The men began to argue angrily over the proposed distribution, Hoges insisting that Lynch was not entitled to any part of the money received from the sale of the pictures.
“It was our racket, and you just horned in,” he protested. “You took none of the risk.”
“If I pass the word around, you’ll never get out of town with any of the money,” Lynch retorted sneeringly.
“We’re willing to divide up,” Hoges said hastily, “but in return we expect a split on the pearl necklace.”
“That was a deal between Cron and me.”
The argument waxed hotter, the men’s voices rising until Hanley Cron feared they could be heard outside.
“Pipe down,” he ordered. “Do you want to bring the police? The important thing now is to get away from here before we’re caught. Why not split everything four ways and no hard feelings?”
“Okay,” Lynch growled. “We divide even. Where are the pearls?”
“They’re safe here,” Cron answered. “I’ll get them.”
He started across the room, but just then a loud knock sounded on the door.
The four froze into tense attitudes.
“Better answer,” Lynch whispered. “Maybe it’s only your landlord.”
“Who’s there?” Cron demanded.
“Open up!” a voice shouted. “Open in the name of the law!”
“The police!” Cron muttered in an undertone. “Quick! Down the fire escape!”
“Open the door or we’ll break it down!” came the shouted warning.
Cron and his companions ran to the window, there to halt in dismay as they faced three policemen who had crept up the iron stairway so quietly that they had not been heard. The four crooks were covered before they could reach for their guns.
“Hands up!” An officer ordered tersely, stepping through the window into the studio.
Cron and his confederates sullenly obeyed.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?” Cron asked with a show of indignation. “Do you realize who I am?”
“Maybe we’ll be more sure of it after you’ve been finger-printed and mugged,” the policeman retorted. “Keep your hands up.”
“What’s the charge against us?” Lynch questioned, with studied indifference, seating himself on the bed. It was not the first time he had ever been arrested. He frequently boasted that no jail would ever claim him.
“You’re wanted on two counts,” the policeman informed. “For theft of a pearl necklace belonging to Mrs. Dillon, and for stealing a valuable painting from the Gage Galleries.”
“Anything else?” Cron inquired sarcastically.
“Yes, several other things, but I’ll let the judge tell you about it.”
“It takes evidence to make an arrest,” Lynch said sneeringly. “Produce your proof.”
“I’ll introduce you to our star witness,” the policeman retorted.
He crossed to the door and unlocked it. Penny Nichols and six policemen entered.
At sight of the girl the four crooks were taken aback. But they quickly covered their confusion.
“Can you identify these men?” Penny was asked.
“Yes, I can,” she answered. “They are the ones who locked me in the closet and then set fire to the building.”
“Set fire to the building?” Hoges echoed. “That’s a lie.”
“Shut up,” Lynch growled.
“Here are the pictures which I saved as evidence,” Penny continued, displaying the original Rembrandt and one of the copies.
“See here, this girl is stark crazy,” Cron interposed. “I don’t know where she obtained these pictures, but no one could be more delighted to have the Rembrandt recovered than myself. I am well connected at the museum and if you will only call the officials there they will assure you that this girl is making a most unjust accusation.”
“You have pleasant companions,” a policeman remarked, nodding in Lynch’s direction.
The four men were lined up and searched. Only Cron was found to have a gun.
“You can’t get me on that,” he sneered. “I have a permit to carry a weapon.”
The forty thousand dollars was brought to light.
“Quite a nice haul,” a policeman commented, examining the roll of bills.
“You can’t arrest a man for having money in his pocket,” Lynch said harshly. “You don’t find it marked do you?”
“The truth is, you have no case against us,” Cron snapped. “It’s only this silly girl’s word against ours. No doubt she’s been reading detective stories!”
“I can furnish an alibi for the entire day,” Lynch added.
“Unless this ridiculous charge is dropped I warn you I’ll sue for false arrest,” Cron went on furiously.
