“His eyes and hair, Mr. Barnable?”
“Didn’t notice.”
“Exactly what did he take, Mr. Barnable?”
“I haven’t had time to check up yet, but he took all the unset stones that were in the safe—mostly diamonds. He must have got fifty thousand dollars’ worth if he got a nickel!”
I permitted a faint smile to show on my lips while I looked coldly at the jeweler.
“In the event that we fail to recover the stones, Mr. Barnable, you are aware that the insurance company will require proof of the purchase of every missing item.”
He fidgeted, screwing his round face up earnestly.
“Well, anyways, he got twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth, if it’s the last thing I ever say in this world, Mr. Thin, on my word of honor as a gentleman.”
“Did he take anything besides the unset stones, Mr. Barnable?”
“Those and some money that was in the safe—about two hundred dollars.”
“Will you please draw up a list immediately, Mr. Barnable, with as accurate a description of each missing item as possible. Now what evidence have we, Sergeant Hooley, of the robber’s subsequent actions?”
“Well, first thing, he subsequently bumped into Mrs. Dolan as he was making his getaway. Seems she was—”
“Mrs. Dolan has an account here,” the jeweler called from the rear of the store when he and Julius had gone to comply with my request. Sergeant Hooley jerked his thumb at the woman who stood on my left.
She was a woman of fewer years than forty, with humorous brown eyes set in a healthily pink face. Her clothes, while neat, were by no means new or stylish, and her whole appearance was such as to cause the adjective “capable” to come into one’s mind, an adjective further justified by the crisp freshness of the lettuce and celery protruding from the top of the shopping-bag in her arms.
“Mrs. Dolan is manager of an apartment building on Ellis Street,” the jeweler concluded his introduction, while the woman and I exchanged smiling nods.
“Thank you, Mr. Barnable. Proceed, Sergeant Hooley.”
“Thank you, Mr. Thin. Seems she was coming in to make a payment on her watch, and just as she put a foot inside the door, this stick-up backed into her, both of them taking a tumble. Mr. Knight, here, saw the mix-up, ran in, knocked the thug loose from his cap and gun, and chased him up the street.”
One of the men present laughed deprecatorily past an upraised sunburned hand which held a pair of gloves. He was a weather-browned man of athletic structure, tall and broad-shouldered, and dressed in loose tweeds.
“My part wasn’t as heroic as it sounds,” he protested. “I was getting out of my car, intending to go across to the Orpheum for tickets, when I saw this lady and the man collide. Crossing the sidewalk to help her up, nothing was further from my mind than that the man was a bandit. When I finally saw his gun he was actually on the point of shooting at me. I had to hit him, and luckily succeeded in doing so just as he pulled the trigger. When I recovered from my surprise I saw he had dropped his gun and run up the street, so I set out after him. But it was too late. He was gone.”
“Thank you, Mr. Knight. Now, Sergeant Hooley, you say the bandit escaped in a car?”
“Thank you, Mr. Thin,” he said idiotically, “I did. Mr. Glenn here saw him.”
“I was standing on the corner,” said Mr. Glenn, a plump man with what might be called the air of a successful salesman.
“Pardon me, Mr. Glenn, what corner?”
“The corner of Powell and O’Farrell,” he said, quite as if I should have known it without being told. “The northeast corner, if you want it exactly, close to the building line. This bandit came up the street and got into a coupe that was driving up Powell Street. I didn’t pay much attention to him. If I heard the shot I took it for an automobile noise. I wouldn’t have noticed the man if he hadn’t been bare-headed, but he was the man Mr. Barnable described—scar, pushed-in mouth, and all.”
“Do you know the make or license number of the car he entered, Mr. Glenn?”
“No, I don’t. It was a black coupe, and that’s all I know. I think it came from the direction of Market Street. A man was driving it, I believe, but I didn’t notice whether he was young or old or anything about him.
“Did the bandit seem excited, Mr. Glenn? Did he look back?”
“No, he was as cool as you please, didn’t even seem in a hurry. He just walked up the street and got into the coupe, not looking to right or left.”
