“I don’t blame you,” he said.
Her next sigh was almost a groan.
“And your wallet,” she said. “It sure feels fat.”
She passed over his wallet.
“Take that after the watch?” asked Lester Leith with a note of respect in his voice.
“Naw,” she said. “I took that while you was talking with the bail clerk, right after you put up the six grand... listen, guy, you ain’t lost nothing but a thousand bucks, that’s what the department store took to square up the charge account. The rest of the money is simply bail, and they can’t make that shoplifting charge stick. They can’t identify the goods. I’ll stick right around and demand trial, and they’ll dismiss the case. Then your five grand comes back.”
Lester Leith muttered another word of thanks.
“And if you let me work that hotel we’re goin’ to, I’ll have your thousand back for you inside of a couple of weeks.”
Lester Leith shook his head.
“No, Bessie. While you’re with me, your play is to be the sad, penitent kleptomaniac who is taking treatments from a psychiatrist, having, however, occasional symptoms.”
“Okay,” she said. “You shoot square with me and I’ll shoot square with you.”
The cab drew up in front of the Palace Hotel.
Lester Leith assisted the girl to the ground. He indicated three bags to the doorman and stalked into the lobby. The clerk bowed obsequiously, spun the register, and handed him the desk pen.
“I believe,” said Lester Leith, with dignity, “that you have a reservation for me?”
“Yes?” asked the clerk. “What was it?”
“The name,” said Lester Leith, “is Frank Millsap. I wired about rooms. I was to have 407 reserved for me, and 405 for a friend of mine.”
And Lester Leith scrawled a signature across the hotel register.
Frank Millsap, he wrote.
Had he slapped the clerk in the face with a wet towel, that individual could not have shown greater astonishment or dismay.
“Mill... Millsap... Frank Millsap... 405!” he stammered.
“Yes,” snapped Lester Leith, “Millsap, and I fail to see any reason for excitement or comment. I made the reservation over the telephone several days ago.”
The clerk took a deep breath, gripped the sides of the counter.
“But Mr. Cogley came here...”
“Mister Cogley!” snapped Lester Leith. “Who the devil said anything about a Mister Cogley? The room was reserved for Miss Cogley, my niece. And I want to warn you that she’s suffering from a certain type of nervous disorder and any commotion is quite likely to raise the devil with her nerves. Now get busy and assign us to those rooms.”
The clerk was gaping.
“You mean to say...”
“I mean to say,” snapped Lester Leith, “that I have come here to secure treatment for my niece, that she’s highly nervous, and that I wanted rooms on the fourth floor because she prefers the fourth floor, and that I wanted rooms back from the street to be away from the noise. I secured the assurance of the manager that 405 and 407 would be reserved, and I want those rooms.”
The clerk nodded.
“Just one moment,” he said. “I’ll have to consult the manager!”
“Very well. Consult him then!” said Lester Leith. “While you’re doing that I’ll bring in the rest of my baggage, a very valuable bloodhound-canary, and I don’t want him subjected to any undue jar or noise. He’s very delicate. In fact, I’ll carry the cage myself!”
He stalked to the door, where a second taxicab had drawn up to the curb. Inside that cab was an enormous cage tightly covered with a black cloth which had been tailored to fit over the bars like a glove.
Lester Leith pushed aside the curious doorman, the eager bellboys, gently lifted the big cage from the cab, raised it to his shoulder, carried it into the hotel.
From the interior of the cage came the sound of little fluttering noises.
Sergeant Arthur Ackley, bull-necked, grim-jawed, sat at the battered desk at headquarters which had been the scene of many a stormy interview.
The side of the desk bore scratches from the nails of police shoes, where they had been elevated from time to time in moments of relaxation.
The surface was grooved with various charred lines, marking the places where cigarettes had been parked and forgotten.
Across this desk, facing the sergeant, was Edward H. Beaver, the man who worked under cover as valet for Lester Leith, and upon whom Leith had bestowed the nickname of Scuttle.
“I know a canary has got something to do with it,” Beaver was saying. “It sounds goofy, and it is goofy. A bloodhound-canary! But when you stop to think it over, it ain’t so goofy after all. He’s always getting some fool thing that don’t make sense, and then using it to...”
He broke off as the telephone shrilled its summons.
Sergeant Ackley grunted in the process of leaning over the desk, then scooped the telephone to him. He twisted the cigar to one side of his mouth, sighed wearily.
“Yeah,” he growled.
The receiver rattled like a tin can tied to the tail of a fleeing dog. Sergeant Ackley gradually hitched himself bolt upright. His eyes popped wide open.
“Huh?” he said.
The receiver rattled again.
Sergeant Ackley cleared his throat and by a conscious effort tightened his lips.
“Okay. Now get this straight. Play right into his hands. Let him get away with it, with anything. And rush ten of the boys right down there. Let ’em register as guests. Stick a dick on the elevator. Put one of our men at the desk. But keep the whole thing under cover. Don’t let him think there’s a plainclothesman in the place. Get me? Let him think he ain’t tailed.
“But keep a watch on his door, and keep a watch on that fire escape. Don’t let him make a move that ain’t reported. And if he ever tries to leave that hotel, have one of the boys pretend to be a sucker from the sticks that’s had his pockets picked. See?
“Let him make a squawk and there’ll be a man in uniform always within call. Let them hang the pickpocket rap on Leith for a hurry-up search. Get me? This is once I ain’t taking no chances. Now get busy!”
Sergeant Ackley slammed the receiver back on the hook, banged the telephone down on the desk, and glowered at his undercover man.
“The crust of the damned fool!” he exploded.
“What’s he done now?” asked Beaver.
“Gone to the Palace Hotel and claimed he was the Frank Millsap that telephoned in the reservation for Millsap and Cogley, and that the woman he’s got with him is his niece.”
Beaver wet his lips.
“You mean the kleptomaniac?”
“That’s the baby. He put up the bail and squared the department store charge account for a thousand bucks, cash money. Then he shows up at the hotel and says her name’s Cogley and that she’s suffering from a nervous trouble. The clerk stalled him along while he telephoned in, and now I’m going to get enough men on the job to cover the case right. I ain’t going to let that damned, supercilious, smirking...”
Beaver interrupted.
“Has he got the canary?” he asked.
“He sure has! He’s got the thing all wrapped up in a cage that’s big enough for an eagle.”
Beaver furrowed his brows.
“What the devil does he want with a canary? And why does he insist it’s a ‘bloodhound-canary’?”
Sergeant Ackley waved his hand, the gesture of one who brushes aside an unimportant detail.
“Forget it! He’s just got that canary to kid us along. He wants to sidetrack us. Concentrate your attention on the main problem, Beaver. We gotta find out what he’s doing in that hotel... Not that we don’t know. It’s simple as hell. What I mean is that we gotta do like the Japs do with their pelicans.”