The officers paid no heed to the talk, yet they knew that their case against the four was not water-tight. As Cron had said, it was a matter of Penny Nichols’ testimony against the four. True, she had the Rembrandt as evidence, but it might be difficult to prove that the four men had been involved in the theft. They had painful recollections of other cases against Max Lynch which had dissolved like soap bubbles in a wind. The man had no equal at producing unexpected witnesses who for a sum of money would provide him with a complete alibi. His lawyer, employed at a yearly salary, was as clever as he was unscrupulous.
“Search the room,” the police captain ordered. “The Dillon pearls must be here.”
The men set about their task with system and thoroughness. They examined every inch of the mattress, they went through all of the clothing, even ripping out the linings of coats and jackets. The floor boards were tested to learn if any had been recently loosened.
“You’ll not find the necklace here,” Cron said harshly.
Penny watched the search with growing uneasiness. She had felt certain that the pearls would be found in the studio. The conversation she had overheard while tied in the closet had led her to believe that the necklace was in Cron’s possession. It must be somewhere in the room.
She crossed over to a bookcase which the officers had not yet examined. Instantly, she noted that Hanley Cron was watching her intently. She lifted out the lower row of volumes. Nothing had been hidden behind them.
“Little Miss Detective!” Cron jeered.
Penny took out a few of the books on the second shelf. She uttered a little cry of surprise.
“My Black Imp!” she exclaimed, wheeling toward Cron. “So you were the one who entered my room and stole it.”
Triumphantly, she caught up the little clay figure from its hiding place.
“Now I know you’re crazy!” Cron snapped. “Someone sent that figure to me in the mail. And rightly it should have been returned to me too! You and that Coulter girl came here and robbed me of it.”
Penny gazed thoughtfully down at the Black Imp. She recalled how startled Max Lynch had been when he had viewed it on her father’s desk. Then later, either Cron or an agent of his, had risked capture to enter the Nichols house and recover the little statue. Why was it so valuable? What secret did it guard?
Suddenly, Penny knew. With a triumphant laugh, she raised the Black Imp and hurled it against the wall. It shattered into a dozen pieces.
“Say, what’s the idea?” a policeman demanded. Then he stared down at the floor.
Among the broken fragments of day lay Mrs. Dillon’s pearl necklace.
“There’s your evidence,” Penny said calmly. “I think even Max Lynch may find it difficult to alibi this.”
With a fatalistic shrug, the gambler turned to the policeman who guarded him.
“You win,” he said. “Buckle on the cuffs and let’s go.”
“There’s something I’d like to learn before you take these men away,” Penny mentioned to the captain. “Mr. Hoges has a letter in his possession which I wish I might examine.”
“Is this the one you mean?” the officer asked. The envelope he indicated had been taken from Hoges when he was searched a few minutes before.<
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“I think it is.”
The policeman handed Penny the letter and he quickly examined it.
“This is the right one,” she said in relief. “And it exonerates Amy Coulter of any wrong doing.”
The brief message read:
“Mr. Hoges: I shall be unable to accept the work which you offered me. I am returning the money paid me as an advance fee.”
Penny was jubilant at the way matters had ended. She had many questions to ask Cron and Max Lynch but she decided to postpone them, realizing that the men were not likely to reveal anything which could be used as evidence against them.
As the four crooks were led away, the captain waited to compliment Penny for her valuable assistance.
“Tell me, young lady,” he commanded admiringly, “how did you know Mrs. Dillon’s pearls were hidden inside that clay figure?”
“I wasn’t absolutely certain,” Penny admitted. “But a number of things made me suspicious. First, I recalled that the man who snatched the necklace from Mrs. Dillon ran into this studio.”
“Could you identify that man?”
“I think you already have him under arrest. I don’t know his name, but I feel certain he is the same person now that I have viewed him closely.”
“He ran into this studio you say?”
