"Reckon it is. Well, to go on, this here Mrs. Haley starts out from
Chicago about a month ago in her private car, headed for Palm Beach by
way of Memphis an' N'Yawlins. She carries with her a maid an' a chef
an' a butler. Also she carries with her about one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars' worth of joolry which she plans to wear all at one
time, just to prove that she's a lady. An' about the time she makes her
plans a certain Mr. Arthur Sherwood, who is playin' the races down in
N'Yawlins, gets wind of it and decides to make a play for them stones.
"Far as I can see, Arthur, you started out without any definite plan.
Opportunist--ain't that the word I used before? You figured that all
you needed was to get close enough to them jools for a long enough time
an' they were yours. An' so, as society is your fad, you went an' had
some cards engraved which announced that you was Mr. Albert Grinnell
Stoneham, said Mr. Stoneham bein' the son of one of the most exclusive
families socially in New York, where they have society as is society.
"You meet the train at Memphis and just after leaving there your card
goes back to Mrs. Haley, an' that dame nearly drops dead with joy. To
make it brief, she lassoes the son of the great Stoneham family and
makes him her guest. It looks like the first real break-in she's made
in seven years, as it gives her an elegant excuse to drop in on Pa and
Ma Stoneham when she gets to New York next time. And so Mr. Sherwood,
alias Mr. Stoneham, gets an awful warm welcome on the private car, an'
Mrs. Haley wears a hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of joolry
every time she comes within range of his eyes." Jim lighted another
cigar. "Wasn't your fingers itching to grab them stones an' run,
Arthur?"
"I'm very fond of jewelry, Jim."
"Sure! Or you wouldn't have taken all them chances. I've checked up,
you see. To get ahead: You reached N'Yawlins at eight o'clock. You
had been down there at the races, an' you had gone to Memphis to meet
that train. The car was going out on a Jacksonville train at six the
next morning. An' you asked Mrs. Haley wouldn't she like to go for a
sightseeing drive. You went out an' hired a big touring car an' you
went for the drive. You gave her an awful good feed at Emil's--they say
you know how to order a swell dinner, Arthur--an' about ten o'clock
that night you showed up at the Spanish Fort Inn.
"Out there you had a swell time. Bein' known to the head waiter, not to
mention the proprietor, the sky was the limit. You had cocktails an'
champagne an' maybe even a liqueur or six. Poor Mrs. Haley, thinkin'
she was in Rome, done as the Romans did, an', to put it mild an'
polite, got sweetly spifflicated. Not drunk, but terribly happy. She
found herself sittin' on top of the world an' didn't care who saw her.
You left the inn about two in the A.M. an' Mrs. Haley insisted
on sittin' in front with you so's she could drive the car. You wasn't
particularly keen about it, but you didn't kick hard enough, because
same is what she done, the shoffer reclinin' in the back.
"The old dame had started out to prove she could drive--an' she
proved it. I reckon she must have busted sixty sev'ral times comin'
into the city. Ol' gal was just naturally havin' a helluva time. That
is, she was until you got 'most home. It was there that somethin'
happened--because it was there, Arthur, that a cop seen the speed you
was goin' at an' tried to stop you. An' poor Mrs. Haley, not carin'
nothin' for no cops, with a bunch of drinks inside her, ran into him!
"What happened then, Arthur"--and Jim Hanvey shook his enormous head
reprovingly--"was downright unfortunate. The cop was stunned. You
stopped your car, an' just when you did the cop moved, indicating that
he wasn't so terribly hurt. With which the missus slipped into gear,
stepped on the gas an' let 'er rip. Cop fired one time in the air an'
you were free. Mrs. Haley drove that car to somewhere in the French
quarter, you got out an' slipped the scared shoffer a nice piece of
change to keep mum, and back you beat it to the private car.
"That's where good luck played into your hands, Arthur; right plumb
into 'em. Bein' an opportunist----Say! That's a swell word, ain't it? I
got it out of the dictionary before I come here. Bein' an opportunist
like I was sayin', you'd just stuck around with the fat dame, knowin'
that sooner or later you'd get a chance at them jools. An' kerflooie,
her cop-knockin' experience puts everything in your paws. How? Because
you knew darned good an' well that shoffer was goin' to lay pretty low
on account of what they'd give him if they ever found out it was his
car. The farther away he keeps from the spotlight in connection with
that case the more comfortable he's gonna be.
"An' of course Mrs. Haley is now a fugitive from justice down in
N'Yawlins.
"You took her back to the private car. She had sobered up more than
a little, but the strong stuff was still there inside of her. Her
nerves was doin' a shimmy, an' you gave her plenty more to drink.
Finally she went to sleep. When that happened you grabbed the jools
an' hopped the car. Mrs. Haley didn't wake up until she was on her way
to Jacksonville. It was a couple hours later that she found out the
jools was gone--an' you too. The old gal nearly went nuts until she
remembered her insurance, then she figured she was sittin' on Easy
Street. An' it may interest you to know that the insurance money has
already been paid to her; one hundred thousand dollars."
Sherwood sat motionless, staring admiringly at the portly detective.
By no slightest physical sign did he give indication of his genuine
enthusiasm for Hanvey's deductive powers, although he marveled at them
with the frank appreciation of one brainy man for the accomplishments
of another.
Hanvey's story was correct to a detail. Sherwood knew the exhaustive
search that the detective must have made, the painstaking probing.