Эрл Гарднер - Something Like a Pelican

Sergeant Ackley’s eves glistened. “What’s the name of that bird?” he asked.

Captain Carmichael frowned. “I think they call it a cormorant.”

Sergeant Ackley said, “Cripes, I’d like to have one of those birds to take up to the lake where I spend my summer vacation! There were fish there that just wouldn’t bite—”

“We’re talking about blueprints,” Captain Carmichael interrupted. “Lester Leith is going to be our cormorant. He’ll get the swag for us and then have to disgorge it.”

“What the heck does a cormorant look like?” Sergeant Ackley asked.

Captain Carmichael said vaguely, “He’s something like a pelican.”

Sergeant Ackley pushed back his chair. “Well, I get the idea all right. We’ll make this guy Leith something like a pelican.”

Captain Carmichael gave one last warning. “Be absolutely certain,” he said, “that you keep a rope tied around his neck. That’s the most important thing in the way the Chinese fish. Otherwise the birds would swallow everything they get.”

Sergeant Ackley said confidently, “Leave it to me, Captain,” and left the room. He was back, however, within a few seconds. “Say, Captain, don’t think I’m cuckoo, but where could a man buy one of those birds that are like a pelican?”

Captain Carmichael fixed him with a stern eye. “In China,” he said.

Lester Leith pressed the button of Apartment 7-B. The card opposite the button bore the names of two persons: Bernice Lamen, who was the confidential secretary of Jason Bellview, and Millicent Foster.

After a moment the buzzer sounded, and Lester Leith walked up two flights of stairs to the apartment he wanted. The young woman who answered his knock was cool, collected, and very much on her guard. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I’d like to talk with Miss Bernice Lamen.”

“Miss Lamen is not at home.”

Lester Leith’s eyes softened into twinkling appraisal of the stern young woman on the threshold. “You,” he asked, “are Miss Foster?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I can talk with you.”

For a moment she studied him, then relaxed somewhat the severity of her manner and repeated, “What do you want?”

“I take it, because you’re sharing an apartment with Miss Lamen, that your relationship is a friendly one?”

“Yes. We’re friends — have been for years.”

Leith said, “I’m a writer.”

There was alarm in her voice. “A newspaperman?”

“No, no! I’m just a beginner. It’s something of a hobby with me.”

“I see,” she said dubiously.

Leith said affably, “Your friend has been placed in a most unsatisfactory position.”

“In what way?”

“If I were she, I’d want to prove myself innocent.”

“How?”

Leith’s voice showed surprise. “Why, by seeing that the guilty person was trapped, of course.”

For a long moment the woman in the doorway hesitated, then her face softened in a smile. “Oh, come on in,” she said impulsively. “I’m Bernice Lamen. This is Millicent over here by the window. Miss Foster, this is Mr. — What did you say your name was?”

“Leith. Lester Leith.”

“Well, come on in and sit down.”

As Leith settled himself in the chair she had indicated, she sized up the expensive tailor-made suit he was wearing and said, “You don’t look like a poor writer.”

“I’m not,” Leith said. “I’m a good writer.”

Millicent said hastily, “Bernice didn’t mean—”

Bernice interrupted, “Skip it. Lie’s kidding.” She smiled at Lester Leith. “You don’t look like any sort of a writer, good, bad, or indifferent. What’s your game?”

“To find out who stole those blueprints.”

Millicent said, “I understand someone threw another fur out of the window this afternoon.”

“I did,” Leith announced calmly.

“You did!” Bernice exclaimed.

Leith smiled deprecatingly. “It was, of course, the obvious thing to do.”

Bernice glanced at Millicent, then leaned forward to regard Lester Leith from under level brows. “Now, let’s get this straight. You mean you threw a fur cape out of the window again this afternoon?”

“Oh, I didn’t do it myself,” Leith said. “I engaged a young woman to do it, a very talented actress. You see, I wanted to have her give me an exclusive interview, telling me how it felt to throw an expensive fur cape out a four-story window.”

Again the young women exchanged glances. Bernice Lamen, her tone perceptibly cooler, said, “Well, I’m afraid I can’t do anything to help you.”

Leith opened the small briefcase he was carrying, took out some photographs, and said, “These arc a series of photographs which we took, showing the entire episode. Most interesting, don’t you think?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the two young women moved closer to study the photographs. Leith took a magnifying glass from his pocket and said, “You can see a great many details here. Look at this picture of the crowd leaning out of the window over at the Precision Instrument Designing and Installation Company. I daresay you can recognize many of your fellow workers, Miss Lamen?”

“I should say I can, even without the glass. Why, there’s—”

Leith interrupted her to indicate one of the windows with the point of his lead pencil. “This,” he asked, “is the window of Mr. Bellview’s private office?”

“Yes.”

“I notice what appears to be the back of a young woman standing right here. Would that be near the vault?”

“Yes. The vault door is right there.”

“This man, I take it, is Jason Bellview?”

“Yes.”

Lester Leith said, “Someone over here is holding a broomstick.”

She looked at the photograph, then burst out laughing. “That’s not a broomstick. It’s a gun.”

“A rifle?” Leith asked.

“No,” she said, smiling, “a shotgun. The man who’s trying to play hero is Frank Packerson, the editor of our house organ, the Pidico News. He’s a trapshooting enthusiast. He’d been out in the country doing some shooting over the weekend. He got back to town too late Monday morning to go to his apartment, so he brought his gun up to the office and left it there, as he does occasionally.”

“I see,” Lester Leith said, “and he’s on the lookout for burglars in this picture, I suppose?”

“I guess so. He really did a decent job yesterday. He grabbed his shotgun and dashed out into the corridor as soon as he heard the screaming for police across the street. He says no one except the inventor and, a few moments later, Mr. Bellview appeared in the corridor. That shows pretty conclusively that the taking of the blueprints was an inside job and that... that—”

“Go on,” Leith said.

“That they weren’t taken out as far as the corridor. They’re concealed somewhere in the offices.”

“How many offices would be available as places of concealment?”

She said, “I’ve been thinking that over. There is a whole string of them. They all have communicating doors, and then there’s the corridor which runs the whole length of the offices. But the point is Mr. Leith, that no one went along the corridor and no one crossed the corridor. Packerson is positive on that point. He’d have shot in a minute if he’d seen anything that was out of the way — such as someone running away.”

“That would mean, then, that the blueprints must have been hidden somewhere in the string of offices which are next to the windows that open on the street?” Leith asked.

“Yes.”

Leith said, indicating the photograph with a sweeping gesture of his hand, “Somewhere in the area which is covered in this photograph.”