"In that taxi?"
"That wasn't my idea, Arthur." The detective's big spatulate fingers
drummed lightly on the table. "All I was doin', Arthur, was to make
sure that you was tryin' to shake me!"
"A-ah!" Sherwood's thin lips compressed. Hanvey waved genially. "Think
it over."
Sherwood thought it over. Then: "Well, I was trying to shake you. Where
does that get you?"
"A heap of places, Arthur. 'Cause how? 'Cause the minute you tried to
shake me I knew good an' well you was doin' it because you was headed
for the vault where you had the jools hid. Of course it is a vault--no
crook of your intelligence would hide 'em anywheres else. So the minute
you gave me the slip I come on back here an' waited for you."
"Ye-e-es." Sherwood was puzzled. "But why?"
"Because, Arthur, I laid an awful clever trap for you, an' you fell
into it. You don't mind my callin' myself clever, do you, Arthur? I
really do think it was an awful good stunt I pulled."
"Just what was it, Jim?"
Hanvey glanced at his enormous watch. "Just this: At some time between
3:45 and 4:30 this afternoon you went to your bank box. You signed your
card--under an alias, of course. An' to-morrow mornin' I start out
inspectin' the vault cards of every bank in New York. I'll get help
from headquarters, an' eventually we'll check up on every man, woman
an' child who entered a bank box in that three-quarters of an hour."
The detective grinned in boyish approval of his own acumen. "'Tain't
gonna be such an easy job, Arthur, but it ain't gonna be so hard
neither--me not carin' particularly about time in this case. Of course
I know the box is in a Manhattan bank, because you got back too quick
to have gone to Brooklyn or even Jersey City. Jerry Naschbaum, chief
of the headquarters identification force, will let me have a few good
men to help. In one week, two weeks mebbe three, we'll check up on
everybody who entered a bank box between 3:45 and 4:30 to-day. An' when
we've done that, Arthur, we'll have you. See?"
Arthur saw. "I wish some one else was on this case, Jim. You're too
blamed painstaking."
"Better 'fess up now."
"No; I'll take my chances."
"Ain't gonna get you nowhere. You can't sell them jools; there ain't a
soul in the world would buy 'em offen you."
"Maybe not." Sherwood opened the door invitingly. "Sorry you have to be
going, Jim."
"I'm sorry myself, Arthur." He turned at the doorway. "I'm kinder cute
yet, ain't I?"
"I hope not, Jim," was the answer.
It did not take Sherwood long to realize that he was nearing the end of
his rope. He might have known that Jim Hanvey was going to trap him.
That had been a clever trick of Jim's, and it promised definite and
fairly immediate results. Hanvey was right; the task of checking up
would be a slow and difficult undertaking, but Sherwood knew the police
system sufficiently well to understand--and fear--its tirelessness.
Eventually they'd complete their check-up, and when they did----
Sherwood admitted to himself that he must dispose of the jewels.
Thought of transferring them to another box was out of the question.
They'd discover that eventually. The thing to do was to rid himself
of the gems. But Jim Hanvey had insisted that he could not sell them
because there was no market. Jim had spoken truly. No market. "Oh,
confound Mrs. Haley and her jewelry!"
Sherwood caught his breath suddenly. Mrs. Haley! Puffy, ponderous Mrs.
Haley! The poor, bewildered, self-sufficient Mrs. Haley, who had lost
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of jewelry and been
partially reimbursed with one hundred thousand dollars of the insurance
company's money. Sherwood smashed his right fist into the palm of his
left hand.
"There's my market! I'll sell the jewels back to Mrs. Haley!"
He paced the room, his brain running riot with the sardonic daring of
his scheme. He knew Jim Hanvey was not infallible. Jim had been so
confident that no one would buy the jewels--so confident that he had
completely overlooked Mrs. Haley.
And Mrs. Haley would buy. He'd make her buy. No one would think of
looking to her for the gems. She could have them set in new mountings
and no one would ever be the wiser. He'd sell them to her for fifty
thousand dollars, and she'd be fifty thousand dollars winner on the
transaction. Then Jim Hanvey could search all he pleased.
He telephoned Mrs. Haley. She was decidedly disinclined to meet him. He
assumed a threatening tone. She consented fearfully. They met at Port
Chester, he going there by train and she by automobile. She refused
frankly to have anything further to do with him.
"Very well, Mrs. Haley. When they arrest me I'll tell the whole story.
What happened in New Orleans for one thing; then about your refusal
to identify me--I know they've shown you my picture. It will be a
choice morsel for the newspapers, and a wonderful story for the society
weeklies. You'll be laughed out of the country."
"But if they find out that I've bought them back from you----" The
woman was on the verge of hysteria. She was horribly frightened.
"They won't. You're the last person on earth they'd think of in
connection with those jewels. You buy them. They can search all they
please and they can't get the goods on me. They won't even arrest me
because there'll be no evidence to convict. And you will be fifty
thousand dollars to the good."
"I can't."
"You can."
"Well, I won't."