captain Carmichael gave one last warning. “Be absolutely certain,” he said, “that you keep a rope tied around his neck. That’s the most important thing in the way the Chinese fish. Otherwise the birds would swallow everything they get.”

Sergeant Ackley said confidently, “Leave it to me, Captain,” and left the room. He was back, however, within a few seconds. “Say, Captain, don’t think I’m cuckoo, but where could a man buy one of those birds that are like a pelican?”

Captain Carmichael fixed him with a stern eye. “In China,” he said.

Lester Leith pressed the button of Apartment 7-B. The card opposite the button bore the names of two persons: Bernice Lamen, who was the confidential secretary of Jason Bellview, and Millicent Foster.

After a moment the buzzer sounded, and Lester Leith walked up two flights of stairs to the apartment he wanted. The young woman who answered his knock was cool, collected, and very much on her guard. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I’d like to talk with Miss Bernice Lamen.”

“Miss Lamen is not at home.”

Lester Leith’s eyes softened into twinkling appraisal of the stern young woman on the threshold. “You,” he asked, “are Miss Foster?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I can talk with you.”

For a moment she studied him, then relaxed somewhat the severity of her manner and repeated, “What do you want?”

“I take it, because you’re sharing an apartment with Miss Lamen, that your relationship is a friendly one?”

“Yes. We’re friends — have been for years.”

Leith said, “I’m a writer.”

There was alarm in her voice. “A newspaperman?”

“No, no! I’m just a beginner. It’s something of a hobby with me.”

“I see,” she said dubiously.

Leith said affably, “Your friend has been placed in a most unsatisfactory position.”

“In what way?”

“If I were she, I’d want to prove myself innocent.”

“How?”

Leith’s voice showed surprise. “Why, by seeing that the guilty person was trapped, of course.”

For a long moment the woman in the doorway hesitated, then her face softened in a smile. “Oh, come on in,” she said impulsively. “I’m Bernice Lamen. This is Millicent over here by the window. Miss Foster, this is Mr. — What did you say your name was?”

“Leith. Lester Leith.”

“Well, come on in and sit down.”

As Leith settled himself in the chair she had indicated, she sized up the expensive tailor-made suit he was wearing and said, “You don’t look like a poor writer.”

“I’m not,” Leith said. “I’m a good writer.”

Millicent said hastily, “Bernice didn’t mean—”

Bernice interrupted, “Skip it. Lie’s kidding.” She smiled at Lester Leith. “You don’t look like any sort of a writer, good, bad, or indifferent. What’s your game?”

“To find out who stole those blueprints.”

Millicent said, “I understand someone threw another fur out of the window this afternoon.”

“I did,” Leith announced calmly.

“You did!” Bernice exclaimed.

Leith smiled deprecatingly. “It was, of course, the obvious thing to do.”

Bernice glanced at Millicent, then leaned forward to regard Lester Leith from under level brows. “Now, let’s get this straight. You mean you threw a fur cape out of the window again this afternoon?”

“Oh, I didn’t do it myself,” Leith said. “I engaged a young woman to do it, a very talented actress. You see, I wanted to have her give me an exclusive interview, telling me how it felt to throw an expensive fur cape out a four-story window.”

Again the young women exchanged glances. Bernice Lamen, her tone perceptibly cooler, said, “Well, I’m afraid I can’t do anything to help you.”

Leith opened the small briefcase he was carrying, took out some photographs, and said, “These arc a series of photographs which we took, showing the entire episode. Most interesting, don’t you think?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the two young women moved closer to study the photographs. Leith took a magnifying glass from his pocket and said, “You can see a great many details here. Look at this picture of the crowd leaning out of the window over at the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company. I daresay you can recognize many of your fellow workers, Miss Lamen?”

“I should say I can, even without the glass. Why, there’s—”

Leith interrupted her to indicate one of the windows with the point of his lead pencil. “This,” he asked, “is the window of Mr. Bellview’s private office?”

“Yes.”

“I notice what appears to be the back of a young woman standing right here. Would that be near the vault?”

“Yes. The vault door is right there.”

“This man, I take it, is Jason Bellview?”

“Yes.”

Lester Leith said, “Someone over here is holding a broomstick.”

She looked at the photograph, then burst out laughing. “That’s not a broomstick. It’s a gun.”

“A rifle?” Leith asked.

“No,” she said, smiling, “a shotgun. The man who’s trying to play hero is Frank Packerson, the editor of our house organ, the Pidico News. He’s a trapshooting enthusiast. He’d been out in the country doing some shooting over the weekend. He got back to town too late Monday morning to go to his apartment, so he brought his gun up to the office and left it there, as he does occasionally.”

“I see,” Lester Leith said, “and he’s on the lookout for burglars in this picture, I suppose?”

“I guess so. He really did a decent job yesterday. He grabbed his shotgun and dashed out into the corridor as soon as he heard the screaming for police across the street. He says no one except the inventor and, a few moments later, Mr. Bellview appeared in the corridor. That shows pretty conclusively that the taking of the blueprints was an inside job and that... that—”

“Go on,” Leith said.

“That they weren’t taken out as far as the corridor. They’re concealed somewhere in the offices.”

“How many offices would be available as places of concealment?”

