Two detectives detached themselves from a group of reserves. As they marched to the glass door, Mr. Bondling plucked at the inspector’s overcoat sleeve. “Can all these men be trusted, Inspector Queen?” he whispered. “I mean, this fellow Comus-”
“Mr. Bondling,” replied the old gentleman coldly, “you do your job and let me do mine.”
“But-”
“Picked men, Mr. Bondling! I picked ’em myself.”
“Yes, yes, Inspector. I merely thought I’d-”
“Lieutenant Farber.”
A little man with watery eyes stepped forward.
“Mr. Bondling, this is Lieutenant Geronimo Farber, headquarters jewelry expert. Ellery?”
Ellery took the Dauphin’s Doll from his greatcoat pocket, but he said, “If you don’t mind, Dad, I’ll keep holding on to it.”
Somebody said, “Wow,” and then there was silence.
“Lieutenant, this doll in my son’s hand is the famous Dauphin’s Doll with the diamond crown that-”
“Don’t touch it, Lieutenant, please,” said Ellery. “I’d rather nobody touched it.”
“The doll,” continued the inspector, “has just been brought here from a bank vault which it ought never to have left, and Mr. Bondling, who’s handling the Ypson estate, claims it’s the genuine article. Lieutenant, examine the diamond and give us your opinion.”
Lieutenant Farber produced a loupe. Ellery held the dauphin securely, and Farber did not touch it.
Finally, the expert said: “I can’t pass an opinion about the doll itself, of course, but the diamond’s a beauty. Easily worth a hundred thousand dollars at the present state of the market-maybe more. Looks like a very strong setting, by the way.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. Okay, son,” said the inspector. “Go into your waltz.”
Clutching the dauphin, Ellery strode over to the glass gate and unlocked it.
“This fellow Farber,” whispered Attorney Bondling in the inspector’s hairy ear. “Inspector, are you absolutely sure he’s-?”
“He’s really Lieutenant Farber?” The inspector controlled himself. “Mr. Bondling, I’ve known Gerry Farber for eighteen years. Calm yourself.”
Ellery was crawling perilously over the nearest counter. Then, bearing the dauphin aloft, he hurried across the floor of the enclosure to the platform.
Sergeant Velie whined, “Maestro, how in hell am I going to sit here all day without washin’ my hands?”
But Mr. Queen merely stooped and lifted from the floor a heavy little structure faced with black velvet consisting of a floor and a backdrop, with a two-armed chromium support. This object he placed on the platform directly between Sergeant Velie’s massive legs.
Carefully, he stood the Dauphin’s Doll in the velvet niche. Then he clambered back across the counter, went through the glass door, locked it with the key, and turned to examine his handiwork.
Proudly the prince’s plaything stood, the jewel in his little golden crown darting “on pale electric streams” under the concentrated tide of a dozen of the most powerful floodlights in the possession of the great store.
“Velie,” said Inspector Queen, “you’re not to touch that doll. Don’t lay a finger on it.”
The Sergeant said, “Gaaaaa.”
“You men on duty. Don’t worry about the crowds. Your job is to keep watching that doll. You’re not to take your eyes off it all day. Mr. Bondling, are you satisfied?” Mr. Bondling seemed about to say something, but then he hastily nodded. “Ellery?”
The great man smiled. “The only way he can get that bawbie,” he said, “is by spells and incantations. Raise the portcullis!”
THEN BEGAN THE interminable day, dies irae, the last shopping day before Christmas. This is traditionally the day of the inert, the procrastinating, the undecided, and the forgetful, sucked at last into the mercantile machine by the perpetual pump of Time. If there is peace upon earth, it descends only afterward; and at no time, on the part of anyone embroiled, is there good will toward men. As Miss Porter expresses it, a cat fight in a bird cage would be more Christian.
But on this December twenty-fourth, in Nash’s, the normal bedlam was augmented by the vast shrilling of thousands of Children. It may be, as the Psalmist insists, that happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; but no bowmen surrounded Miss Ypson’s darlings this day, only detectives carrying revolvers, not a few of whom forbore to use same only by the most heroic self-discipline. In the black floods of humanity overflowing the main floor, little folks darted about like electrically charged minnows, pursued by exasperated maternal shrieks and the imprecations of those whose shins and rumps and toes were at the mercy of hot, happy little limbs; indeed, nothing was sacred, and Attorney Bondling was seen to quail and wrap his greatcoat defensively about him against the savage innocence of childhood. But the guardians of the law, having been ordered to simulate store employees, possessed no such armor; and many a man earned his citation that day for unique cause. They stood in the very millrace of the tide; it churned about them, shouting, “Dollies! Dollies!” until the very word lost its familiar meaning and became the insensate scream of a thousand Loreleis beckoning strong men to destruction below the eye-level of their diamond Light.
But they stood fast.
And Comus was thwarted. Oh, he tried. At 11:18 A.M. a tottering old man holding fast to the hand of a small boy tried to wheedle Detective Hagstrom into unlocking the glass door “so my grandson, here-he’s terrible nearsighted-can get a closer look at the pretty dollies.” Detective Hagstrom roared, “Rube!” and the old gentleman dropped the little boy’s hand violently and with remarkable agility lost himself in the crowd. A spot investigation revealed that, coming upon the boy, who had been crying for his mommy, the old gentleman had promised to find her. The little boy, whose name-he said-was Lance Morganstern, was removed to the Lost and Found Department; and everyone was satisfied that the great thief had finally launched his attack. Everyone, that is, but Ellery Queen. He seemed puzzled. When Nikki asked him why, he merely said: “Stupidity, Nikki. It’s not in character.”
At 1:46 P.M., Sergeant Velie sent up a distress signal. Inspector Queen read the message aright and signaled back: “O.K. Fifteen minutes.” Sergeant Santa C. Velie scrambled off his perch, clawed his way over the counter, and pounded urgently on the inner side of the glass door. Ellery let him out, relocking the door immediately, and the Sergeant’s redclad figure disappeared on the double in the general direction of the main-floor gentlemen’s relief station, leaving the dauphin in solitary possession of the dais.
During the sergeant’s recess Inspector Queen circulated among his men, repeating the order of the day.
The episode of Velie’s response to the summons of Nature caused a temporary crisis. For at the end of the specified fifteen minutes he had not returned. Nor was there a sign of him at the end of a half hour. An aide dispatched to the relief station reported back that the sergeant was not there. Fears of foul play were voiced at an emergency staff conference held then and there, and counter-measures were being planned even as, at 2:35 P.M., the familiar Santa-clad bulk of the sergeant was observed battling through the lines, pawing at his mask.
“Velie,” snarled Inspector Queen, “where have you been?”
“Eating my lunch,” growled the Sergeant’s voice, defensively. “I been taking my punishment like a gook soldier all day, Inspector, but I draw the line at starvin’ to death, even in line of duty.”
“Velie-!” choked the inspector; but then he waved his hand feebly and said, “Ellery, let him back in there.”
And that was very nearly all. The only other incident of note occurred at 4:22 P.M. A well-upholstered woman with a red face yelled, “Stop! Thief! He grabbed my pocketbook! Police!” about fifty feet from the Ypson exhibit. Ellery instantly shouted, “It’s a trick! Men, don’t take your eyes off that doll!”