Читать книгу Fame and Fortune Weekly, No. 801, February 4, 1921 - Various - Страница 5

Although Mr. Bacon was a wholesale dealer, he also did a considerable retail trade as well. On the following morning a well-dressed man came into the store and asked to see some fine diamonds. The clerk who waited on him showed him a tray full of choice gems from two carats up to five. The customer looked them over carefully, made several selections, but the price was always too high for him to pay. He tried to get the clerk to reduce the figure, but that was out of the question, as Mr. Bacon had but one price for his goods. Finally the man said that he would have to go elsewhere. As he started to leave the sharp-eyed clerk noticed that a five-carat stone was missing from the tray.

"One minute, sir," said the clerk. "You forgot to return one of the diamonds you were looking at."

"I did? Nonsense! Do you take me for a thief? I only handled one of them at a time and after looking it over laid it down on the showcase, or on that mat."

"Nevertheless, one of the diamonds is missing," said the clerk, pushing a button under the counter which summoned the manager of the store. The customer waxed indignant and protested that he had no knowledge whatever of the diamond. The clerk insisted that he must have it.

"Well, then, you can search me, but I think it's an outrage," said the man.

The manager took him into his office and went through all his pockets, and looked him over for a secret pocket, but there was none and the diamond was not found on him.

"You see, I haven't got it," said the man. "Your clerk's eyesight is defective. I don't believe there is a diamond missing at all from the tray. He only thought there was."

Under the circumstances the customer was permitted to leave the store, though the manager was pretty well satisfied that the clerk had made no mistake. Dick had seen the man examining the diamonds, but had noticed no suspicious movement on his part to get away with a gem. In his opinion the man had been wrongfully accused. Once he had seen the man put his left hand under the outside ledge of the showcase at the bottom and hold it there for a moment, but he thought nothing of that. At any rate, he knew there was no place there where a diamond could be lodged even temporarily. The clerk looked over the floor on the outside of the counter, but without result, so he felt sure that the customer had managed to get away with it somehow. In about half an hour a lady entered the store and went to the same counter. She wanted to look at some new style rings. While the clerk was producing a couple of trays, Dick, who was close by, saw her place her hand under the bottom ledge of the showcase and run it along there about a foot, an action the office boy thought strange. When she removed her hand she fumbled for her pocket. A moment or two later she was looking at the rings the clerk placed before her. At that juncture the manager called Dick and sent him down the block with a message. As he was coming back he saw the man who had been suspected of taking the diamond standing near the curb about a hundred yards from the store. He seemed to be waiting for some one.

Down the street came the lady whom Dick had left examining the rings. She went directly up to the man and handed him something. Dick saw him hold the article up and pick at it. In another moment he tossed something away and put his finger and thumb into his vest pocket, then the couple walked away. The meeting of these two persons struck Dick as having a suspicious bearing on the missing diamond, though just what the connection was he could not say. He looked at the place where he had seen the man toss what the woman had handed him and saw a small, dark object. He went and picked it up. It proved to be a wad of chewing gum. Dick was disappointed with his discovery and was about to drop it when he noticed a deep impression in it that looked like the imprint of a diamond.

Then the truth came to his bright mind like a flash of inspiration. The missing diamond had been stuck in the gum. Still that didn't explain to his mind how the diamond had got there, or how the lady who had been in the store half an hour after the man had come in possession of the diamond. The matter puzzled him greatly, but of one thing he was confident, and that was that the missing diamond was now in the man's pocket. Under such circumstances he believed that it was his duty to follow the pair. The couple turned into Nassau street and walked leisurely northward. Dick kept on behind them in a rather doubtful frame of mind. They kept straight on, passing the Tribune Building and the other newspaper offices of the Row, and so on under the Brooklyn Bridge entrance to the corner of North William, a narrow and short street that cuts into Park Row at that point. They crossed the head of this street and walked into a well-known pawnshop that stood there.

"I'll bet the man is going to pawn that diamond," thought Dick. "Well, I'm going to see if he is."

He immediately followed them into the public room. He found them standing before the long counter. A clerk came up to them.

"How much will you advance me for a month on that diamond?" asked the man, taking the unset stone out of his pocket and laying it down on the counter.

The size of the diamond corresponded with the missing one, and on the spur of the moment Dick glided to the counter and grabbed it before the clerk's fingers touched it.

"I don't think this shop will advance you a dollar on a stolen diamond," he said, stepping back defiantly, ready to maintain his employer's claim to the stone.

The woman gave a stifled exclamation and looked frightened.

"Give me that diamond!" cried the man.

"No, sir. Will you send for a policeman to settle this matter?" said Dick to the clerk.

"Do you want me to send for an officer?" the clerk asked the man.

"No; I can settle my own business without a cop butting into it," replied the man savagely.

"Call an officer for me, then," said Dick. "I accuse this man of stealing the diamond he asked you to fix a price on."

"How dare you call me a thief!" roared the man.

"Because that's what you are," answered Dick defiantly.