She said, “I’ve been thinking that over. There is a whole string of them. They all have communicating doors, and then there’s the corridor which runs the whole length of the offices. But the point is Mr. Leith, that no one went along the corridor and no one crossed the corridor. Packerson is positive on that point. He’d have shot in a minute if he’d seen anything that was out of the way — such as someone running away.”

“That would mean, then, that the blueprints must have been hidden somewhere in the string of offices which are next to the windows that open on the street?” Leith asked.

“Yes.”

Leith said, indicating the photograph with a sweeping gesture of his hand, “Somewhere in the area which is covered in this photograph.”

“That’s right.”

Leith tapped a spot on the photograph with the point of a lead pencil. “Who’s this?”

She frowned and said, “Let me see that glass. It’s a little hazy.”

Leith gave her the magnifying glass.

“Oh, yes. That’s Tarver Slade. He’s a man who showed up four or five days ago to go over our books.”

“An auditor?” Leith asked.

“Oh, no. Just one of those state tax men who come in at intervals for a checkup. No one pays very much attention to them. They’re terrible pests, want you to stop everything to explain little simple points. If we took them seriously, we’d never get any work done. Nowadays we just give them an office and let them alone.”

Lester Leith said, “This man seems to be putting on an overcoat.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that if the weather’s at all cold, he wears his overcoat whenever he goes out. I guess he has rheumatism. At times he walks with a pronounced limp, then again he seems all right.”

Lester Leith took out a notebook and made a cryptic entry. “Just jotting down the names of these people,” he explained. “Now, can you give me a few more names from the photographs?”

Taking Leith’s pencil, Bernice Lamen checked off the various persons w hose faces appeared in the window. Only some four or five whose heads were bent down, looking at the sidewalk, she couldn’t recognize.

Lester Leith slipped the enlarged photographs back into his briefcase. “Thank you very much, Miss Lamen. I think I have a swell angle for writing my article, ‘How It Feels to Throw a Fur Cape Out of the Window.’ ”

“Mr. Leith,” Millie Foster said, “please be frank with us. What are you after?”

“Why, I’m after a human-interest story.”

“Surely you don’t expect us to believe that a person would go to all this expense to get material for a story he wasn’t even sure of selling?”

Leith smiled.

Bernice Lamen said, “It’s a story that would interest me. I think the photos arc swell.”

“Aren’t they!” Leith said enthusiastically. “They should be. They cost seventy-five dollars.”

Millicent said, “Good night — should I say, Santa Claus?”

Leith paused with his hand on the knob. “You might look in your stocking,” he said, and quietly left the apartment.

Lester Leith opened the door of the penthouse apartment and said, “Right this way, men.”

The startled undercover man looked up to see half a dozen men who were probably taxi drivers carrying a miscellaneous assortment which included a desk, a swivel chair, a typewriter, a filing cabinet, a wastebasket, and a cabinet for holding stationery.

“Scuttle,” Lester Leith said, “kindly move the chair out of that corner. All right, boys, just put the stuff in there — the desk right in the corner, the typewriter on the desk, the wastebasket to the side of the desk, and the swivel chair, of course, right by the desk.”

The valet stared at the strange procession which trooped its way across the thick carpets of the penthouse apartment. When they had gone, he moved about, dusting the furniture.

“Are you employing a secretary?” he asked.

Lester Leith regarded him reproachfully. “Scuttle, I am going to work.”

“To work?”

“Yes. I am going to write stories which will interpret the hidden significance of things. I am going to fight my way to the top.”

“Yes, sir. A novel perhaps, sir?”

“Not fiction, Scuttle. I am going to dramatize incidents. For instance, Scuttle, how would it feel to throw three hundred and fifty dollars out of a window?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

“But you’d be interested in finding out, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, sir — ahem — of course, if you say so, sir. Yes. sir.”

“That’s exactly it,” Leith said. “Today a woman threw a three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fur cape out of the window. How did it feel? What were her sensations? She has told me her innermost thoughts. I’ll write them out at fever heat, Scuttle. Words will pour from my fingertips onto the paper. The incident will live, will be perpetuated through posterity.”

Lester Leith whipped off his coat and handed it to the valet. “Hang it up, Scuttle.”

Leith jerked out the chair, sat down at the typewriter, and fed a piece of paper into the roller.

“May I ask why the delivery by taxicab?” the spy asked in a last desperate effort to get information.

Leith said, without looking up, “Don’t interrupt me. Scuttle. I’m concentrating — delivery by taxicab? — why, of course, I had to buy these things at a secondhand place in the cheaper district because the other stores were closed. Those little places don’t make deliveries. I had six taxicabs — quite a procession, Scuttle. Now let’s see, how would we start this? I’ll want it in the first person. Ah, yes! I have a title: ‘Throwing Money Away,’ by Winnie Gail as told to Lester Leith.”

Lester Leith laboriously tapped out the title and by-line on the typewriter, then pushed back his chair to stare at the blank sheet of paper. “Now, I’ll need a beginning. Let’s see — I tossed the fur cape out of the window. No, that doesn’t sound right. I want something more dramatic. Let’s see now — I tried on the fur cape the salesgirl handed me. It was a perfect fit. I teas pleased with the soft luxury of the glossy fur. And I pitched it out of the window.”