“Thank you, Mr. Glenn. Now can anyone amplify or amend Mr. Barnable’s description of the bandit?”
“His hair was gray,” Mr. Glenn said, “iron-gray.”
Mrs. Dolan and Mr. Knight concurred in this, the former adding, “I think he was older than Mr. Barnable said—closer to fifty than to forty—and his teeth were brown and decayed in front.”
“They were, now that you mention it,” Mr. Knight agreed.
“Is there any other light on the matter, Sergeant Hooley?”
“Not a twinkle. The shotgun cars are out after the coupe, and I reckon when the papers get out we’ll be hearing from more people who saw things, but you know how they are.”
I did indeed. One of the most lamentable features of criminal detection is the amount of time and energy wasted investigating information supplied by people who, through sheer perversity, stupidity, or excessive imagination, insist on connecting everything they have chanced to see with whatever crime happens to be most prominent in the day’s news.
Sergeant Hooley, whatever the defects of his humor, was an excellent actor: his face was bland and guileless and his voice did not vary in the least from the casual as he said, “Unless Mr. Thin has some more questions, you folks might as well run along. I have your address and can get hold of you if I need you again.”
I hesitated, but the fundamental principle that Papa had instilled in me during the ten years of my service under him—the necessity of never taking anything for granted—impelled me to say, “Just a moment,” and to lead Sergeant Hooley out of the others’ hearing.
“You have made your arrangements, Sergeant Hooley?”
“What arrangements?”
I smiled, realizing that the police detectives were trying to conceal their knowledge from me. My immediate temptation was, naturally enough, to reciprocate in kind; but whatever the advantages of working independently on any one operation, in the long run a private detective is wiser in cooperating with the police than in competing with them.
“Really,” I said, “you must harbor a poor opinion of my ability if you think I have not also taken cognizance of the fact that if Glenn were standing where he said he was standing, and if, as he says, the bandit did not turn his head, then he could not have seen the scar on the bandit’s left cheek.” Despite his evident discomfiture, Sergeant Hooley acknowledged defeat without resentment.
“I might of known you’d tumble to that,” he admitted, rubbing his chin with a reflective thumb. “Well, I reckon we might as well take him along now as later, unless you’ve got some other notion in your head.”
Consulting my watch, I saw that it was now twenty-four minutes past noon: my investigation had thus far, thanks to the police detectives’ having assembled all the witnesses, consumed only ten or twelve minutes.
“If Glenn were stationed at Powell Street to mislead us,” I suggested, “then isn’t it quite likely that the bandit did not escape in that direction at all? It occurs to me that there is a barber shop two doors from here in the opposite direction—toward Stockton Street. That barber shop, which I assume has a door opening into the Bulwer Building, as barber shops similarly located invariably do, may have served as a passageway through which the bandit could have got quickly off the street. In any event, I consider it a possibility that we should investigate.”
“The barber shop it is!” Sergeant Hooley spoke to his colleague, “Wait here with these folks till we’re back, Strong. We won’t be long.”
“Rig
ht,” Detective Strong replied.
In the street we found fewer curious spectators than before.
“Might as well go inside, Tim,” Sergeant Hooley said to the policeman in front as we passed him on our way to the barber shop.
The barber shop was about the same size as the jewelry store. Five of its six chairs were filled when we went in, the vacant one being that nearest the front window. Behind it stood a short swarthy man who smiled at us and said, “Next,” as is the custom of barbers.
“Thank you,” I said, turning away.
“A tough break,” Sergeant Hooley muttered in my ear.
I looked sharply at him.
“You forget or, rather, you think I have forgotten, Knight’s gloves.”
Sergeant Hooley laughed shortly. “I forgot ’em for a fact. I must be getting absent-minded or something.”
“I know of nothing to be gained by dissembling, Sergeant Hooley. The barber will be through with our man presently.” Indeed, the man rose from the chair as I spoke. “I suggest that we simply ask him to accompany us to the jeweler’s.”
“Fair enough,” the sergeant agreed.
