tantaliz

by Isaac Asimov ed.

  "However, Beaver, if he is going to use other means to catch that murderer and hijack the ruby, the bet is off. He's got to do it by these particular means."

  "That's the bet," said Beaver.

  "And you've got to keep me posted as to everything that he's doing, so that if he should use all of the stuff as a smokescreen and try to get the ruby under cover of all this hooey, we can still catch him."

  "Certainly," said the undercover man.

  Lester Leith smiled urbanely at his valet. "Scuttle," he said, "this is Miss Dixie Dormley, and Mr. Harry Vare. Miss Dormley is a young woman who is doing some special work for me. She has had rather extensive stage experience, but has recently been out of work. In the position that I want her to fill, it will be necessary that she have some rather striking clothes, and I want you to go around with her to the various shops, let her pick out what clothing she desires, and see that it is charged to me."

  The valet blinked his eyes.

  "Very good, sir," he said. "What is the limit in regard to price, sir?"

  "No limit, Scuttle. Also, I have arranged for Miss Dormley to have the apartment next to us, temporarily," said Lester Leith. "She will live there—the one on the left"

  "Yes, sir," said the valet.

  "And Mr. Harry Vare," said Lester Leith, "is the fortunate young man who has won the free scholarship in my school of deductive reasoning."

  The valet stared at Harry Vare.

  Vare met that stare with eyes that were hard and appraising. He narrowed the lids and scrutinized the undercover operative as though he were trying to hypnotize the man.

  "Harry Vare," said Lester Leith suavely, "is a young man from the country who has recently come to the city in search of some employment which would be worthy of his talents. He felt that he had outgrown the small town in which he lived. He is possessed of that first essential for detective work—an imagination which makes him see an ulterior motive in every action, a crime in every set of circumstances."

  The undercover operative was dignified.

  "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but as I understand it, sir, most of the real detectives are somewhat the other way. They regard it as a business, sir."

  Lester Leith shook his head.

  "No, Scuttle," he said. "Sergeant Ackley is one of the shrewdest detectives that I know, and you must admit, Scuttle, that he has one of those imaginations which makes him see a crime in everything."

  The girl looked from face to face with a twinkle in her eyes. She was a beautiful woman.

  "Mr. Vare," said Lester Leith, "will have the apartment on the right—the one adjoining us. He will be domiciled there temporarily, Scuttle."

  "Yes, sir," said the valet "May I ask, what are the duties of these persons?"

  "Mr. Vare is going to be a detective," said Lester Leith gravely. "He will detect"

  "What will he detect?"

  "That is the interesting part of having a professional detective about, Scuttle. One never knows what he is going to detect There is Sergeant Ackley, for instance. He detects so many things which seem utterly unreasonable at the time, and then, after mature investigation and reflection, they seem to have an entirely different complexion."

  The spy cleared his throat

  "And the young lady, sir?"

  "Miss Dormley," said Lester Leith, "will engage in dramatic acting upon the stage which was so well described by Shakespeare."

  "What stage is that?" asked the undercover man.

  "The world," said Lester Leith.

  "Very good, sir," the valet said. "And when do I start on this shopping tour?"

  "Immediately," said Lester Leith. "And by the way, Scuttle, did you get me the money and the diamond stick-pin?"

  The valet opened a box which he took from his pocket

  "Yes, sir," he said. "You wanted rather a large diamond with something of a fault in it, something that wasn't too expensive, I believe you said."

  "Yes," said Lester Leith. "That's right Scuttle."

  "This is sent on approval," said the valet. "The price tag is on the pin, sir."

  Lester Leith looked at the diamond pin, and whistled. "Rather a low price, Scuttle," he said.

  "Yes, sir," said the valet. "There's quite a flaw in the diamond, although it doesn't appear until you examine it closely."

  "And the money?"

  "Yes, sir," said the valet, and took from his pocket a sheaf of bank notes.

  Lester Leith gravely arranged them so that the fifties were on the outside. Then he rolled them and snapped the roll with an elastic.