Lester Leith cocked his head on one side and studied the valet’s expression. “How does that sound, Scuttle?”

“Very good, sir.”

“Your face doesn’t show it, Scuttle. There’s a complete lack of enthusiasm.”

“Yes, sir. If you’ll permit me to say so, it sounds like the devil, sir.”

“Yes,” Lester Leith admitted, “it should be done more subtly.”

He pushed back his chair, shoved his thumbs through the armholes of his vest, stared at the keyboard of the typewriter for several minutes, then got up and started pacing the floor. “Scuttle, how do writers get their inspiration?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“The thing sounded so easy when I thought about it in general terms, but getting it down specifically... I simply can’t say, I threw it out of the window. Yet I don’t know what else to say Well, Scuttle, I’ll make a start. It seems to me I’ve read somewhere that successful authors don’t simply sit down and dash off a story, but have to labor over it, making many revisions, choosing their words with the greatest of care.”

“Yes. sir.”

“And,” Lester Leith went on, “I’ll try to get some new angle.”

Leith sat down at the typewriter once more and doggedly began tapping out the words. The spy hovered obsequiously in the background.

“You needn’t wait up, Scuttle. I’ll probably be all hours.”

“Can’t I get you something, some Scotch and soda or—”

“No, Scuttle, I’m working.”

“Very good, sir. If you don’t mind. I thought I’d step out for a moment for a breath of air.”

“Quite all right, Scuttle. Go ahead,” Leith said, without looking up from the typewriter.

The spy walked down to the corner drugstore, called police headquarters, and got Sergeant Ackley on the line.

“Beaver,” Ackley demanded, “what was the meaning of that procession of taxicabs driving up to the place?”

The spy said, “He’s becoming a writer. He got the inspiration for a story, and he had to start at it right away. He picked up a lot of secondhand furniture, typewriters, filing cases, and all that sort of junk, and had them delivered by taxicab.”

Sergeant Ackley groaned. “You never know whether he’s kidding you or actually slipping something over.”

Ackley groaned again.

There was a subtle tension throughout the offices of the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company. Beneath the routine exterior of a smoothly functioning business organization was that strain which manifests itself in surreptitious glances and whispered conferences in the restrooms.

Frank Packerson, editor of the Pidico News, sat in his private office, a pencil in his hand, aimlessly tracing designs on a sheet of paper.

The interoffice communicating system buzzer sounded, and Packerson almost mechanically threw the lever which made the connection. The voice of the girl at the information desk said, “An author is here with a manuscript which he is willing to sell for five hundred dollars to the Pidico News.”

Packerson was startled. “A manuscript — five hundred dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him we don’t buy manuscripts. All our stuff is staff written. Tell him they don’t allow me five hundred dollars for an entire issue.”

“Yes, Mr. Packerson. I told him, but he insisted I should notify you. He also has a gun he wishes to sell.”

“A gun?”

“Yes, sir.”

Packerson was interested. “What sort of gun?”

“He says it’s a genuine Ithabore over-and-under which he’s willing to sell for fifteen dollars.”

“A genuine Ithabore!” Packerson exclaimed. “For fifteen dollars?”

“Yes, sir.”

Gun enthusiast that he was, Packerson could no more resist such a bargain than a baseball fan could turn down a free ticket to the World Series.

“Tell him to come in.”

Packerson had expected some shabby out-at-the-elbows individual with long hair and glittering eyes. He was hardly prepared for the sauve, well-dressed man who entered his office, carrying a briefcase in his right hand and two sole-leather gun cases over his left shoulder.

Instantly suspicious, Packerson said, “Understand, my man, I’m not buying guns from persons whom I know nothing about. I’ll want a complete history of the gun.”

“Oh, certainly,” Lester Leith said. “I’m prepared to give you a bill of sale.”

“I want more than a bill of sale. I’ll want to know something about you. That price is — well, it’s absurd for a genuine Ithabore over-and-under.”

Lester Leith laughed. “Want me to make the price sixty dollars?”

Packerson flushed. “I’m only interested in getting another gun if the price is right. I’d hardly anticipated dealing with a well-dressed stranger who very apparently has two guns for sale. I think you can appreciate my position, Mr... er—”

“Leith,” his visitor said.

“Well, I think you see my position.”

Lester Leith laughed. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Packerson, I am willing to sell this Ithabore cheap because I simply can’t hit a thing with it, whereas I have a Betterbilt that simply knocks ’em dead.”

Packerson shook his head. “I don’t like the Betterbilt. I like an Ithabore over-and-under, without too much drop in the stock.”

Leith said. “You should like this gun.” He opened one of the gun cases, and Packerson gave the gun first a casual inspection, then put it together, tried the lock, swung it up to his shoulder once or twice, and turned to Leith with a puzzled expression. “How much did you say you wanted for this?”

“Fifteen dollars.”

Packerson stared at him suspiciously.

“For reference,” Leith said, “you can ring up my banker.”

Packerson said, “I suppose you know what that gun cost new.”

“Certainly.”

“Then why the fifteen-dollar price?”

