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.”