We waited until our man had put on his collar and tie, his blue jacket, gray coat, and gray hat. Then, exhibiting his badge, Sergeant Hooley introduced himself to the man.
“I’m Sergeant Hooley. I want you to come up the street with me.”
“What?”
The man’s surprise was apparently real, as it may well have been.
Word for word, the sergeant repeated his statement.
“What for?”
I answered the man’s question in as few words as possible.
“You are under arrest for robbing Barnable’s jewelry store.”
The man protested somewhat truculently that his name was Brennan, that he was well-known in Oakland, that someone would pay for this insult, and so on. For a minute it seemed that force would be necessary to convey our prisoner to Barnable’s, and Sergeant Hooley had already taken a grip on the man’s wrist when Brennan finally submitted, agreeing to accompany us quietly.
Glenn’s face whitened and a pronounced tremor disturbed his legs as we brought Brennan into the jewelry store, where Mrs. Dolan and Messrs. Barnable, Julius, Knight, and Strong came eagerly to group themselves around us. The uniformed man the Sergeant had called Tim remained just within the street door.
“Suppose you make the speeches,” Sergeant Hooley said, offering me the center of the stage.
“Is this your bandit, Mr. Barnable?” I began.
The jeweler’s brown eyes achieved astonishing width.
“No, Mr. Thin!”
I turned to the prisoner.
“Remove your hat and coat, if you please. Sergeant Hooley, have you the cap that the bandit dropped? Thank you, Sergeant Hooley.” To the prisoner, “Kindly put this cap on.”
“I’m damned if I will!” he roared at me.
Sergeant Hooley held a hand out toward me.
“Give it to me. Here, Strong, take a hold on this baby while I cap him.”
Brennan subsided. “All right! All right! I’ll put it on!”
The cap was patently too large for him, but, experimenting, I found it could be adjusted in such a manner that its lack of fit was not too conspicuous, while its size served to conceal his hair and alter the contours of his head.
“Now will you please,” I said, stepping back to look at him, “take out your teeth?”
This request precipitated an extraordinary amount of turmoil. The man Knight hurled himself on Detective Strong, while Glenn dashed toward the front door, and Brennan struck Sergeant Hooley viciously with his fist. Hastening to the front door to take the place of the policeman who had left it to struggle with Glenn, I saw that Mrs. Dolan had taken refuge in the corner, while Barnable and Julius avoided being drawn into the conflict only by exercising considerable agility.
Order was at length restored, with Detective Strong and the policeman handcuffing Knight and Glenn together, while Sergeant Hooley, sitting astride Brennan, waved aloft the false teeth he had taken from his mouth.
Beckoning to the policeman to resume his place at the door, I joined Sergeant Hooley, and we assisted Brennan to his feet, restoring the cap to his head. He presented a villainous appearance: his mouth, unfilled by teeth, sank in, thinning and aging his face, causing his nose to lengthen limply and flatly.
“Is this your baby?” Sergeant Hooley asked, shaking the prisoner at the jeweler.
“It is! It is! It’s the same fellow!” Triumph merged with puzzlement on the jeweler’s face. “Except he’s got no scar,” he added slowly.
“I think we shall find his scar in his pocket.”
We did—in the form of a brown-stained handkerchief still damp and smelling of alcohol. Besides the handkerchief, there were in his pockets a ring of keys, two cigars, some matches, a pocket-knife, $36, and a fountain pen.
The man submitted to our search, his face expressionless until Mr. Barnable exclaimed, “But the stones? Where are my stones?”
Brennan sneered nastily. “I hope you hold your breath till you find ’em,” he said.
“Mr. Strong, will you kindly search the two men you have handcuffed together?” I requested.
He did so, finding, as I expected, nothing of importance on their persons.
“Thank you, Mr. Strong,” I said, crossing to the corner in which Mrs. Dolan was standing. “Will you please permit me to examine your shopping-bag?”
Mrs. Dolan’s humorous brown eyes went blank.
“Will you please permit me to examine your shopping-bag?” I repeated, extending a hand toward it.