  Lester Leith turned to Vare.

  "Vare," he said, "are you ready to start detecting?"

  "I thought I was going to be given a course of instruction," he said.

  "You are," said Lester Leith, "but you are going to learn by a new method. You know, they used to teach law by reading out of law books, and then they decided that that wasn't the proper way to give the pupils instruction. They switched to what is known as the case method—that is, Vare, they read cases to them and let the students delve into the reported cases until they found the legal principles which had been applied to the facts."

  "Yes, sir," said Vare.

  "That is the way you are going to learn detective work," said Lester Leith. "By the case method. Are you ready to start?" Vare nodded.

  Lester Leith removed the tiepin from his tie, placed it on the table, and inserted the diamond stick-pin.

  "Very well, Vare," he said. "Get your hat and come with me. You are about to receive the first lesson."

  There was the usual crowd in front of the ticket windows of the big railroad station. Everywhere there was noise, bustle, and confusion.

  "Now," said Lester Leith to Harry Vare, "keep about twenty feet behind me and watch sharply. See if you can find anyone who looks like a crook."

  Vare cocked a professional eye at the crowd.

  "They all look like crooks," he said.

  Lester Leith nodded gravely.

  "Vare," he said, "you are showing the true detective instincts. But I want you to pick out someone who looks like a crook we can pin something definite on."

  "I don't see exactly what you mean," said Vare.

  "You will," said Lester Leith. "Just follow me."

  Lester Leith pushed his way through the crowd, with Vare tagging along behind him. From time to time Lester Leith pulled out the roll of bills and counted them, apparently anxious to see that they were safe. Then he snapped the elastic back on the roll and pushed it back in his pocket.

  Leith kept in the most congested portions of the big depot.

  Twice he was bumped into, and each time by a sad-faced individual with mournful eyes and a drooping mouth.

  The man was garbed in a dark suit, and his tie was conservative. Everything about him blended into a single drab personality which would attract no attention.

  Finally, Lester Leith walked to a closed ticket window, where there was a little elbow room.

  "Well, Vare," he said, "did you see anyone?"

  Vare said: "Well, I saw several that looked like crooks, but I couldn't see anyone that I could pick out as being a certain particular crook. That is, I couldn't find any proof."

  Lester Leith put his hand in his pocket, and then suddenly jumped backwards.

  "Robbed!" he said.

  Vare stared at him with sagging jaw.

  "Robbed?" he asked.

  "Robbed," said Lester Leith. "My money—it's gone!"

  He pulled his hand from his trousers pocket, and disclosed a slit which had been cut in the cloth so that the contents of the pocket could be reached from the outside.

  "Pickpockets," said Harry Vare.

  "And you didn't discover them," Leith said.

  Vare fidgeted uneasily.

  "There was quite a crowd," he said, "and of course I couldn't see everything." Lester Leith shook his head sadly.

  "I can't give you a high mark on the first lesson, Vare," he said. "Now let's take
a cab and go home."

  "Your tie pin is safe, anyway," said Vare.

  Lester Leith gave a sudden start, reached his hand to his tie, and pulled out the diamond scarf-pin.

  He looked at the diamond and nodded, then suddenly pointed to the pin.

  "Look," he said, "the man tried to take it off with nippers. You can see where they left their mark on the pin. I must have pulled away just as he was doing it, so that he didn't get a chance to get the diamond."

  Vare's eyes were large; his face showed consternation.

  "Really," said Lester Leith, "you have had two lessons in one, and I can't give you a high mark on either. You should have detected the person who was putting nippers on my pin."

  Vare looked crestfallen.

  Leith said: "Oh, well, you can't expect to become a first-class detective overnight. That's one of the things that training is for. But we'll go back to the apartment and I'll change my clothes, and you can sit back and concentrate for an hour or two on what you saw, and see if you can remember anything significant"

  But a little later Lester Leith returned to the depot—alone. Once more he mingled with the crowd, moving aimlessly about, but this time his eyes were busy scanning the faces of the stream of people.