Leith hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said, “I’ll be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Packerson. I think there’s a little bulge in the barrel. You can’t see it when you’re inside, but if you’ll step over to the window and let the sun shine along the barrel, you can see it — a peculiar line of half-shadow.”

Packerson walked over to the window, pushed the gun barrel out into the sunlight, studied it thoughtfully. Lester Leith remained at Packerson’s desk, smoking a cigarette.

After a minute of close scrutiny, Packerson turned back to say, “I don’t think— Well, there may be a slight bulge. I would say it was worth more than fifteen dollars, however.”

Leith said, “Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Packerson, I thought if I’d make the price sufficiently attractive, I could get you to look at my manuscript. I—”

Packerson shook his head emphatically. “We don’t buy any outside material.”

Leith said with dignity, “Under those circumstances, I think I’d prefer to give some other editor an opportunity to look at the gun.”

Packerson’s face colored. “So that’s the game! You want to bribe me to buy a manuscript for five hundred dollars by selling me an Ithabore for about a tenth of what it’s worth. Why, you crook! Get out of here! Go on, take your gun! What sort of man do you think I am, anyway? A cheap bribe like that!”

Lester Leith, summoning what dignity he could muster, picked up his briefcase, swung the sole-leather gun cases over his shoulder and walked out, while Frank Packerson followed him to the door to finish what he had to say.

Lester Leith was just emerging from the elevator when he saw Bernice Lamen step from a bus at the corner and start walking with quick, businesslike steps toward the entrance of the Rust Commercial Building. He waited until she caught his eye.

She stopped to stare at him in astonishment. “What in the world!” she exclaimed.

Leith said, “You look happy.”

“I am. But what in the world are you doing with all the arsenal?” Leith said, “I am in the depths of despondency.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“I worked so hard on my story” — Leith sighed — “and now it’s been rejected.”

“Where did you submit it?”

“To the Pidico News. Your editor, Frank Packerson, was uninterested.”

“Good heavens,” she said, “he doesn’t have any money to buy outside manuscripts.”

Leith said, “Money wasn’t the big inducement. I wanted to see my name in print.”

She studied him with a puzzled frown, drawing her finely arched brows into a straighter line. “Are you serious?”

“Never more serious in my life, but let’s not talk about my troubles. What makes you look so happy?”

She said, “I’ve just received a personal apology from Jason Bellview and instructions to return to work.”

“You mean you’ve been exonerated?”

“Well, at least they’ve decided I can go back to work.”

Leith said thoughtfully, “I don’t see that as any cause of jubilation.”

“You would if you were dependent on a salary and if being let out under suspicious circumstances would prevent you from getting a job anywhere else.”

“That bad?” Leith asked.

“That bad, and worse.”

“Under the circumstances,” Leith announced, “we need a drink. You to celebrate, I to recuperate.”

“I’ve got to go to work.”

Leith said, “On the contrary, that is the worst thing you could do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where’s your sense of independence? Are you going to let them insult you, drag you down to the office of a private detective, grill you, have the police take over, give you the third degree, be smeared with the brush of suspicion, held up to the ridicule of your fellow employees, and then grasp eagerly at the first sop they hand you and rush back to work?”

“Why not?”

“Because there are better ways. You should make them respect you. You should demand a public apology and some remuneration for the inconvenience they’ve caused you, to say nothing of the damage they’ve done to your reputation.”

“I’m afraid I’m not built that way.”

Leith surveyed her critically. “There is,” he announced, “nothing wrong with your build.”

She flushed, then laughed. “Really, Mr. Leith, I’m sorry about your story having been rejected, but I can’t stand here chatting. I’ve work to do.”

Leith indicated his car parked at the curb. He asked, “Couldn’t you postpone it for about thirty minutes — just long enough to have a drink?”

She hesitated.

“And if you’d let me handle Jason Bellview,” he said, “I feel quite certain that he would make an apology in front of all the employees of the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company.”

She said, “I’d just love to have that happen, but it’s asking too much. Bellview would die first.”

Leith said, “Let’s talk it over while we’re having a drink. I know where they make some marvelous spiced coffee with brandy and cinnamon bark, orange peel, and— Oh, come on. We’ll talk it over there.”

She said, “Well, all right, but I don’t want to be too late.”

Fifteen minutes later, over a restaurant table, they watched a deft waiter mix ingredients, saw the blue flame of burning brandy flicker upward to cast an aromatic halo about the bowl, as the waiter stirred the mixture with a silver ladle. Then, when he had lifted out two cups of the spiced beverage and discreetly withdrawn, Leith said, “At least let me ring up Jason Bellview.”

“What would you tell him?”

“I’d tell him that he had done you a great wrong, that you wouldn’t return to work until he paid you ten thousand dollars and made a public apology. Then, after a little trading, I’d settle for five thousand.”

She said, “Five seconds after you telephoned, I’d be out of a job.”

Leith gravely took a billfold from his pocket. From it he took ten one-hundred-dollar bills and placed them in a neat pile on the tablecloth. “I have one thousand dollars,” he announced, “which says that no such thing would happen.”

She stared at the money, then raised her eyes to his face. “You’re the strangest individual I’ve ever met.”

“At least that’s something,” Leith acknowledged. “In these days of widespread mediocrity, it’s something to be outstanding, even if one is given credit for a mild brand of insanity.”

