The police found out nothing. The strange routine of the apartment proceeded uninterrupted. The human skeleton, picked by Mrs. Crane, flitted in and out, surveying the tumbling performance with mournful eyes. He spent his evenings squiring the fat woman. Between the two was a fast friendship. He was a chronic pessimist. The woman preserved the unruffled calm of a jovial disposition and an indestructible optimism.
The mattresses became dented with deep furrows where the falling body banged itself a dozen times an hour. The face of the valet became haggard. His surreptitious reports to Sergeant Ackley were interspersed with querulous complaint.
The woman achieved skill at falling sidewise, rolling on her back, straightening her muscles and becoming rigid, an immovable mountain of flesh.
“Will you tell me why you’re doing that?” asked Arthur Spinner, the human skeleton.
She turned toward him a flushed face on which the sweat had left shining streaks. The clacking of the typewriter in the corner abruptly ceased, proof of the interest of Miss Huntington in the question. Scuttle paused with a handkerchief halfway to his forehead, his ears attuned for the reply.
The fleshy throat convulsed with muscular effort. The smiling fat lips mouthed a silent reply.
“More clam-talk!” rasped the human skeleton.
Sadie Crane laughed. The tapping fingers of the social secretary once more sought the keys, and Scuttle groaned.
It was at that moment that Lester Leith inserted his latchkey, entered the apartment, and surveyed the strange assortment of humanity. His eyes were glinting. In his right hand he carried a black bag.
“Ladeez and gentllllemen!” he intoned. “Step forward and observe the most perfectly matched diamond necklace in the city. Note the purity and fire of the stones. Note the wonderful workmanship of the clasp. Observe one hundred thousand dollars in scintillating, sparkling, coruscating gleams of imprisoned fire!”
The two freaks crowded forward. The police spy raised himself so that his coal-black eyes could gaze over the heads of the others. Louise Huntington regarded the opened bag with open mouth and wide eyes.
The black bag lay wide open. White cotton backed a necklace which seemed to snatch pure fires from the air and send them out in glittering brilliance.
It was Louise Huntington who broke the silence.
“I’m quitting my job,” she said.
Lester Leith arched his eyebrows.
“Personal reasons, or anything that might be remedied by an increase in salary?”
“Personal. If anything should happen to that necklace, I’d go to jail for the rest of my life. The police suspect me of one robbery already — and, of course, there’s the added fact that you’re as mad as a March hare.”
Leith indicated an inner room where he had fitted up a combined den and study.
“Perhaps,” he said gravely, “the time has come for us to talk,” and he led the girl into the room, and closed the door.
There ensued nothing save the rumble of cautious tones. Scuttle’s ear, plastered against the doorknob, heard nothing. Yet the effect of that conversation was magical.
The girl came from the room, smiling, vivacious. She went back to her typewriter with eager fingers. From time to time she glanced at Lester Leith as he busied himself with hat, coat, and stick. The moment Leith slammed the corridor doors, the valet pounced upon the typewriting girl.
“What...”
She kept her fingers busy on the machine. Her smiling lips parted in a most tantalizing manner, and then she began to form words which carried no sound.
The valet scowled in anger.
“Clam-talk,” said the girl, and lowered her eyes to the work in the machine.
The rippling laugh that floated across the room came from Sadie Crane, the “fattest woman in the world.”
Two days later the valet spy took it upon himself to question Lester Leith.
“The fat woman faints almost perfectly. I’ve eliminated the mattress, sir, and she makes — er — perfect landings.”
“Very good, Scuttle.”
“And what, may I ask, sir, is holding up our — er — circus side show?”
Lester regarded him with judicial gravity, then lowered his voice.
“Scuttle, can you keep a secret?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Promise?”
“On my word of honor, sir.”
“Very well, Scuttle, I am waiting for another ambulance robbery.”
“Another ambulance robbery!”
“Precisely. You see, Scuttle, if my theory is correct, there will be another robbery within a few days in which an ambulance will figure. The ambulance will bear a large sign painted upon it, identifying it with Proctor & Peabody. It will make the ambulance so distinctive that it will seem impossible for it to vanish.
“Acting upon that theory, the police will comb the neighborhood in a house-to-house, garage-to-garage canvass. And that’s all the good their search will do. The ambulance will have vanished as completely as though it had never existed.”
“And then?”
“Then, Scuttle, we’ll have our circus side show.”
And Lester Leith, possessing himself of a polished cane, hat, and gloves, strolled out for an afternoon constitutional in the park.
The valet, after taking due precautions against being followed, oozed to a drugstore, telephoned Sergeant Ackley, and arranged for an appointment in an out-of-the-way parking station. Here he crawled into the red roadster and unburdened himself of many conjectures, reports, surmises, and facts.
Sergeant Ackley mouthed a cigar with a tempo which gradually increased until he whipped a damp newspaper from the rear of the car. “Haven’t seen the Record, have you, Beaver?”
“No, why?”
Sergeant Ackley handed it over. Across the top of the front page was a screaming headline.
Phantom Ambulance Again Figures in Crime.
“Good gosh!” ejaculated the spy. “How did he dope that out?”
Sergeant Ackley’s eyes were narrowed. He spoke with the manner of one who weighs his words carefully.
“He’s smarter than the devil, Beaver — there’s no getting around that. From the very first time you told him about the Demarest robbery he knew the answer. You can gamble on that. He wouldn’t have tied up all that money in the preparation he’s making if he hadn’t been certain.
“Every time he’s worked on a case, he’s been able to get something from the newspaper clippings that the police missed completely. I’ve tried to figure out what it could be this time, but it beats me.”
Beaver grunted.
“Well, I’ve still got the original clippings. I’ll sit up tonight and study ’em. And I’ll study the account of this last robbery in the Record. Maybe I can find out what he had in his mind.”
“Think you’re brighter than I am, eh, Beaver?”
“No. It ain’t that. It’s just that I thought maybe—”
“Well, forget it. I’ve covered that ground thoroughly. But we’ll do one thing. We’ll start shadowing this guy as though he was studded with diamonds in platinum settings. Eventually he’ll lead us to the chaps we want. Then, maybe, we’ll hook them for robbery and him for hijacking.”
Beaver nodded slowly.
“And there’s just a chance I can pump some information out of him. He’s been acting sort of confidential lately. Gimme that paper and I’m going to be the one to break the news to him. That’ll give me a break. He’ll see those headlines, an’ maybe he’ll talk.”
Scuttle was sitting facing the door when Lester Leith returned, and he thrust the folded paper forward before Leith had even deposited his hat and stick.
“There you are, sir.”