had telephoned Scotland Yard every other hour afterwards.
The theft had been a neat one, but not exceptionally clever. During a dance — the Dowager had an unattached daughter — the lights had been cut off for thirty seconds, and the brooch had been snatched from the Dowager’s corsage. Before she had stopped screaming the lights had been switched on again, whereat she had fainted, and no one had kept a cool head in the ensuing confusion.
A ladder leading to the windows at the rear of No. 7 Portland Square revealed the means of ingress, an unconscious housekeeper near the electric-main switch — which in turn was near the window — revealed the burglar’s preparedness to use violence, and the fact that no one of the party had switched the light on again proved the raider, who must have done it himself, to have been of unusual daring and nerve.
The detective liked nerve, and, knowing that the house-keeper was not badly hurt, was amused. On the third day he disliked the Dowager so much that he was disappointed when Levy Schmidt, a pawnbroker in the Mile End Road, telephoned him to say that a client had tried to pass the Kenton brooch. That is to say, the human element in the detective was disappointed; the official element was pleased.
Bristow turned into the small, ill-lit shop and stood waiting amidst a row of second-hand dresses, a soiled heap of more intimate garments, a collection of cheap clocks, vases, and ornaments. After a few minutes Levy limped into his cubicle, saw his visitor, and lifted his scraggy old hands in dismay.
“Vy, Misther Bristhow, tho thorry, tho thorry! Vy didn’t you come in the private entranth, Misther Bristhow ? Come thith vay, thith vay, and mind the stheps — vun — two — three . . .”
Bristow followed the Jew into the grimy parlour at the rear of the pawnshop, and marvelled to himself that a man as rich as Levy Schmidt could live in such filth. He shrugged the thought away. Levy had a perfect right to handle his own money and affairs as he liked; and Levy, moreover, was a valuable informant.
The parlour was as gloomy as it was dismal, despite the brilliance of the sun outside. It was heaped with more second-hand clothes, odd articles of furniture, crockery, and cutlery. Nothing that could be pawned was missing. Mile End patronised Levy frequently and exhaustively from sheer necessity.
“Now vot, Misther Bristhow — thit down, pleath — can I do for you ? Can it be . . .”
“What a lot more you’d say if you didn’t talk so much!” said Bristow cheerfully. “The Kenton brooch, Levy. You’ve got it?”
Levy nodded. His dirty, scrawny face was lined with years, and his brown, hooded eyes gleamed as he regarded the detective with satisfaction. He turned away and limped towards a square steel safe in the corner of the parlour.
“Vy, yeth, Misther Bristhow, vould you pelieve it, I forgot? Mind you,” the pawnbroker added hastily, “I voth forthed to pay ten poundth for it, Inthpector; he vould not leave it viddout a pit of money. You come back ven I haff more in the thafe, I thaid, and he promithed he vould,
Inthpector — just vun minute more. Hey! The Kenton brooch, hey!”
Bristow took the bauble in his fingers and peered at it. The lambent green fires in the stones greeted even the dim light of the shop-parlour. Bristow pulled a photograph from his pocket and compared it with the jewel in his hand. It was the genuine Kenton brooch, he was prepared to swear.
He slipped it into his pocket, wrapped in tissue-paper, and nodded at the Jew.
“That’s it,” he said. “Now who was the man ? Know him ?”
“Never thet eyeth on him before in me life, misther!”
“What did he look like?”
“Veil — it’th dark in the thop, Inthpector. Tall and dark and vot you might call viciouth, hey? Not a nithe man to know, hey? And his coat-collar voth turned up — like thith.” Levy put his scrawny hand behind his neck and hunched his shoulders expressively.
“Coat or overcoat ?” asked Bristow.
“Overcoat, and a day like thith!” Levy lifted his hands to the ceiling. “Vy, didn’t it thout thuthpithion?”
“Why didn’t you telephone for a couple of policemen ?” asked the Inspector a little irritably.
“Veil” — Levy shrugged his shoulders until the miscellaneous collection inside the pocket of his once black, now green coat jingled together — “vot could an old man like me do, Inthpector? Get the brooch, I thaid — that wath the firth thing. And then telephone you, hey?”
Not by a word or sign did Levy betray that he knew more than he said. True, he had given the only description of the visitor he possessed; but Levy had no love for the police, and he had a great love for jewels of the quality of the Kenton stone. Between him and the visitor who had brought the jewel there had passed a conversation that Bristow would have given a lot to have heard.
“I’m not grumbling,” the Inspector said, knowing that if he grumbled he would get little or no information. “What was his voice like?”
“Not a nithe voith,” said old Levy. “Hard, misther, vid the corner-mouth talk, hey?”
“H’m,” said Bristow, and his mind worked automatically.
“An old lag, but not a Londoner, or he’d know Levy. The light business shows his nerve, and he’ll probably be known in the Midlands or up north. Broke, or he wouldn’t have taken ten pounds and an excuse for the brooch. He won’t come back, of course.”
“Where’s the ticket he signed?” asked the Inspector.
“Vy, yeth, I forgot, vould you pelieve it? Vun moment, Misther Inthpector, vun . . .”
The old Jew’s voice quavered away as he waddled out of the parlour towards the shop. Bristow could hear him pulling out a drawer beneath the counter, and heard him muttering to himself. Bristow scowled, trying to sort the thing out in his mind. Levy should have held the man somehow, he told himself.
“Here ve are, here ve are,” said Levy, limping down the stairs into the parlour. “Vunny kind of name, Misther Inthpector.”