“There’s nothing mild about it,” she retorted, laughing. “Are you really serious?”

By way of answer Leith caught the waiter’s eye. “Bring me a telephone.”

The waiter brought a telephone with a long extension cord and plugged it into a phone jack at the table. Lester Leith consulted his notebook and swiftly dialed a number.

Bernice Lamen watched him with apprehensive eyes.

“Hello,” Leith said. “I want to talk with Mr. Jason Bellview. Tell him it’s about his blueprints.”

During the interval which elapsed, while Leith was waiting for Jason Bellview to come on the line, Bernice Lamen said, “In about ten minutes I’m going to think this was the most madly insane impulse I ever had in my life. I’ll kick myself all around the block for not stopping you, but right now I’m curious and... and—”

A heavy masculine voice came over the wire, saying, “Yes, this is Bellview. What’s this about the blueprints?”

Lester Leith said suavely, “I wanted to talk with you about Miss Lamen.”

“What about her?”

Leith said, “You’ve damaged her character. You’ve accused her of a crime. You’ve forced her into submitting to a most humiliating experience. Now, you apparently think that—”

“Who’s this talking?” Bellview roared in a voice so loud that it seemed his words might rip the receiver apart.

“This is Lester Leith.”

“You a lawyer?”

“No,” Leith said. “I’m a friend. I’m hoping that it won’t be necessary...”

“Well, if you’re not a lawyer, what business is it of yours?”

Leith said, “I’m a financier.”

“A what?”

“A financier. I finance various business activities. At present I’m financing Miss Lamen in her claim against you. I’m hoping it isn’t going to be necessary to get a lawyer.”

“Get a hundred lawyers!” Bellview shouted.

“Very well,” Leigh said, “only kindly remember that I offered to make a reasonable settlement with you. Perhaps you’d better consult your own attorney and see what he has to say.”

“I refuse to pay blackmail!” Bellview said.

“Have it your own way,” Leith said. “Only remember, when your company gets involved in a hundred-thousand-dollar lawsuit and your lawyer tells you you haven’t a leg to stand on, you had a chance to settle the case out of court. And if the stockholders of the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company learn of it...”

“Say, wait a minute. I never turn down anything sight unseen. What’s your figure?”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“All right, it’s turned down. I feel better now. You couldn’t stick us for that much.”

“That’s what you think.”

Bellview said, “That’s what I know. Good-by.”

The sound made by the slamming receiver at the other end of the line was distinctly audible.

Bernice Lamen sighed. “I knew it,” she said.

Lester Leith picked up the ten one-hundred-dollar bills and slid them over under her saucer. “Remember, you’ve got these coming if it doesn’t work.”

“No. I can’t take the money — but we’re licked. He’s already reached his decision. It was a gamble, and we lost.”

Leith smiled. “Under those circumstances, we’d better have a little more spiced coffee. There’s no reason for you to go back to the office now.”

Tears came to her eyes. She blinked them back, laughed, and said, “Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.”

Leith said, “Well, don’t worry about it. Things are happening about the way I thought they would.”

“You mean you thought he’d turn you down?”

Leith nodded.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because he’ll think it over and call up his lawyer. After we’ve had another cup of coffee I’ll call him up again, and then you may hear a different story.”

They chatted over the second cup of coffee, had a brandy and Benedictine, and then Leith dialed Jason Bellview’s number again and got the crusty president of the instrument company on the line. This time Bellview’s voice was cautious. “Listen, Leith, perhaps you won’t have to go to a lawyer. The more I think of it, the more I think Miss Lamen is entitled to something — but ten thousand, of course, is out of the question.”

“She’ll want an apology,” Leith said, “delivered in front of the entire office force.”

Bellview hesitated for a minute.

“That might be arranged,” he conceded.

“And,” Leith went on, “she’ll want ten thousand dollars in cash.”

“Wait a minute,” Bellview said, and Leith heard the sounds of whispers at the other end of the line.

“We’ll offer twenty-five hundred,” Bellview said.

“Nothing doing,” Leith told him. “Ten or nothing. The minute I hang up I’m going to see my lawyer. Personally, I think she’s entitled to a real nice chunk of money. You—”

“Wait a minute,” Bellview said.

This time there was no attempt to disguise the whispering. Leith could even hear the hum of low-voiced conversation.

“You send Bernice Lamen up to my office,” Bellview instructed.

Leith laughed and said, “No chance. You don’t talk with her until you’ve agreed to pay ten thousand. Otherwise you talk with a lawyer.”

There was a momentary pause, then Leith heard Bellview mutter, apparently to some person standing beside him, “He says it’s ten or nothing. That’s too much. What do we do?”

The low voice made a suggestion, then Bellview said into the telephone, “I’ll put my cards on the table. My lawyer’s here. We’ve talked this thing over. You may have a lawsuit. You may not. We’ll pay five thousand as a cash settlement.”

Lester Leith smiled into the transmitter. “You’ve saved yourself a lawsuit,” he said.

“All right, tell Miss Lamen to come up here right away.”

Lester Leith dropped the receiver into place, reached across, and picked up the one thousand dollars from under Bernice Lamen’s saucer.

