“It’s Comus disguised as a woman,” exclaimed Attorney Bondling, as Inspector Queen and Detective Hesse wrestled the female figure through the mob. She was now a wonderful shade of magenta. “What are you doing?” she screamed. “Don’t arrest me!-catch that crook who stole my pocketbook!” “No dice, Comus,” said the inspector. “Wipe off that makeup.” “McComas?” said the woman loudly. “My name is Rafferty, and all these folks saw it. He was a fat man with a mustache.” “Inspector,” said Nikki Porter, making a surreptitious scientific test. “This is a female. Believe me.” And so, indeed, it proved. All agreed that the mustachioed fat man had been Comus, creating a diversion in the desperate hope that the resulting confusion would give him an opportunity to steal the little dauphin.
“Stupid, stupid,” muttered Ellery, gnawing his fingernails.
“Sure,” grinned the inspector. “We’ve got him nibbling his tail, Ellery. This was his do-or-die pitch. He’s through.”
“Frankly,” sniffed Nikki, “I’m a little disappointed.”
“Worried,” said Ellery, “would be the word for me.”
INSPECTOR QUEEN WAS too case-hardened a sinner’s nemesis to lower his guard at his most vulnerable moment. When the 5:30 bells bonged and the crowds began struggling toward the exits, he barked: “Men, stay at your posts. Keep watching that doll!” So all hands were on the qui vive even as the store emptied. The reserves kept hustling people out. Ellery, standing on an information booth, spotted bottlenecks and waved his arms.
At 5:50 P.M. the main floor was declared out of the battle zone. All stragglers had been herded out. The only persons visible were the refugees trapped by the closing bell on the upper floors, and these were pouring out of elevators and funneled by a solid line of detectives and accredited store personnel to the doors. By 6:05 they were a trickle; by 6:10 even the trickle had dried up. And the personnel itself began to disperse.
“No, men!” called Ellery sharply from his observation post. “Stay where you are till all the store employees are out!” The counter clerks had long since disappeared.
Sergeant Velie’s plaintive voice called from the other side of the glass door. “I got to get home and decorate my tree. Maestro, make with the key.”
Ellery jumped down and hurried over to release him. Detective Piggott jeered, “Going to play Santa to your kids tomorrow morning, Velie?” at which the sergeant managed even through his mask to project a four-letter word distinctly, forgetful of Miss Porter’s presence, and stamped off toward the gentleman’s relief station.
“Where you going, Velie?” asked the inspector, smiling.
“I got to get out of these x-and-dash Santy clothes somewheres, don’t I?” came back the sergeant’s mask-muffled tones, and he vanished in a thunderclap of his fellow-officers’ laughter.
“Still worried, Mr. Queen?” chuckled the inspector.
“I don’t understand it.” Ellery shook his head. “Well, Mr. Bondling, there’s your dauphin, untouched by human hands.”
“Yes. Well!” Attorney Bondling wiped his forehead happily. “I don’t profess to understand it, either, Mr. Queen. Unless it’s simply another case of an inflated reputation…” He clutched the inspector suddenly. “Those men!” he whispered. “Who are they?”
“Relax, Mr. Bondling,” said the inspector good-naturedly. “It’s just the men to move the dolls back to the bank. Wait a minute, you men! Perhaps, Mr. Bondling, we’d better see the dauphin back to the vaults ourselves.”
“Keep those fellows back,” said Ellery to the headquarters men, quietly, and he followed the inspector and Mr. Bondling into the enclosure. They pulled two of the counters apart at one corner and strolled over to the platform. The dauphin was winking at them in a friendly way. They stood looking at him.
“Cute little devil,” said the inspector.
“Seems silly now,” beamed Attorney Bondling. “Being so worried all day.”
“Comus must have had some plan,” mumbled Ellery.
“Sure,” said the inspector. “That old man disguise. And that purse-snatching act.”
“No, no, Dad. Something clever. He’s always pulled something clever.”
“Well, there’s the diamond,” said the lawyer comfortably. “He didn’t.”
“Disguise…” muttered Ellery. “It’s always been a disguise. Santa Claus costume-he used that once-this morning in front of the bank… Did we see a Santa Claus around here today?”
“Just Velie,” said the inspector, grinning. “And I hardly think-”
“Wait a moment, please,” said Attorney Bondling in a very odd voice.
He was staring at the Dauphin’s Doll.
“Wait for what, Mr. Bondling?”
“What’s the matter?” said Ellery, also in a very odd voice.
“But…not possible…” stammered Bondling. He snatched the doll from its black velvet repository. “No!” he howled. “This isn’t the dauphin! It’s a fake-a copy!”
Something happened in Mr. Queen’s head-a little click! like the sound of a switch. And there was light.
“Some of you men!” he roared. “After Santa Claus!”
“After who, Ellery?” gasped Inspector Queen.
“Don’t stand here! Get him!” screamed Ellery, dancing up and down. “The man I just let out of here! The Santa who made for the men’s room!”
Detectives started running, wildly.
“But Ellery,” said a small voice, and Nikki found that it was her own, “that was Sergeant Velie.”
“It was not Velie, Nikki! When Velie ducked out just before two o’clock, Comus waylaid him! It was Comus who came back in Velie’s Santa Claus rig, wearing Velie’s whiskers and mask! Comus has been on this platform all afternoon!” He tore the dauphin from Attorney Bondling’s grasp. “Copy… He did it, he did it!”
“But Mr. Queen,” whispered Attorney Bondling, “his voice. He spoke to us…in Sergeant Velie’s voice.”
“Yes, Ellery,” Nikki heard herself saying.
“I told you yesterday Comus is a great mimic, Nikki Lieutenant Farber! Is Farber still here?”
The jewelry expert, who had been gaping from a distance, shook his head and shuffled into the enclosure.
“Lieutenant,” said Ellery in a strangled voice. “Examine this diamond… I mean, is it a diamond?”
Inspector Queen removed his hands from his face and said froggily, “Well, Gerry?”
Lieutenant Farber squinted once through his loupe. “The hell you say. It’s strass-”
“It’s what?” said the inspector piteously.
“Strass, Dick-lead glass-paste. Beautiful job of imitation-as nice as I’ve ever seen.”
“Lead me to that Santa Claus,” whispered Inspector Queen.
But Santa Claus was being led to him. Struggling in the grip of a dozen detectives, his red coat ripped off, his red pants around his ankles, but his whiskery mask still on his face, came a large shouting man.
“But I tell you,” he was roaring, “I’m Sergeant Tom Velie! Just take the mask off-that’s all!”
“It’s a pleasure,” growled Detective Hagstrom, trying to break their prisoner’s arm, “we’re reservin’ for the inspector.”
“Hold him, boys,” whispered the inspector. He struck like a cobra. His hand came away with Santa’s face.
And there, indeed, was Sergeant Velie.
“Why, it’s Velie,” said the inspector wonderingly.
“I only told you that a thousand times,” said the sergeant, folding his great hairy arms across his great hairy chest. “Now, who’s the so-and-so who tried to bust my arm?” Then he said, “My pants!” and as Miss Porter turned delicately away, Detective Hagstrom humbly stooped and raised Sergeant Velie’s pants.