Эрл Гарднер - The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith

“I’m rather surprised at your surprise,” Sansone told him dryly, “inasmuch as you have engaged the young woman who was formerly my secretary, and have apparently cultivated at least a speaking acquaintance with Shogiro.”

“Just what are you getting at?” Leith asked. “As far as the necklace is concerned, it was a part of the stage properties which I use in my act.”

“Doesn’t it impress you as being a remarkable coincidence,” Sansone asked, “that a stage property which you acquired at a house dealing in parlor magic would be almost an exact duplicate of a pearl necklace which was worn by the Empress Dowager of China?”

“What the devil are you insinuating?”

Sansone got to his feet. “Nothing,” he said, and then added significantly, “as yet. I’m something of a magician myself.”

He bowed and walked away.

A deck steward made the rounds of the deck, tapping on the ship’s xylophone, and calling out, “Trapshooting on the afterdeck, please. An exhibition of trapshooting by a national champion.”

Passengers started getting up from chairs, stretching, yawning, and drifting toward the stern. After a while, the popping of a gun could be heard as blue rocks sailed out over the water, only to vanish into puffs of powder as a charge of well-directed shot struck them.

Silman Shore seemed rather bored by what he was doing. His manner was that it was kindergarten stuff.

Bang! Bang!

There wasn’t a single miss.

At length, Shore finished, acknowledged the applause, placed his gun under his arm, and turned back toward his stateroom.

Charles Sansone, walking along the deck, said, “Just a word with you, Shore, if you don’t mind.”

The two men talked together in low tones for about fifteen minutes. Together they strolled back to the cabin occupied by the trap-shooter. Shore’s eyes were narrowed in thoughtful consideration.

“By George,” he said, with his hand on the knob of the door, “it doesn’t seem possible. Of course, I know some of these gem thieves are pretty slick, but—”

He opened the door and stood on the threshold in dismay. His cabin was a complete mess. Trunks had been opened and the contents of the drawers dumped on the floor. Clothes had been jerked from hangers in the closet and thrown to the far end of the stateroom. Some of the leather bags had actually been cut in an attempt to expose false bottoms.

Sansone said, “What’s this?”

Shore said, “I’ve evidently been robbed.”

He entered the stateroom, walked rapidly across to one of the open drawers, took out a roll of currency and a book of travelers’ checks. He faced Sansone significantly. “The one who did it,” he said, “wasn’t looking for money.”

Sansone said, “Come on. We’re going to see the captain.”

The captain received them in his stateroom, said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I wonder if you’re acquainted with Mr. Leith, our amateur magician.”

Leith was sitting in one of the leather-cushioned chairs.

“You’re damn right we’re acquainted with him,” Sansone said. “He broke into Shore’s cabin and — well, he stole—”

“Just a minute,” the captain interrupted. “ Who did you say stole what?”

“Mr. Leith — that is—”

“When was this done?” the captain asked.

Shore said, “Sometime in the last half hour. It is now 2:35. I left my cabin at two o’clock. It was all right then.”

The captain looked at his watch and said, “Mr. Leith has been with me for the last forty-five minutes. We chatted until two o’clock when the skeet shooting started. We walked back along the boat deck, saw some of the blue rocks being broken, then came back here, and sat down. Now then, if you gentlemen have anything to report, report it, but I’ll thank you to refrain from making any unfounded accusations.”

The men exchanged glances. Shore, somewhat crestfallen, said, “Well, someone broke into my cabin and wrecked it looking for something.”

“I’ll go with you,” the captain said, “at once. You’ll pardon me, Mr. Leith?”

“Certainly,” Leith said.

The three men walked off. A few moments later Leith strolled down to his own cabin. He opened the door, glanced inside, and then walked back down to where the captain was appraising the damage in Shore’s stateroom. “Pardon me,” he said. “I don’t like to interrupt, but if you gentlemen think this cabin is a mess, come take a look at mine...”

The island of Oahu showed as a jagged outline against the sky. The ship, passing Koko Head, swung past Diamond Head and the beach at Waikiki.

A short time later the gangplank had been stretched and the passengers, many of them wearing garlands of fragrant leis made of vividly colored tropical flowers, surged down. Beaver said, “Just a minute, your hat, sir.”

He took Leith’s hat and brushed off an imaginary speck of dust. Surreptitiously pinning a small bow of white ribbon to the crown, he replaced the hat on Leith’s head.

A moment later, Leith was swept down the gangplank. As he paused at the foot, a hand touched his shoulder and an official voice said, “One moment, please.”

It was an hour later that Sergeant Ackley, accompanied by a jubilant Beaver, walked into a jewelry store in Honolulu.

“We want this necklace of pearls appraised,” Sergeant Ackley said. “In fact, you’d better appraise both of them.”

The jeweler examined the necklaces, then he looked up at the two men.

“Well?” Sergeant Ackley asked.

“Worth about five dollars,” the jeweler said.

“For which one?” Beaver demanded.

“For both,” the jeweler said.

Stunned, the two conspirators looked at each other, then silently took their spoils to another jewelry store. The jeweler studied the pearls under a magnifying glass, and was even less flattering in his appraisal. “About two dollars apiece,” he said.

Leith lolled in the reclining chair on the lanai of his suite in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and glanced out over Waikiki Beach where tourists and beach boys were hissing their way into shore on surfboards.

“This,” he said, “is the life.”

“Yes, sir,” the undercover man observed.

Leith said, “By the way, Scuttle, I ordered a gun today.”

“A gun, sir?”

“Yes,” Leith said, “a shotgun. I think I may run over to one of the other islands and get in a little shooting. It’s rather an expensive gun. I think prices went up because of this international trapshooting contest which is being staged tomorrow. By the way, Scuttle, you’ll never guess whom I met this afternoon.”

“Who?” the undercover man asked.

“Sergeant Ackley.”

“What’s he doing over here?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Leith said, “but seeing him has made the Islands suddenly distasteful to me. I’ve booked passage on the Clipper tomorrow. I’ll fly back to the Mainland. Ah, there’s a ring at the door. It must be the shotgun.”

“You’ll hardly be using the shotgun if you’re flying back to the Mainland,” the undercover man said. “Shall I tell them to take it back?”

“No, no,” Leith said. “I told them I’d buy it, and I’ll buy it. I’m a man of my word, Scuttle.”

The undercover man signed a delivery slip and took it to Leith.

“Quite a beauty, isn’t it?” Leith said.

“Indeed it is,” the undercover man said worriedly. “Did Sergeant Ackley know you had seen him?”

“Oh, yes,” Leith said. “I shook hands with him — although he seemed to want to avoid me. He said he’d been over here for two or three weeks, conferring with the local police department on a forgery case.”

The valet started to speak, then checked himself...