She looked up at him, her eyes large with incredulity. “You mean—”

Leith said, “You may not stand much chance, but with that face and figure, you should at least go to Hollywood and try for a screen test. A girl can do a lot on five thousand dollars.”

Captain Carmichael was enjoying a cigar and the sporting page of the morning newspaper when Sergeant Ackley, carrying a cardboard folder, entered the office.

“What is it this time?” Carmichael asked, frowning as he looked up.

Sergeant Ackley sat down on the other side of the captain’s desk. “This guy Leith,” he said disgustedly.

“What about him?”

“Beaver said he’d written a letter to me, and he thought it might be a good idea for me to know what was in the letter before Leith signed it and mailed it.”

Captain Carmichael’s eyes danced. “A confession?”

“You listen to it,” Sergeant Ackley said, “then you can tell me.”

Ackley turned back the pasteboard folder and read from a carbon copy of a letter:

My dear Sergeant: The original manuscripts of famous authors have at times commanded fabulous prices. It is, perhaps, conceited to think that my own efforts will some day be worth thousands of dollars to the discriminating collector. Yet, after all, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and other famous writers must have felt the same way when they regarded their manuscripts.

This story, my dear Sergeant, has been rejected by the publisher, which may make it even more valuable. In any event, I want you to have it as a token of friendship and as some slight measure of my appreciation for the zealous efforts you have made to enforce the law, even when my own convenience has been sacrificed to your zeal.

Sergeant Ackley looked up. “Now what,” he asked, “do you make of that?”

“Nothing,” Captain Carmichael said.

“That’s the way I feel about it, but he told Beaver the letter wasn’t to be mailed until tomorrow, so Beaver thought I might want to know about it today.”

“What’s the manuscript?” Carmichael asked.

“A bunch of tripe,” Ackley said.

“Did you read it?”

“Oh, I glanced through it.”

Captain Carmichael reached for the manuscript. “This is a carbon copy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How come?”

“He isn’t going to mail this letter until tomorrow, you see, and he has the original story with him.”

Captain Carmichael frowningly regarded the carbon copy. “He must have some reason for sending it to you.”

“Just wants to give me the old razzberry.”

Captain Carmichael frowned at the end of his cigar. “Don’t be too certain, Sergeant. You know Leith may have intended to grab off the swag and then give you a tip to the crook.”

“Why should he do that?”

“Well, you know this crime is a little different from the other crimes we’ve worked on. This is getting pretty close to treason, and I don’t think Leith would care very much about shielding a traitor.”

“All he cares about is getting the swag.”

“And you’ve read through this?” Carmichael asked.

Sergeant Ackley fished a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and nodded.

Carmichael turned rapidly through the pages. Suddenly he said, “Wait a minute. What’s this?”

“Where?” Ackley asked.

“On page five,” Carmichael said. “Listen to this:

“It isn’t every place that would be suitable as a hiding place for a set of blueprints. It would take a long, hollow tube, and such a tube would be hard to conceal.”

“Well,” Ackley snorted, “what’s significant about that?”

Captain Carmichael’s face showed his excitement. “Wait a minute!” he exclaimed. “That’s just paving the way for the next paragraph. Listen to this:

“As soon as the actress I had employed started screaming for the police, I noticed a man pick up a shotgun. This man was in the offices of the Precision instrument Company, standing in the doorway of an office which adjoined that containing the vault. A shotgun. How interesting!”

Captain Carmichael looked up. “Well, don’t you get it?”

“Get what?” Sergeant Ackley said.

“The shotgun!” Carmichael shouted.

Sergeant Ackley said, “We know all about that. Frank Packerson, the editor of the Pidico house organ, had been trap-shooting, and—”

“Are there some photographs that go with this?” Carmichael asked.

“The same ones you saw. They don’t mean anything.”

“The shotgun!” Captain Carmichael shouted. “Don’t you get it, you fool? The shotgun!”

“What about it?”

Captain Carmichael pushed back his chair. His voice showed that he was making an effort to keep his temper. “Tomorrow Lester Leith wanted you to read this manuscript. You’re reading it just twenty-four hours early. In this manuscript Leith intended to show you how to get the man who had stolen those blueprints. By that time Leith intended to have the blueprints and have covered his tracks so you could never get anything on him. By virtue of some nice brainwork on the part of Beaver, you get this stuff twenty-four hours early — and haven’t sense enough to know what it means.”

Sergeant Ackley’s face became a shade darker. “Well,” he demanded, “what does it mean?”

Captain Carmichael got to his feet. “Get a squad car,” he said, “and I’ll show you.”

Frank Packerson clicked on the interoffice loudspeaker. The reception clerk announced, “Two gentlemen from headquarters.”

Packerson smiled. “Show them in.”

Captain Carmichael did the talking. “We’re working on that blueprint case, Packerson. The thief must have had some unusual hiding place prepared in advance. All he needed was a second or two to slip the blueprints out of the vault and into this hiding place.

“In other words,” Carmichael went on, “the theory we’re working on now is that the thief had some hiding place so carefully prepared that, while it was instantly available, no one would ever have thought to look there. A hiding place where he could push the blueprints — a long, smooth, slender tube. After that, the tube could be taken out of the building without arousing suspicion.”

