“Hello, Hobart,” the detective greeted him guilelessly. “How you coming along? Where’s Foster, upstairs? We just picked up a suspicious character that was seen roaming around this vicinity two days ago.” He went out again to the foot of the stairs, called his fellow worker down.
Hobart had only to lift his hand from the table. The stamp, still damp, adhered to his palm. He thrust his hand into his side pocket, and when he brought his hand out again it was empty.
Foster’s voice was raised, outside in the hall, in argument with his teammate. “You’re crazy! Harding would never have let anyone of that description into the house in the first place, and if he had gotten in he would have swiped everything he could lay his hands on, you bet.... All right, I’ll go down and question him, but you’re way off on the wrong track, I tell you!”
Hobart went ahead with his work, eyelids discreetly veiled.
By eleven-thirty he had reached Zanzibar, the last country in any collector’s album, and as he straightened in his chair with a sigh, Foster and the other dick came back. They were still arguing as they reentered the room, but apparently Foster had been vindicated by the results of their questioning. “See, I told you he’d be a false alarm!” he was saving. “Why, he’s just a stumblebum. The flophouse keeper himself told me he was in a two-bit bed that whole evening from nine o’clock on! How you making out, Mr. Hobart?”
“Just got through now,” Hobart told him, cushioning his hands comfortably behind his head, “and I can give this collection a clean bill of health. There’s nothing missing, according to the check system he used in his catalogue. Not the cheapest two-cents-red American variety.”
The news was understandably not welcome. Foster’s face sagged. “Now where are we?” he asked dismally, turning to confront his partner. “The stamps are out of it, and that was the only angle that promised a ghost of a possibility.”
“There’s still a chance that it was a stamp fiend,” offered Broderick by way of half-hearted consolation, “but he was frightened away by something and didn’t finish casing the collection for what he wanted.”
Hobart was about to say, “How long does it take to lift a stamp out of one of these books, if you know what you want?” but changed his mind prudently. “I’m going home,” he said instead. “It’s been a strenuous evening’s work.”
He made the trip back, in the detective’s car, with no more sense of guilt or strain than if he hadn’t had a $150,000 stamp in his pocket. At his own door he waved aside the dick’s renewed thanks with an airy, “It was an interesting experience! Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
He stood there outside his door with his latchkey in his hand until the sound of Foster’s car had dwindled away in the direction of downtown. He smiled derisively after it, and murmured something that sounded like, “Great detective! He’s taking money under false pretenses!”
In his den he turned on the light and closed the door. He opened the safe, took out his own album, and opened it to the Cape of Good Hope page. Then he took the priceless triangular out of his pocket, touched it to his lips, held it up for a moment toward the light with a smug expression. Finally he affixed a hinge to it, placed it where he had taken the counterfeit from.
Just as he was about to return the book to the safe, however, some faint sound from outside came to his ear. He crossed swiftly to the door, almost jumped at it, flung it open. The servant was standing out there, one foot out behind him, trying to appear as though he had just come up the hall to knock. Hobart received a distinct impression, however, that he had been crouched down on his heels for some time past watching him through the keyhole.
He could feel his face whiten, and tried to steady it. “I thought you’d gone to bed!” he yelled. “What’re you doing out here at this hour, spying on me?”
“No sir,” said the man submissively. “I only wanted to ask you if I should lock up yet.”
“You ought to know that without having to ask!” He slammed the door, nearly striking the man in the face with it. He went back and finished putting away his collection. He was shaking a little — and not altogether from exasperation, although he felt plenty of that.
He swore through clenched teeth. “He had to catch me just at that particular moment! That’s the only slip-up I’ve made throughout the whole business!” But then, he consoled himself, the spying servant had no way of knowing what it was, at that distance, nor where it had come from, nor how it had been obtained.
He didn’t give the man as much credit as he deserved. For at that very moment, locking up and putting out lights in another part of the house, his hostile employe was grimacing knowingly: “Swiped it, eh? I can tell that by the look he had on his face. It’s always the ones that mistrusts others that turns out to be crooked themselves. I’m biding my time. I’ve got something now, but I’m biding my time with it. He thinks he’s a tough guy, does he? Well, when I get the chance I’m going to show him I can be tougher.”
V
One week went by from the night Hobart had completed his specialized “assistance” to the police investigation of Aaron Harding’s murder. During that time the inquiry seemed to get no further. An item in one of the papers told him that Mrs. Adams had returned to Chicago. She intended to return later to dispose of the house after the case had been finally closed. There was no other mention of the matter. It had been a “quiet” sort of murder, in one sense — had not excited much public interest, so the editors made no attempt to keep it alive. Hobart certainly had no further reason to be particularly concerned with it. He had not committed it; he had not even known the murdered man. It was none of his business. He had not seen or heard from Foster or the others in the interval, either.
Exactly one week to the day after his last visit to the Harding house, his office secretary announced: “There’s a Mr. Lindquist out here to see you.”
He couldn’t recall the name offhand as belonging to any of his clients, but there was no sense hi turning away a new account.
A short little man with an extremely ruddy, cherubic face and a pointed white goatee, came bustling in. He vaguely suggested a French cabinet minister, with his cutaway coat and glasses on a heavy black cord.
“I couldn’t resist combining pleasure with business!” was his greeting. Then, at the uncertain look on Hobart’s face: “I see you can’t place me. Well, that’s not to be wondered at. You’ve been dealing with us for years but I seldom attend to our correspondence personally. I’m Helmer Lindquist, president of the Lindquist Stamp Exchange of New York.”
Hobart smiled with his eyes, but the lower part of his face tightened a little — why, he could not have told. They shook hands.
“So you’re the man that’s been getting all my hard-earned money!” he said jocularly. “Sit down.” Hobart offered a cigarette. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
“I came out to do a little buying,” beamed the pigeon-like little man.
Hobart’s jawline wouldn’t relax, much as he tried to ease it. “You came out here from New York to do some buying? It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it?”
“But this is a special opportunity not likely to occur again, what the French call a bon marché.” He glanced at Hobart coyly, as though debating whether or not to tell him any more. “I know I shouldn’t tip my hand like this. I’m not forgetting you’re a collector yourself. However, I represent a corporation, and you’re probably not in a position to pay one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a single stamp, so there’s no harm in—”