The Green Jacket/Chapter 8
VIII
Tom Corbin got up quickly, with a smile.
"Well, it's good to see you, Milly, coming in that door! It's like old times, you know!"
She shook hands with him and glanced about the office.
"You haven't changed things much, have you?"
"More dust! That's about all!" said Tom. He looked about the room critically, as if he saw it with new eyes, and for the first time.
"Dust doesn't hurt!" he declared. "Good for finger-prints!" He laughed out.
"Bad for fingers," returned Milly. "Spoils the touch."
"Well—perhaps—you've decided to take the Mason case, have you?" He was smiling at her, a little cynically.
She nodded: "If you will give me the data."
"Oh—I'll give you data—all you want! They've been right here, waiting, some time!" He laid his hand on a huge pile of papers on the table.
"All those?" asked Milly, incredulous.
"And more," responded Tom. "These are the siftings. You'd better draw up."
He placed a chair for her and they bent over the mass of papers, Tom explaining and elaborating as she questioned and made notes and laid aside such papers as she wished to take with her.
It was evident that no pains had been spared and no details overlooked. To a mind trained as Milly's had been under Tom Corbin's strenuous methods, the piled-up papers represented an enormous amount of faithful work. If it had been possible to solve the case by hard work, the Corbin Agency would already have been in possession of the reward offered.
"Fifteen thousand dollars," said Tom.
"Were the stones worth as much as that?" asked Milly in surprise.
"Well—" He looked reflective. "They were probably valuable. But I somehow had an idea that the reward covered something besides the worth of the jewels—something I could not put my finger on," he added awkwardly.
"Yes?" She was smiling.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I got into the way of imagining things of that sort—working with you!" he declared. "There's nothing in it probably."
"Probably not," she murmured.
The situation as outlined was certainly clear, and lacking in any element of mystery that might explain its baffling character.
It lay before Milly in methodical order—each point carefully tabulated and arranged with Tom Corbin's usual skill:
The jewel-case was always kept locked and Mrs. Mason wore the key on a little chain. On May 3 Mrs. Mason and Marian, her adopted daughter, a young woman about nineteen, had been going over the jewels, cleaning some of them. Mrs. Mason had gone out for the afternoon, leaving the case on the toilet-table, unlocked. There was no one else at home, except the servants, who were all in the rear of the house. Mr. Mason, the husband, a broker in a small way, was in town; the son, a young man of twenty-three, who was assistant cashier in a bank, was in town and did not come home until dinner. The servants testified that no one had called during the afternoon and Marian Mason testified that no one had been in that part of the house except herself. Mrs. Mason came in just before dinner and dressed hastily. She locked the jewel-case without looking at it, and put it in the cabinet where it was always kept. She did not employ a maid. No one except herself and her husband were in the room during the night. The next morning, before breakfast, she had occasion to open the box. The necklace was gone. On June 26 the detective had been called in.
Tom pointed to the date with careful finger.
"That was the real trouble," he said. "They waited too long. The scent was cold—more than six weeks old, you see!"
"Yes. Foolish—to wait. . . . I wonder why they did?"
"Oh, the husband was away a few days; and when he got home he seems to have tried working on it himself. Amateur detective!" sneered Tom.
"He did not find anything, of course?"
"Worse than nothing! By the time we took hold, the thief had had plenty of time to get out, and to cover his tracks."
"If he got out—yes." Milly was looking thoughtfully at a paper before her.
"How about this son? Did you follow that up?"
"Here they are," said Tom. He sorted a sheaf of the papers for her.
"He was in debt, you see—deep in—earlier in the year. Owed his tailor—and gambled some—dances and flowers and so on—" He ran them over swiftly.
"Here, April 14, he bought a new car, and borrowed part payment on it. Gave his note for five hundred to a friend. He had no end of friends and borrowed right and left from them; spent three times his salary, it seems. But everything was aboveboard. Nothing you could follow up, and come to a shady place. . . . Then here, you see—date May 3, he must have had a large sum in hand. He drew several large checks that day. And he paid up everything—all the debts—between the 3d and the 26th."