Packerson wasn’t smiling now.

“A man could be holding a shotgun in his hands,” Captain Carmichael went on, “standing right in front of the safe, asserting that he was looking for a thief, and people would naturally regard the shotgun as a weapon — not as a hiding place!”

Packerson’s face was flushed. Little beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. He cleared his throat and said, “I don’t know what you’re insinuating, Captain. In my case, it happens that I had a gun. Naturally, when I was aroused by someone shouting for the police, I grabbed the gun. Are you insinuating...”

“That you shoved the blueprints down the barrel,” Captain Carmichael said.

“No, no! I swear that I didn’t, absolutely not!”

Captain Carmichael was insistent. “Yes, you did, Packerson. You grabbed your gun and stood right by the vault, holding it in your hands. Everyone thought you were standing there, protecting the property of the company. No one realized that you yourself—”

“I tell you, I didn’t. I...”

Captain Carmichael got up. “Let’s take a look at your gun, Packerson.”

Packerson pushed back his chair, grabbed the gun which was reposing behind his desk. “No,” he asserted. “That gun is my private property. You can’t look at it unless you have a search warrant.”

Sergeant Ackley moved belligerently forward.

Packerson jumped back and raised the gun as though to swing it as a weapon. “Keep away from me,” he shouted, “or I’ll cave in your skull—”

He ceased talking abruptly as his eyes came to focus on the small black hole which was the business end of Captain Carmichael’s revolver.

“Stick ’em up,” Carmichael said.

Packerson hesitated for a moment, then dropped the gun. His knees buckled.

“You got the blueprints in there now?” Captain Carmichael asked.

Packerson shook his head. “The money for them,” he said.

Carmichael exchanged a significant glance with Sergeant Ackley. “Who gave you the money, Packerson?”

“Gilbert, the furrier.”

“He planned the whole thing?” Carmichael asked.

“Him and Fanny Gillmeyer. There really wasn’t any customer. Fanny kept watching the offices over here. When she saw the coast was clear so that I could dash into the vault, grab the blueprints, and get out before anyone noticed what I was doing, she tossed the cape out of the window and started yelling for the police. I had just time to grab the shotgun, jump into the vault, push the blueprints down the barrel, and then stand with the gun at my shoulder.”

“Where arc the blueprints now?”

“I gave them to Gilbert. I walked out last night carrying my trap gun, and walked right past the guard.”

Captain Carmichael frowned. “Then you brought the gun back again today?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see?” Packerson said. “I got thirty thousand dollars for those blueprints. The money’s in fifty-dollar bills. I didn’t dare leave that money in my room, and I didn’t dare keep it in my possession. So I rolled the bills into packages that would just fit the gun barrel and shoved them in the barrel of the gun. In that way I could keep the money with me all the time. In case anyone began to suspect me and I had to take it on the lam, I was all ready for a getaway.”

Carmichael gave a low whistle. “So there’s thirty thousand dollars in that gun?”

Packerson nodded.

Carmichael walked around the desk, stooped down, picked up the gun, and broke the barrel open.

It was Sergeant Ackley who blurted out, “There’s no money in here now.”

Captain Carmichael kicked Ackley’s shins. Packerson jumped to his feet. “No money in there!” He grabbed at the gun, stared at it with startled eyes, and said, “But that’s not my gun!”

Captain Carmichael nudged Sergeant Ackley in the ribs.

“It’s not my gun,” Packerson repeated. “It’s the same make and the same model, but my gun had a scratch and...” His voice trailed away.

“Well, go on,” Sergeant Ackley said.

A crafty smile came over Packerson’s face. “Ha, ha,” he said. “That’s a great joke on you.”

“What is?” Ackley asked.

“Of course it’s my gun,” Packerson said. “I never saw the blueprints, but since you birds thought you were such good detectives, I thought I’d kid you along for a while.”

Captain Carmichael said, “A quick thinker, aren’t you, Packerson?”

Sergeant Ackley turned to the captain with a puzzled frown. “I don’t get it at all, Cap,” he said.

Captain Carmichael pulled handcuffs from his hip pocket. “If,” he announced, “you’d kept your big mouth shut about the money not being there, we’d have had a complete confession. As it is, we can still get those blueprints if we get after Gilbert and that clerk of his right away. As far as the money is concerned — well, we can still get that, if we work fast enough, thanks to the fact that you got your manuscript twenty-four hours in advance. Now do you get it, dumb head?”

Sergeant Ackley was staring at Captain Carmichael with eves that seemed unable to focus. “You mean — Lester Leith — been here — changed guns...”

“Exactly,” Captain Carmichael said. “Now, come on, first to Gilbert’s...”

Bernice Lamen lingered over her last drink with Lester Leith. Her eves, as she raised them to regard his profile, were warm with appreciation. “I don’t know,” she said, “how I can ever thank you. I—”

One of the busboys, who had been standing near the window, approached the table and bent deferentially above Lester Leith. “Excuse me,” he interrupted, “but is your car number XL552?”

Leith’s eyes narrowed. “That’s my license number,” he admitted.

“I think you’ve violated a parking ordinance. I’ve noticed a couple of cops looking it over, and now they’re sitting in a squad car just outside the door, apparently waiting for you to come back to the car.”