“Yes, and when I entered I found Hanley Cron modeling the Black Imp. The possibility did not occur to me at the time, but now I know he must have received the pearls from the actual thief, and molded them into the wet clay.”
“A very clever scheme.”
“Yes, and it would have succeeded, save for one thing. Cron copied the statue of Amy Coulter’s Black Imp. We thought he intended to put it to some commercial use, and took it from him.”
“He permitted you to take it away?” the officer asked in surprise.
“It happened that a policeman came into the studio. I think he must have been afraid to make a fuss.”
“Undoubtedly. Then what happened?”
“I took the statue to my father’s office. Max Lynch came to talk with Dad and saw it. He hurried out of the office as if he had seen a ghost.”
“Of course he knew the pearls were hidden inside the statue,” the officer smiled. “He probably thought Mr. Nichols had discovered them and suspected the plot.”
“That’s the way I figured it out,” Penny nodded.
“Our house was watched. Then one day the Black Imp mysteriously disappeared. I never saw it again until I entered this room.”
“Either Cron or Lynch stole it.”
“Cron I think, for the Black Imp was in his possession.”
“Well, young lady, you’ve done a fine bit of work today,” the captain said soberly. “It’s evident that you’re destined to follow in the footsteps of your illustrious father.”
“Thank you, sir,” Penny flushed.
With the four crooks on their way to jail, and the Rembrandt and the pearl necklace in the possession of the police, she felt that her responsibility was ended. Calling a taxicab, she drove to Amy Coulter’s new rooming house.
“I have wonderful news for you!” she greeted the girl. “The painting has been recovered!”
“Then I’m exonerated?”
“Completely.”
“Oh, Penny! It’s your doing, I know. How can I thank you?” Tears of joy streamed down Amy’s face.
She listened breathlessly to the story Penny related.
“So George Hoges turned out to be a thief!” she exclaimed. “When he asked me to copy a painting for him, I was suspicious that he had involved himself in something dishonest.”
Penny spoke of the meeting she had witnessed in the park.
“Yes, Mr. Hoges gave me money,” Amy acknowledged ruefully. “I needed it so badly or I shouldn’t have listened to him.”
“Then you knew you were to copy the Rembrandt?” Penny questioned quickly.
“Oh, no! He didn’t tell me what painting I was to reproduce. I accepted the money because I needed it so badly. Later, when I thought the matter over more carefully, I realized that the scheme couldn’t be an honest one. So I sent the money back.”
“A fortunate thing that you did,” Penny commented. “Had you kept the money you might have been accused of being one of the gang.”
“I’m glad the painting has been recovered,” Amy said. “And to think that my little Black Imp guarded the hiding place of Mrs. Dillon’s jewels!”
Penny remembered that she had a taxicab waiting outside and hastily said goodbye. When she reached her father’s office, he was talking on the telephone. He smiled broadly as he hung up the receiver.
“Well, I’ve heard all about it,” he declared. “You’ll be famous as soon as the evening papers are on the street. Reporters are on their way here now.”
It developed that Mr. Nichols had not been informed of all the details of Penny’s remarkable adventure. He was quite shaken when he learned of her narrow escape from death in the burning building. The warmth of his praise for her courage, brought the color rushing to the girl’s cheeks.
“I only hope Cron and his friends receive the sentences they deserve,” she commented.
“Don’t worry, they will, Penny. You fairly snowed them under with damaging evidence.”
Mr. Nichols was entirely correct in his opinion. Under police grilling, Hoges and Cron confessed to the crimes for which they were charged. Max Lynch refused to plead guilty but in the end a long legal battle availed him nothing. With his three companions he was sentenced to the state penitentiary.
Hanley Cron in his confession admitted that he had accepted a fee as a bribe for awarding the Huddleson prize to “Winged Night,” a statue of inferior merit. The entire contest therefore was declared void. Months later a new competition was held, and to the delight of everyone Amy Coulter’s Black Imp won the cherished prize.