  He noticed the man in the dark suit with the mournful countenance, moving aimlessly about, a newspaper in his hands, his manner that of one who is waiting patiently for a wife who was to have met him an hour ago.

  Lester Leith walked behind this man, keeping him in sight.

  After some fifteen minutes, Leith shortened the distance between them and tapped the man sharply on the shoulder.

  "I want to talk with you," he said.

  The man's face changed expression. The look of mournful listlessness vanished, and the eyes became hard and wary. "You ain't got nothing on me." Lester Leith laughed.

  "On the contrary," he said, "you have got something of mine on you—a roll of bills with some fifties on the outside and dollar bills in between. Also, you have the scarf-pin which you just nipped from that fat gentleman with the scarlet tie."

  The man backed away, and turned as though getting ready to run,

  Lester Leith said: Tm not a detective. I just want to talk with you. In fact, I want to employ you."

  The pickpocket looked at him with eyes that were wide with surprise.

  "Employ me?" he asked.

  "Yes," said Lester Leith. "I have been strolling around here all afternoon looking for a good pickpocket" Tm not a pickpocket," said the man.

  Lester Leith paid no attention to the man's protestation of innocence.

  "I am," he said, "running a school for young detectives. I want to employ you as an assistant instructor. I have an idea that the ordinary training of police officers and detectives is exceedingly haphazard. I am looking for someone who can give my students an education in picking pockets."

  "What's the pay?"

  "Well," said Lester Leith, "you can keep the watch that you got from the tall thin man, the scarf-pin which you nipped from the fleshy man, and you can keep the roll of bills which you cut from my trousers pocket In addition to that, you will draw regular compensation of one hundred dollars a day, and if you feel like risking your liberty, you can keep anything which you can pick up on the side."

  "How do you mean, 'on the side'?"

  "By the practice of your profession, of course," said Lester Leith. The pickpocket stared at him.

  This," he said, "is some kind of a smart game to get me to commit myself."

  Lester Leith reached to his inside pocket and took out a well-filled wallet He opened the wallet, and the startled eyes of the pickpocket caught sight of a number of one-hundred-dollar bills.

  Gravely Lester Leith took out one of these hundred-dollar bills and extended it to the pickpocket

  "This,'' he said, "is the first day's salary."

  The man took the one-hundred-dollar bill, and his eyes followed the wallet as Lester Leith returned it to his pocket.

  "Okay, boss," he said. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Just meet me," said Lester Leith, "at certain regular times and places. Your first job will be to meet me here at nine thirty tonight I will write a bunch of instructions on a piece of paper, and put that piece of paper in my coat pocket. You can slip the paper out of the coat pocket and follow instructions. Don't let on that you know me at all, unless I should speak to you first"

  The pickpocket nodded.

  "Okay," he said. "I'll be here at nine thirty. In the meantime, I'll walk as far as your taxicab with you and talk over details. My name is Sid Bentley. What's yours?"

  "Leith," Lester Leith told him.

  "Pleased to meet you."

  After they had finished shaking hands, Lester Leith started toward the taxicab and Bentley walked on his right side, talking rapidly.

  "I don't know how you made me, Leith," he said, "but you can believe it or not, it's the first time I've ever been picked up by anybody. I used to be a sleight-of-hand artist on the stage, and then when business got bad, I decided to go out and start work. I haven't a criminal record and the police haven't got a thing on me."

  "That's fine," beamed Lester Leith. "You're exactly the man I want. I'll meet you here at nine thirty, eh, Bentley?"

  "Nine thirty it is, Captain."

  Lester Leith hailed a taxicab. As it swung into the circle in front of the depot he turned casually to the pickpocket

  "By the way, Bentley," he said, "please don't use that knife. You've already ruined one good suit for me."

  As Lester Leith spoke, his left hand shot out and clamped around the wrist of the pickpocket The light gleamed on the blade of a razor-like knife with which Bentley had been about to cut Lester Leith's coat

  Bentley looked chagrined for a moment, and then sighed. "You said that it'd be all right for me to pick up anything I could on the side, Captain," he protested. Lester Leith grinned.