Lester Leith absently fished a roll of bills from his pocket, peeled off a ten-dollar bill, and pushed it into the busboy’s hand. “Thanks very much,” he said. “I tore up a couple of traffic tickets. I guess they’ve caught up with me. By the way, could you get me about a hundred of these paper cocktail napkins?”

The busboy stared at the bill. “Gee, mister, thanks. Paper napkins? Gosh, yes, I should say so.”

Lester Leith turned to his feminine companion. “On second thought,” he said, “I think it would be better for you to have your talk with Jason Bellview without me being there. Now, I’m going to leave the restaurant in a few minutes, and you’d better wait ten or fifteen minutes before you go out, then take a taxicab to Bellview’s office.”

The busboy brought a huge stack of small paper cocktail napkins.

“My gun,” Lester Leith explained, “needs cleaning. I wonder if I could step out in the kitchen to run some napkins through it?”

“Why, certainly, but you don’t need to use napkins. I can get you a rag and—”

“No,” Leith said. “Napkins really work better.” He got to his feet and bowed to Bernice Lamen.

Puzzled, she saw him follow the busboy in the direction of the kitchen, nor was she greatly surprised when he failed to return. She waited a full fifteen minutes, then started for the door.

“Wait a minute,” the busboy said. “He’s forgotten one of his guns.”

“Oh, that’s right, he did. He’s gone?”

“Yes. Out through the kitchen door into the alley.”

Bernice Lamen smiled brightly. “Under those circumstances, you’d better keep this gun here — until he calls for it later.”

Sergeant Ackley, sitting in the squad car, suddenly grabbed Captain Carmichael’s arm. “By George, here he comes down that side street. And he’s got the gun with him.”

“Take it easy now, Sergeant,” Captain Carmichael said. “Don’t tip our hand until we know we’re right.”

Lester Leith, a gun case swung over his shoulder, a briefcase in his hand, walked up to his car and slid in behind the wheel.

Captain Carmichael said, “Okay, Sergeant, do your stuff, but don’t make the arrest unless you’re certain you’ve caught him red-handed.”

Sergeant Ackley nodded, slid out of the squad car, and started back toward Leith’s automobile.

Lester Leith was just pressing his foot on the starter when Sergeant Ackley tapped him on the shoulder.

Leith looked up. His face showed incredulous surprise. “You!” he said.

Sergeant Ackley’s grin was triumphant. “Just checking up on stolen shotguns, Leith,” he said. “That shotgun in the case is yours all right?”

Leith hesitated perceptibly.

“I’ll just take a look at it,” Sergeant Ackley said.

He pulled the gun case out through the window, unfastened the end of the gun case, pulled out the barrels, and held them to the light. The left-hand barrel shone with a clear, smooth polish. The right-hand barrel was choked up with rolled papers.

Sergeant Ackley’s grin was triumphant. He tossed the gun into the back of the car. “Come on, Leith,” he said. “You’re going to headquarters.”

Leith said, “I don’t get you.”

“No. But I’ve got you,” Sergeant Ackley gloated. “It’s been a long lane, but this is where the turn comes. Drive to headquarters, or I’ll put the nippers on you and call the wagon.”

Without a word Leith started the car and drove to headquarters. Following along behind, Captain Carmichael guarded against any break for escape.

In front of the desk sergeant, Ackley permitted himself a bit of gloating. “All right, boys,” he said, “I’ll show you a little shrewd deduction. Give me something I can push down the barrel of this shotgun, and I’ll show you a little parlor magic.”

“Cut the comedy,” Captain Carmichael said.

But Sergeant Ackley couldn’t resist an opportunity for glory. “Notice,” he said as one of the officers handed him a wooden dowel, “that I have nothing in either hand and nothing up my sleeve. I push this wooden dowel through the left barrel of the shotgun, and nothing happens. Now then, I push it through the right barrel, and you’ll see thirty thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills come showering out on the floor.”

Ackley pushed hard with the improvised ramrod.

There was a period of surprised silence; then a gale of laughter ran around the room as a shower of paper cocktail napkins burst from the barrel of the shotgun.

“A new scheme,” Leith said urbanely. “Someone told me it would keep a barrel from rusting. I decided to use paper in the right barrel and nothing in the left, put the gun away for six months, and see which barrel was in better condition. I’m sorry, Sergeant, but you’ve destroyed my experiment.”

Captain Carmichael took Sergeant Ackley’s arm. “Come on,” he said.

Lester Leith said to the desk sergeant, “I really didn’t steal those cocktail napkins. They were given to me.”

Captain Carmichael rushed Sergeant Ackley outside.

“Blast it, Sergeant, I told you that the big danger about using the Chinese method of fishing was that you had to keep a rope tied tightly around the bird’s neck.”

Sergeant Ackley said, “Gosh, Captain, I’d like to get one of those pelican birds for that lake up in—”

“It wouldn’t do you any good,” Captain Carmichael snapped. “You wouldn’t know how to tie up a bird’s neck so he couldn’t swallow the fish.”

Content

Гарднер Эрл Стенли Something Like a Pelican

Erle Stanley Gardner Something Like a Pelican