Эрл Гарднер - The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith

Leith said: “That last is what I’m afraid of. If that happens, I want you to get the evidence.”

“You mean from the sucker?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, brother. That evidence will be just as hot as a stove lid. I couldn’t—”

Leith took from his pocket a little cloth sack to which was attached a printed tag with a postage stamp on the tag.

“You don’t keep it on you for a minute,” he said. “You just beat it for the first mailbox, drop it, and let Uncle Sam do the dirty work.”

Bentley said: “That’s more like it.”

“Whenever you do that you get a five-hundred-dollar bonus.”

“And that’s all I have to do?”

“That’s all.”

“And my cut is still a hundred bucks a day.”

“That’s right. You just have to follow me around.”

“Lead me to it,” Bentley said. “But you’ll have to tell me when you’re going to make a deal.”

Leith said: “In about an hour, Miss Dormley, the young lady who was with me last night, and I are going out to dinner with another couple. I’ve fixed things up with Miss Dormley so she’ll get the other girl out of the way. That will leave me alone with the man. I figure I can put the deal across with him.”

“I’ll be tagging along.”

Leith said: “Carry this mailing sack where you can put your hand on it in an instant. Don’t ever be caught without it.”

“Listen, buddy,” Bentley said, “don’t think I was born yesterday. If you think I want to be caught with goods that will hook me up as your confederate, you’re cockeyed. And don’t pull your stuff in a place where there isn’t a mailbox on every corner, because if you do, it’s just your hard luck.”

Sergeant Arthur Ackley stared reproachfully at Beaver, the undercover operative. “Right under your nose, Beaver,” he said, “and you muffed it.”

The spy’s face colored. “What do you mean, I muffed it? I’m the one that told you he was going after that ruby.”

Sergeant Ackley said: “You argued a lot, Beaver, and became personally offensive, but you didn’t give me anything constructive.”

“What do you mean, constructive?”

“You didn’t even smell a rat when he brought that green kid in to act as a detective,” Ackley said.

Beaver sighed. “Oh, what’s the use. Just don’t forget that we have a bet. If all those various things I told you about fit into his plan to get the ruby, I win your watch.”

“Not at all, Beaver,” said Ackley. “You have overlooked one little fact. It was to have been done so cleverly that I couldn’t pin anything on him. You overlooked that little thing, Beaver, and that’s going to cost you fifty bucks — because I’ve already got it pinned on him.”

Beaver said: “I suppose you know every step in his campaign.”

Sergeant Ackley gloated. “You bet I do.”

The spy scraped back his chair and got to his feet.

Sergeant Ackley said: “Don’t go to bed until after midnight, Beaver. I’ll be calling you some time before then to come down to headquarters. Leith will be booked and in a cell. Then you can have the pleasure of telling him that you helped put him there — and you can pay over the fifty bucks to me.”

Beaver lunged toward the door. “You’ve thought you had him before,” he flung back, on the threshold.

Sergeant Ackley laughed. “But this time, Beaver, I have got him. I threw a scare into that green kid Vare, and he told me everything.”

The four people left the taxicab and walked across the sidewalk to the entrance of the apartment house. Dixie Dormley, attired in soft white, was vibrantly beautiful. The other young woman, although expensively gowned, seemed drab in comparison.

Lester Leith, well-tailored, faultlessly groomed, wore his evening clothes with an air of distinction. Bob Lamont was quick and nervous. He seemed ill at ease.

The four people chatted as they went up in the elevator, and Bob Lamont opened the door of his apartment with a flourish.

It was an apartment which was well and tastefully furnished. As secretary to George Navin, Lamont had drawn a very good salary.

When the two young women were seated, Lamont went to the kitchenette to get the makings of drinks.

Lester Leith gave a significant glance at Dixie Dormley.

She caught the glance, turned at once to the other young woman, and exclaimed, “Oh, my heavens, I left my purse in that taxicab! Or else it may have fallen out on the sidewalk; I don’t know which. It seems to me that I heard something drop to the running board as I got out.”

The young woman said: “Never mind, Dixie, you can telephone the taxicab company, and they’ll have it in the Lost and Found Department.”

“Yes,” wailed Dixie, “but suppose it dropped to the running board. Then it would have spilled off at the corner.”

Lester Leith reached for his hat.

“I’ll run down and see.”

Dixie Dormley got to her feet quickly and started to the door.

“No, please,” she said. “You wait here. I can’t explain, but I’d much rather go by myself, unless Vivian wants to come with me.”

She flashed the other young woman a smile of invitation, and Vivian promptly arose.

“Tell Bob that we’ll be right back,” she said.

As the door closed behind the two women, Lester Leith strolled out into the kitchenette where Lamont was taking ice cubes from a refrigerator.

“Well, Lamont,” said Lester Leith casually, “you pulled that murder pretty cleverly, didn’t you?”

Lamont dropped the ice-cube tray with a clatter, and stared at Leith with bulging eyes. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know well enough, Lamont,” he said. “The police were a little bit slow in catching up with you, that’s all, but the scheme wasn’t really so clever. The guards shut all of the windows and locked the shutters on the inside when they went into Navin’s room, but you were the last one in there. It would have been very easy for you to have moved against one of the windows and unlocked one of the shutters. Then you left the room, went directly to the safe, took out the gem, and went to your conference with the lawyer, which gave you your alibi. In the morning you walked in and locked the shutter again from the inside.

“You’d probably been bribed by the Hindus to leave one of the steel shutters unlocked, and had specified that they must break in and do the job promptly at four o’clock, so that the police would be properly confused.

“Where the police made their mistake was in thinking that whoever had committed the murder had also stolen the gem from the safe. It didn’t occur to them that they could have been independent acts. And apparently, so far, it hasn’t occurred to the Hindus. They thought simply that they failed to find the gem, and that Navin had placed it in some other hiding place.

“But you can’t get away with it long, Lamont. The police will be here inside of half an hour.”

“You’re crazy!” said Lamont.

Lester Leith shook his head.

“No, Lamont,” he said, “you’re the one who’s crazy. You overlooked the fact that, if the Hindus should start to talk, they had you strapped to the electric chair. And that’s exactly what happened. The police got a confession out of one of the Hindus about fifteen minutes ago. My paper telephoned me.”

Lamont’s face was gray. “Who — who are you?” he asked.

“I’m a free-lance reporter,” said Lester Leith, “who works on feature stuff for some of the leading papers. Right now I’m assigned to cover the story of your arrest in the Navin case. The newspaper knew it was going to break sometime within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Now if you would like to pick up a little money that would come in handy when it becomes necessary to retain an attorney to represent you, you can give us an exclusive interview. In fact, the only thing for you to do is to confess and try and get a life sentence. If you want to make your confession through my newspaper, we would bring all the political pressure to bear that we could to see that you got off with life.”