She made a little smothered laughing sound in her throat, and handed me the bag, which I carried to a flat-topped showcase on the other side of the room. The bag’s contents were the celery and lettuce I have already mentioned, a package of sliced bacon, a box of soap chips, and a paper sack of spinach, among the green leaves of which glowed, when I emptied them out on the showcase, the hard crystal facets of unset diamonds. Less conspicuous among the leaves were some banknotes.
Mrs. Dolan was, I have said, a woman who impressed me as being capable, and that adjective seemed especially apt now: she behaved herself, I must say, in the manner of one who would be capable of anything. Fortunately, Detective Strong had followed her across the store; he was now in a position to seize her arms from behind, and thus incapacitate her, except vocally—a remaining freedom of which she availed herself to the utmost, indulging in a stream of vituperation which it is by no means necessary for me to repeat.
It was a few minutes past two o’clock when I returned to our offices.
“Well, what?” Papa ceased dictating his mail to Miss Queenan to challenge me. “I’ve been waiting for you to phone!”
“It was not necessary,” I said, not without some satisfaction. “The operation has been successfully concluded.”
“Cleaned up?”
“Yes, sir. The thieves, three men and a woman, are in the city prison, and the stolen property has been completely recovered. In the detective bureau we were able to identify two of the men, ‘Reader’ Keely, who seems to have been the principal, and a Harry McMeehan, who seems to be well-known to the police in the East. The other man and the woman, who gave their names as George Glenn and Mrs. Mary Dolan, will doubtless be identified later.”
Papa bit the end off a cigar and blew the end across the office.
“What do you think of our little sleuth, Florence?” he fairly beamed on her, for all the world as if I were a child of three who had done something precocious.
“Spiffy!” Miss Queenan replied. “I think we’ll do something with the lad yet.”
“Sit down, Robin, and tell us about it,” Papa invited. “The mail can wait.”
“The woman secured a position as manager of a small apartment house on Ellis Street,” I explained, though without sitting down. “She used that as reference to open an account with Barnable, buying a watch, for whic
h she paid in small weekly installments. Keely, whose teeth were no doubt drawn while he was serving his last sentence in Walla Walla, removed his false teeth, painted a scar on his cheek, put on an ill-fitting cap, and, threatening Barnable and his assistant with a pistol, took the unset stones and money that were in the safe.
“As he left the store he collided with Mrs. Dolan, dropping the plunder into a bag of spinach which, with other groceries, was in her shopping-bag. McMeehan, pretending to come to the woman’s assistance, handed Keely a hat and coat, and perhaps his false teeth and a handkerchief with which to wipe off the scar, and took Keely’s pistol.
“Keely, now scarless, and with his appearance altered by teeth and hat, hurried to a barber shop two doors away, while McMeehan, after firing a shot indoors to discourage curiosity on the part of Barnable, dropped the pistol beside the cap and pretended to chase the bandit up toward Powell Street. At Powell Street another accomplice was stationed to pretend he had seen the bandit drive away in an automobile. These three confederates attempted to mislead us further by adding fictitious details to Barnable’s description of the robber.”
“Neat!” Papa’s appreciation was, I need hardly point out, purely academic—a professional interest in the cunning the thieves had shown and not in any way an approval of their dishonest plan as a whole. “How’d you knock it off?”
“That man on the corner couldn’t have seen the scar unless the bandit had turned his head, which the man denied. McMeehan wore gloves to avoid leaving prints on the pistol when he fired it, and his hands are quite sunburned, as if he does not ordinarily wear gloves. Both men and the woman told stories that fitted together in every detail, which, as you know, would be little less than a miracle in the case of honest witnesses. But since I knew Glenn, the man on the corner, had prevaricated, it was obvious that if the others’ stories agreed with his, then they too were deviating from the truth.”
I thought it best not to mention to Papa that immediately prior to going to Barnable’s, and perhaps subconsciously during my investigation, my mind had been occupied with finding another couplet to replace the one the editor of The Jongleur had disliked; incongruity, therefore, being uppermost in my brain, Mrs. Dolan’s shopping-bag had seemed a quite plausible hiding place for the diamonds and money.
Crime Stories Page 128