You couldn’t really blame the chief, of course. Off and on, for years, Uncle George had given the police force of Willow Grove a fair amount of trouble.
But as soon as Uncle George had a chance to look around and realize where he was, he grabbed up a stool and beat upon the bars, yelling that the dirty fuzz had framed him once again and declaring very loudly that his constitutional rights as a free and upright citizen were being trampled on. «I know my rights,» he yelled. «You owe me at least one phone call and when I get out of here I’m going to sue all of you on the grounds of false arrest.»
So they unlocked the cell and let him make his call. As usual he made the call to me.
«Who is it?» Elsie asked, sitting up in bed.
«It’s your Uncle George,» I said.
«I knew it!» she exclaimed. «Aunt Myrt is off to California to visit relatives. And he’s running loose again.»
«All right,» I said to George, «what could it be this time?»
«You needn’t take that tone of voice, John,» he said. «It’s only once or twice a year I call you. And what’s the use of having a lawyer in the family …»
«You can skip that part of it,» I told him, «and get down to what is going on.»
«This time,» he said, triumphantly, «I got them dead to rights. This time you get paid off. I’ll split the judgment with you. I wasn’t doing nothing. I was walking down the street when the fuzz pulled up and hauled me in. I wasn’t staggering and I wasn’t singing. I was creating no disturbance. I tell you, John, a man has the right to walk the streets, no matter at what hour …»
«I’ll be right down,» I said.
«Don’t be too long,» said Elsie, «You have a hard day coming up in the court.»
«Are you kidding?» I asked. «With Uncle George, the day’s already lost.»
When I got down to the station, they all were waiting for me. George was sitting beside a table, and on the table stood the pail of diamonds with the junk they’d taken from his pockets and the painting was leaning up against it. The police chief had gotten there, just a few minutes ahead of me.
«Okay,» I said, «let’s get down to business. What’s the charge?»
The chief still was pretty sore. «We don’t need no charge right yet.»
«I’ll tell you, Chet,» I said, «you’ll need one badly before the day is over, so you better start to thinking.»
«I’m going to wait,» said Chet, «to see what Charley says.»
He meant Charley Nevins, the county attorney.
«All right, then,» I said, «if there is no charge as yet, what are the circumstances?»
«Well,» said the chief, «George here was carrying a pail of diamonds. And you tell me just how he came by a pail of diamonds.»
«Maybe they aren’t diamonds,» I suggested. «How come you’re so sure that they are diamonds?»
«Soon as he opens up, we’ll get Harry in to have a look at them.»
Harry was the jeweler, who had a shop across the square.
I went over to the table and picked up some of the diamonds. They surely looked like diamonds, but I am no jeweler. They were cut and faceted and shot fire in the light. Some of them were bigger than my fist.
«Even if they should be diamonds,» I demanded, «what has that to do with it? There’s no law I know of says a man can’t carry diamonds.»
«That’s telling them!» cheered George.
«You shut up,» I told him, «and keep out of this. Let me handle it.»
«But George here hasn’t got no diamonds,» said the chief. «These must be stolen diamonds.»
«Are you charging him with theft?» I asked.
«Well, not right now,» said the chief. «I ain’t got no evidence as yet.»
«And there’s that painting, too,» said Alvin Saunders. «It looks to me just like one of them old masters.»
«There’s one thing,» I told them, «that puzzles me exceedingly. Would you tell me where, in Willow Grove, anyone bent on thievery could find an old master or a pail of diamonds?»
That stopped them, of course. There isn’t anyone in Willow Grove who has an honest-to-God painting except Banker Amos Stevens, who brought one back from a visit to Chicago; and knowing as little as he does about the world of art he was probably taken.
«You’ll have to admit, though,» said the chief, «there’s something funny going on.»
«Maybe so,» I said, «but I doubt that that alone is sufficient ground to hold a man in jail.»
«It ain’t the diamonds or the painting so much as this other stuff,» declared the chief, «that makes me think there are shenanigans afoot. Look at this, will you!»
He picked up a gadget from the table and held it out to me.
«Watch out,» he warned. «One end of it’s hot, and the other end is cold.»
It was about a foot in length and shaped something like an hourglass. The hourglass part of it was some sort of transparent plastic, pinched in at the middle and flaring at both ends, and the ends were open. Through the center of it ran a rod that looked like metal. One end of the metal glowed redly, and when I held my hand down opposite the open end a blast of heat came out. The other end was white, covered by crystals. I turned it around to look.
«Keep away from it,» warned the chief. «That end of it is colder than a witch’s spit. Them’s big ice crystals hanging onto it.»
I laid it back upon the table, carefully.
«Well,» the chief demanded, «what do you make of it?»
«I don’t know,» I said.
I never took any more physics in school than had been necessary and I’d long since forgotten all I’d ever known about it. But I knew damn well that the gadget on the table was impossible. But impossible or not, there it was, one end of the rod glowing with its heat, the other frosted by its cold.
«And this,» said the chief, picking up a little triangle formed by a thin rod of metal or of plastic. «What do you think of this?»
«What should I think of it?» I asked. «It’s just …»
«Stick your finger through it,» said the police chief triumphantly.
I tried to stick my finger through it and I couldn’t. There was nothing there to stop me. My finger didn’t hit anything, there was no pressure on it and I couldn’t feel a thing, but I couldn’t put my finger through the center of that triangle. It was as if I’d hit a solid wall that I couldn’t see or feel.
«Let me see that thing,» I said.
The chief handed it to me, and I held it up to the ceiling light and I twisted it and turned it, and so help me, there wasn’t anything there. I could see right through it and I could see there was nothing there, but when I tried to put my finger through the center, there was something there to stop it.
I laid it back on the table beside the hourglass thing.
«You want to see more?» asked the chief.
I shook my head. «I’ll grant you, Chet, that I don’t know what this is all about, but I don’t see a thing here that justifies you in holding George.»
«I’m holding him,» said the chief, «until I can talk to Charley.»
«You know, of course, that as soon as court opens, I’ll be back here with an order for his release.»
«I know that, John,» said the chief. «You’re a real good lawyer. But I can’t let him go.»
«If that’s the case,» I said, «I want a signed inventory of all this stuff you took off of him, and then I want you to lock it up.»
«But …»
«Theoretically,» I said, «it’s George’s property …»
«It couldn’t be. You know it couldn’t, John. Where would he have gotten …»