  "Well," he said, "I had better amplify that. You can pick up anything you can on the side, provided you leave my pockets alone."

  Bentley matched Lester Leith's grin. "Okay, Captain," he said. "That's a go."

  Lester Leith climbed in the taxicab and returned to his apartment

  A vision of loveliness greeted him as he opened the door. Dixie Dormley had adorned herself in garments which looked as though they had been tailored to order in the most exclusive shops.

  She smiled a welcome to Lester Leith.

  "I kept the cost as low as I could," she said, "in order to get the effect that you wanted."

  "You certainly got the effect," complimented Lester Leith, staring at her with very evident approval. "Yes, I think you have done very well, indeed, and we will all go to dinner tonight—the four of us. You, Miss Dormley, Mr. Vare, and, Scuttle, I'm going to include you too."

  The spy blinked his eyes. "Yes, sir."

  "By the way," said Lester Leith, "did you have the imitation ruby made?" The spy nodded.

  "It's rather a swell affair," he said, "so far as the ruby is concerned. The gold setting is rather cleverly done too. The jeweller insisted upon doing it in a very soft gold. He said that the Indian gold was very yellow and very soft, without much alloy in it He's duplicated the border design very accurately."

  "Quite right, Scuttle," said Lester Leith. "The man knows what he is doing. Let's see it"

  The spy handed Lester Leith a little casket, which Leith opened.

  The girl exclaimed in admiration.

  "Good heavens," she said, "it looks genuine!"

  Lester Leith nodded. "It certainly does," he said. "They are able to make excellent imitations of rubies these days."

  He lifted the imitation jewel from the case and dropped it carelessly in his side pocket

  "All right, Dixie," he said. "If you'll dress for dinner, we'll leave rather early. I have an important appointment at nine thirty. By the way, I don't want either of you to mention to a living soul that this ruby is an imitation."

  At dinner
that evening Lester Leith was in rare form. He was suave and courteous, acting very much the gentleman, and discharging his duties as host. It was when the dessert had been cleared away that Leith gravely surveyed Harry Vare's countenance.

  "Vare," he said, "you have had your first lesson this afternoon. Do you think that you have profited by it?" Vare flushed.

  "Ill say one thing," he said, "no pickpocket will ever get near you again as long as I'm around." Lester Leith nodded.

  "That's fine," he said. "Now then, I have a rather valuable bauble here that I want to have guarded carefully. I am going to ask you to put it in your pocket."

  And Lester Leith slipped from his pocket the imitation ruby and passed it across the table to Vare.

  Vare gave a gasp, and his eyes bulged.

  "Good heavens," he said, "this is worth a fortune!"

  Leith shrugged. "I am making no comments, Vare," he said, "on its value. It is merely something which is entrusted to you for safekeeping, as a part of your training in detective work."

  Vare slipped the gem hurriedly into his pocket.

  Lester Leith caught the eye of the waiter and secured the check, which he paid.

  "I want you folks to take a little walk with me," he said. "Vare is going to have another lesson as a detective, and I would like to have all of you present"

  The spy was plainly ill at ease.

  "You want me there also, sir?" he asked.

  "Certainly," said Lester Leith.

  "Very well, sir," said the spy.

  Leith helped the young woman on with her wraps, saw that she was seated comfortably in the taxicab, and told the driver to take them to the depot

  The spy stared at him curiously.

  "You're leaving town, sir?" he asked.

  "Oh, no," said Lester Leith. "We're just going down to the depot, and Fm going to walk around the way I did this afternoon. Vare is going to see that my pocket isn't picked."

  There was not as large a crowd in the depot at night, and Lester Leith had some difficulty in finding a crowd of sufficient density to suit his purpose. In his side pocket was a note:

  "The young man who is following me around has an imitation ruby in his pocket. He is watching me to make certain that no one picks my pocket See if you can get the ruby from him, and after you have, return it to me later."