The girl shot me a glance once, a glance filled with amusement. I guess she could read my thoughts after a fashion. It sure was a devil of a note for Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook, to be sitting there in the drawing-room of the Chadwick home, sipping chocolate and acting as though I liked it. If that kid thought she could read my mind, though, she was as crazy as a bald-headed Esquimo. I knew what was ahead of me from midnight on. No one else did.
At length the evening drew to a close. Mother excused herself after a while and left us alone. Bobo made himself at home in front of the fire and the girl and I swapped a little talk in a low tone. I got up to go and she came to the door with me.
In the hall I felt her warm bare arms go around my neck.
“Thanks, Ed,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek.
It had been one hell of a while since any jane that amounted to anything had done that. I thrilled at the strangeness of it. She was one game little scout.
Hang these flappers, anyway. They’re always doing things contrary to schedule. You think they’re all froth, daring clothes, modem slush and selfishness, and all of a sudden they show some depth of feeling that makes a man feel as though he’s in the presence of something sacred.
I shook of the mushy feeling as I stepped on the throttle and roared into the fog. I had work ahead. A lot was going to depend on Ed Jenkins, and I didn’t propose to fall down on the job. For once I was going to cut loose, throw my immunity to the winds and smash the California Penal Code all to hell.
I drove to a storage plant and got out a light trunk that had been accumulating dust for a spell. I had some new dry batteries in my car.
From the storage place I went out to Loring Kemper’s and left the car parked in a dark side street. The registration of that car, by the way, had been handled by an expert. Anyone who could have deduced anything from it was welcome.
I strapped a bulky object on my back and started in, slipping through the shadows, Bobo at my heels, his ears shot forward, tail erect and rigid, every sense alert, guarding me against surprises with his keen senses, ten times better than a bodyguard of five scouts could have done.
The Kemper house was dark, the grounds covered with deep gloom and silence. I knew there was a watchman from the way Bobo acted. Spotting him before he spotted me was my job. Finally it was a pipe that did it. I can smell a pipe for a mile, and when he lit up, I didn’t have much difficulty in locating him.
He was one of the sort who are faithful plodders and considered his job more or less one of routine detail.
After he got planted for a quiet smoke I managed to handle a back window so that no one was the wiser. I picked a low one because I wanted Bobo in with me, and I went about it carefully because I suspected a burglar alarm of some sort. There wasn’t any. Apparently Kemper trusted to his honest watchman.
Once within the huge house I had to go easy. The gleam of a flashlight on one of the windows would show to the watchman outside. A single stumble would prove my undoing. I worked cautiously in rubber-soled shoes, giving an occasional flash from my shielded light in a doubtful place. I worked for an hour and a half before I found the safe. When I located the combined study and den I figured I was close to it, but I had to go over every inch of the walls before I found it.
I guess I was about the first to work out a radio amplifying apparatus for opening safes. The construction of it is nobody’s business, but it works. When I connect up that box and get the tubes in my ears the whirring of the lock mechanism as I twirl the combination sounds like a packet of firecrackers. The click of a tumbler sounds like the explosion of a cannon.
As I’d come to the proper point by sound alone, I’d put the flashlight on long enough to get the number on the combination. When I got through I had the combination of one of the finest private safes I’ve seen in a long while.
The inner, steel door I had to pick, but I can do anything with a lock anybody else in the business can, and that’s saying a lot.
The private papers and all that I passed up without even a look. There were some gem cases in there that looked like miscellaneous odds and ends, and I let them go. It was the big, worn jewel case that interested me. I opened it, turned the beam of the light on what lay within, and then gasped. I’m used to jewels, particularly other people’s, but I had to catch my breath at what was in that case. There was a sparkle of fire that flared up into my face and seemed to even sear my brain. The light from the flash was magnified a thousand percent, split up into a million rays that flashed and glittered, and from deep within seemed to be a great pool of limpid, liquid fire. I didn’t know the name of the gem, but it sure was one of those that had a name, a name and a history.
I stuck it in my pocket, closed the safe, and cautiously worked my way out of the house. Getting out of the grounds without being detected was more simple, but a trifle tedious. The cool of the night that comes just before dawn was making the watchman uneasy and cold, and he was tramping about, taking deep breaths, keeping his spirits up and peering sharply about. However, we made it all right.
I sent the dog ahead to scout around the car, and he reported the coast clear by returning with wagging tail. He seemed to know that we’d pulled a coup. I drove home, concealed the apparatus where it would be safe for the time being, shaved, bathed, and went out for breakfast.
At nine o’clock I walked in on my jeweler friend.
“Hello, Jenkins. Are you back for some more information?” he grinned. “Because you’re out of luck. I came to the conclusion I’d talked too blamed much the other time. Don’t know what possessed me to spread out and give you so much information.”
I sat down.
“I don’t want any information. I want service. I want a fair imitation made of a gem, and I want it quick.”
He looked at me speculatively.
“A large gem?”
I nodded.
“A particularly large gem?”
Again I nodded.
He sighed. “Jenkins, you have a diabolically clever method of getting information. I’ve told you too much now. I’ll make you an imitation of the gem provided you have the gem to copy from, and not otherwise. In other words I won’t make you a copy of any gem that is described in catalogues of collections, but only of some particular gem that you have in your possession.”
“That’s fair,” I told him; “and I can get men started on it right away?”
“Provided you have the gem,” he said with a smile.
I flipped the gem case on the table.
“All right, then. Make me a copy of the gem that’s in there, and I don’t care if it’s a rough job. I must have it quick.”
He gasped when he saw the case, opened it, and his jaw began to sag. The breath went out of him like a punctured tire.
“Ed, for God’s sake, man, do you know what you have… Why… why… that’s the one we sold Kemper. That’s the… My God, man, there’ll be a commotion over this.”
I shook my head.
“There won’t be if your men get busy and rush me a copy.”
He got a little of his composure back and studied his finger-nails intently for a few seconds.
“Look here, Ed. Are you stealing that?”
I got sore at all the conversation.
“Stealing is the present participle,” I came back. “If there was anything wrong about the method by which it came into my possession you’d better use the verb ‘have stole.’ Now can this damned highbrow chatter and get me started with a little service or there’s likely to be some fireworks that I don’t want to go off just yet.”
He sighed, rang for his secretary, asked her to have a certain man step in, and then sat waiting, drumming on his desk.