"You found where he got the money, of course?" said Milly. She was glancing through the papers he gave her.
"Not a cent of it! Not a clew to it! He must have had it in cash— No big deposit-check turned in. Nothing. . . . Everybody seems to have trusted him, down to the ground. Besides"—he pointed to the date—"he had the money before the jewels were taken, you see!"
"Yes—unless they misrepresented the date to shield him?"
"I wish they had!" chuckled Tom. "That would have been easy to check—like taking candy from a child. . . . They're simple sort of folks."
"Are they?" said Milly. And the gaunt figure in its black garments passed swiftly before her. . . .
"Perfectly simple! If you go out there to work, you'll like them all."
"All—?"
"By Jove—that's so! The son's gone!"
"And the adopted daughter is dead," said Milly.
"You're right—there's no one there now but the two old folks!" He seemed struck by it for the first time.
"You did not suspect the daughter?" asked Milly casually.
"Suspected everybody," replied Tom. "Do now! But absolutely no proof. We shadowed her weeks after she went away. Not a sign. And we shadowed the son, too—nearly a year. He was perfection!" Tom laughed cynically. "I wish I had half as good a record as the men brought in for him. Always home nights. Kind to his mother—taking her out driving, watching over her like a dutiful son. One of our men was put on as chauffeur for a while. He said he never saw anything like the fellow's devotion to his mother. . . . Well, I don't know!" He pushed the papers from him with a sigh. "That case has bothered me more than a little. I wake up in the night sometimes, even now, thinking about it—though I swore, six months ago, I'd never touch the thing again!"
"How about the pawn-shops?" asked Milly.
"Worse than useless! 'Bad year for emeralds,' they say." He chuckled. "And I guess they're straight. They all have the description of them. Of course a large part of the value was in the gradation—color and size. The separate stones would not be so easy to identify, either. But nothing has come in. . . . It almost looks as if that necklace had not been broken up," he said thoughtfully.
"Well! Take it! And I wish you joy of your findings!" he added almost savagely.
"I declare!" He looked down at the piled-up papers before him. "If you can put your finger on the right clew in these"—he laid his hand on them—"I'm 'almost willing to say I'll sign that paper of yours for keeps. We'd go into partnership, and you should do what you liked with all the cases you handled!" It was magnanimous and hearty, and Milly laughed out.
"Take care, Tom! I might take you at your word. Better wait. Besides, I may fail worse than you have."
"You couldn't do that," he said generously. "But to be perfectly frank with you, I don't think there's much danger you will be able to take up my offer." He was looking at her almost regretfully.
"Well, I can only try!" She gathered up the papers she had selected, and placed them in her portfolio.
"Was the necklace bought here in the city?" she asked.
"Daggett & Beals," responded Tom.
"I think I'll ask them for a description," said Milly, taking up her portfolio.
"You've got it there," he nodded to the portfolio.
"The one Mrs. Mason gave—yes. But sometimes a new description is a help—when a case is baffling."
"All right," said Tom. He eyed the scattered papers on the table, from which Milly had made her selection. The mass seemed scarcely reduced. "I don't think you'll find many facts we've overlooked," he said dryly.
"I don't expect to. It's a splendid piece of work! Well, good-by, Tom." She held out her hand. "I'll come in and report when I've made any progress."
Tom took the hand and looked down on her from his height.
"You're a good sport, Milly. But you'll find you're up against it this time!" He said it almost apologetically and held her hand as if loath to deceive her.
She drew the hand away with a flitting smile. "Good-by. You will see me again, you know," she nodded, and the door closed behind her.
Tom looked at the closed door. He shook his head. He looked at the scattered papers on the table, and a shadow of irritation crossed his face. He summoned a girl from the adjoining room.
"Take them away," he ordered.
"Yes, sir. Shall I file them again?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Do what you like with them! . . . They're mere trash—to a woman!" he said savagely.
"Oh, yes, sir," she murmured vaguely. And she bore them away.