Penny and her father were not to learn of these important developments for some time. But they were both elated at the outcome of the case.
“Well, you seem to have relieved your old Dad of a job,” the detective smiled. “Now that Mrs. Dillon’s necklace has been recovered, my work for the Insurance Company is over.”
“I hope you haven’t been cheated out of any fat fees on my account.”
“The company will be pleased because its financial responsibility to Mrs. Dillon is over,” the detective answered. “I may charge a double fee on the strength of your work!”
“And do I get half of it?” Penny countered.
Her father smiled broadly. “Perhaps, if you promise to lock it up in your bank account.” He added with a chuckle: “I believe I could increase my profits by taking you into the firm. ‘Nichols and Nichols.’ How does that strike you?”
“I think it would look grand in print,” Penny laughed. “Let’s paint it on the door right now!”
PENNY NICHOLS AND THE KNOB HILL MYSTERY, by Mildred A. Wirt
CHAPTER I
A Cottage at Knob Hill
Penny Nichols, hair flying in the wind, came running up the steps of the Altman porch. She did not need to ring the bell, for just at that moment Susan, her dark-haired chum, appeared in the open doorway.
“Why, hello, Penny,” greeted the Altman girl. “You’re all out of breath.”
“I ran most of the way from home,” replied Penny.
“I was hoping you’d drop in today. Come on into the house.”
“No, I can’t, Susan,” said Penny hurriedly. “I just ran over to say good-by.”
“Good-by?” echoed Susan blankly. “You’re not going away, Penny?”
“Yes, Dad took a sudden notion he wanted to spend a quiet vacation at a place called Knob Hill. We’re motoring down there this afternoon.”
“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Susan. “You didn’t say a thing about it when we were playing tennis yesterday.”
“How could I when I didn’t know anything about it myself until an hour ago? That’s the way Dad does things, Susan.”<
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“I suppose you’re going off on another one of those exciting mystery cases,” Susan said enviously.
“I only wish we were,” sighed Penny. “This vacation won’t be a bit exciting. Dad just wants a complete rest at a quiet place. He says he’ll not even think about work while we’re gone.”
“What sort of place is Knob Hill?”
“From all I can learn it’s just a dead spot on the map,” Penny declared. “And we’ve rented a cottage sight unseen.”
“Oh, it may not be half bad,” said Susan encouragingly. “You’ll probably be able to do a lot of interesting things—swim, hike or ride.”
“Not at Knob Hill,” replied Penny, shaking her head. “It isn’t a summer resort place at all. There will be absolutely nothing to do except eat, sleep, and grow fat.”
Susan laughed as she glanced at her chum’s slender figure. Penny was too active and athletic ever to be plump. She had sparkling blue eyes, golden hair, and a natural smile. It was very easy for her to make friends.
“I haven’t finished my packing yet,” said Penny. “I’ll have to get back home or I’ll keep Dad waiting.”
“I’m terribly sorry to see you go,” Susan told her. “Don’t forget to send me a postcard now and then.”
Penny promised that she would write often, and then, aware that time was slipping away, said a hurried farewell. Reaching her own home, a large white house on Hilburn Street, she found her father washing the car in the back yard.
Christopher Nichols was a tall, slim man with graying hair. For many years he had been in charge of the Nichols Detective Agency and was well known not only in Belton City but throughout the state. Many persons believed that Penny had inherited her father’s sleuthing ability, for even at the age of fifteen she had shown remarkable talent in solving mystery cases.
As Penny paused for a moment to chat with her father before going into the house, she noticed the tired lines of his face.
“Dad really needs a long rest,” she thought. “I ought to be glad we’re both running off to a quiet place like Knob Hill.”
“Hello, Penny,” Mr. Nichols greeted his daughter. “I’ll have this cleaning job done in another ten minutes. Then I’m ready to start whenever you are.”
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