Эрл Гарднер - The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith

Sergeant Ackley let his eyes bore into those of Harry Vare. Then he got to his feet, reached out and thrust a broad hand to the collar of Vare’s coat, twisting it tightly.

“Well,” he said, “it’ll be about ten years for you, and you’d better come along.”

Vare stared at Sergeant Ackley with pathetic eyes.

“I haven’t done anything,” he said.

Sergeant Ackley eyed the man shrewdly.

“Listen,” he said, “did you ever heard of George Navin?”

“You mean the man who was murdered?” asked Harry Vare.

Ackley nodded.

“I read something about it in the paper,” said Vare.

“All right,” said Sergeant Ackley. “Navin was murdered for a big Indian ruby. Bob Lamont was his secretary. Does that mean anything to you?”

“No, sir,” said Vare. “Not a thing.”

“All right,” said Sergeant Ackley. “I’ll tell you a few things, and you can see how much it means to you. This fellow Lester Leith that you’re working for is one of the cleverest crooks this city has ever produced. He makes a living out of robbing crooks of their ill-gotten spoils. He’s slick and he’s clever, and he usually dopes out the solution of a crime in advance of the police, and then shakes down the crook before we get to him.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Harry Vare.

“Well, maybe you did, and maybe you didn’t,” said Sergeant Ackley. “That’s something for you to tell the jury when you come up for trial. But here’s something else that you may like to listen to. Lester Leith picked up this chorus girl, and the two of them went out last night after they left you and picked up Bob Lamont and some other woman.

“Lester Leith is pretty much of a gentleman, and he wears his clothes well, and this chorus girl he had with him looked like a million dollars in a lot of high-priced clothes. The night club was more or less informal, and she gave Bob Lamont the eye. Bob fell for her and started to dance with her, and before the evening was finished they had moved to another table and were having a nice little foursome.”

“But,” said Harry Vare, gathering courage, “what has that got to do with me?”

Sergeant Ackley studied him in shrewd appraisal.

“So,” he said, “they made another date for tonight, and the four of them are going out.”

Harry Vare suddenly caught his breath. His eyes grew wide and dark with apprehension.

“Good heavens!” he said.

Sergeant Ackley nodded. “I thought so,” he said.

Panic showed in Vare’s face.

“You’ve got just ten seconds to come clean,” said Sergeant Ackley. “If you come clean and give me the low-down on this thing, and agree to work with me, there’s a chance that we may give you immunity from prosecution. Otherwise, you’re going to jail for at least ten years.”

Harry didn’t need ten seconds. He was blurting out speech almost before Sergeant Ackley had finished.

“I didn’t know the name,” he said, “and I didn’t know it was Lamont until you told me. But Lester Leith hired me to study detective work. He had his pocket picked once yesterday, and then gave me a jewel to carry, and it was picked from my pocket. I felt all broken up about it, but Mr. Leith said that it was all right, I’d have to learn a step at a time.

“He told me that tonight he was going to teach me how to make an arrest. He said that I was to arrest him, just as though he had been a crook. He said that he was going out to a dinner party tonight with another man and a woman, and that they would probably wind up at the man’s apartment; that after they got to the apartment, he had it fixed up that Dixie Dormley — that’s the chorus girl — was to take the other girl out for a few moments, and that, as soon as that happened, I was to come busting in as a detective and accuse Lester Leith of some crime, handcuff him, and lead him out.”

Sergeant Ackley frowned. “That’s everything you know about it?”

“Everything,” said Harry Vare; “but I get more instructions later.”

“Well,” Ackley said, “I’m going to give you a break. If you do exactly as I tell you, and don’t tell Lester Leith that I was here, I’ll see that you get a break and aren’t arrested.”

“That’s all right, officer,” Harry Vare said. “I’ll do anything you say—”

Lester Leith handed Sid Bentley, the mournful-faced pickpocket, a one-hundred-dollar bill. “Wages for another day,” he said.

Bentley pocketed the hundred and looked with avaricious eyes at the wallet which Leith returned to his breast pocket. “Speaking professionally,” he said, “you’d do better to carry your bills in a fold. That breast-pocket stuff is particularly vulnerable.”

“I know it,” Leith said, “but I like to have my money where I can get at it.”

Bentley nodded, his milk-mild eyes without expression. “I,” he said, “like people who carry their money where I can get at it.”

“Remember our bargain,” Leith said.

“What do you suppose makes me feel so bad about getting a hundred bucks?” Bentley asked. “I’m just figuring I made a poor bargain.”

“You mean the work’s too hard?”

“No, that there are too many restrictions. I’m commencing to think I could make a good living just following you around.”

Leith lowered his voice. “Where,” he asked, “do you suppose I make all this money?”

Bentley said: “Now, buddy, you’ve got me interested.”

Leith said: “We’re working on the same side of the street.”

“You don’t mean you’re a dip?”

“No, but I’m a crook. I’m a confidence man.”

“What’s the game?” Bentley asked.

Leith said: “I have different rackets. Right now, it’s sticking a sucker with that imitation ruby. I show the ruby to the man I’m aiming to trim. I tell him I found it on the street, that I don’t know whether it’s any good or not, that I presume it isn’t good, but that even as an imitation, it should have some value. I ask him what he thinks about it.

“If he’s a real gem expert, I know it from what he says. He tells me to go home and forget it. I thank him, and that’s all there is to it. But if he’s a little dubious about whether it’s genuine, I gradually let him think I’m a sucker. You see, this ruby is the exact duplicate of a valuable ruby that has been in the newspapers.”

Bentley said: “That’s what fooled me about it the first time I saw it.”

“You recognized it?”

“Sure.”

“Well,” Leith said, “lots of other people will, too. They’ll think it’s the genuine priceless ruby. Some of them will want to buy it. Some of them won’t. If the guy offers me anything like five hundred dollars for it, I’m perfectly willing to sell.”

Bentley said: “I’m still listening.”

“The big trouble,” Leith said, “is the risk.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’ve got too many of them out,” Leith said. “These imitations cost me about fifteen dollars apiece. I’ve been playing the racket for a week.”

“You’re afraid some of the suckers have made a squawk?”

“Yes.”

Bentley said: “I know just how you feel. When a racket gets hot, you know you should leave it, but there’s still coin in it, so you want to hang on.”

Leith said: “That’s where you come in.”

“What do you mean?”

Leith said: “I want you to follow me around from now on whenever I’m going to make a sale.”

“What do I do?”

“Just this,” Leith said. “A cop can’t make a pinch until after I’ve made a sale. In order to do that, they’ll have to plant a ringer on me for a sucker, and have the payments made to me in marked money.”

“No, they won’t,” Bentley said. “You’re all wet there, brother. They can either have the marked money on you, or they can pinch both you and the sucker and hold the sucker as a material witness.”