“Well, yes, suspicions,” measured Donnelly slowly.  “For instance, one day not long ago a beautifully dressed and refined-looking woman called at the jewellery department and asked to see a diamond necklace which we had just imported from Paris.  She seemed to admire it very much, studied it, tried it on, but finally went away without making up her mind.  A couple of days later she returned and asked to see it again.  This time there happened to be another woman beside her who was looking at some pendants.  The two fell to talking about the necklace, according to the best recollection of the clerk, and the second woman began to examine it critically.  Again the prospective buyer went away.  But this time after she had gone, and when he was putting the things back into the safe, the clerk examined the necklace, thinking that perhaps a flaw had been discovered in it which had decided the woman against it.  It was a replica in paste; probably substituted by one of these clever and smartly dressed women for the real necklace.”

Before Craig had a chance to put another question, the buzzer on our door sounded, and I admitted a dapper, soft-spoken man of middle size, who might have been a travelling salesman or a bookkeeper.  He pulled a card from his case and stood facing us, evidently in doubt how to proceed.

“Professor Kennedy?” he asked at length, balancing the pasteboard between his fingers.

“Yes,” answered Craig.  “What can I do for you?”

“I am from Shorham, the Fifth Avenue jeweller, you know,” he began brusquely, as he handed the card to Kennedy.  “I thought I’d drop in to consult you about a peculiar thing that happened at the store recently, but if you are engaged, I can wait.  You see, we had on exhibition a very handsome pearl dogcollar, and a few days ago two women came to—­”

“Say,” interrupted Kennedy, glancing from the card to the face of Joseph Bentley, and then at Donnelly.  “What is this—­a gathering of the clans?  There seems to be an epidemic of shoplifting.  How much were you stung for?”

“About twenty thousand altogether,” replied Bentley with rueful frankness.  “Why?  Has some one else been victimised, too?”

XIII

THE KLEPTOMANIAC

Quickly Kennedy outlined, with Donnelly’s permission, the story we had just heard.  The two store detectives saw the humour of the situation, as well as the seriousness of it, and fell to comparing notes.

“The professional as well as the amateur shop-lifter has always presented to me an interesting phase of criminality,” remarked Kennedy tentatively, during a lull in their mutual commiseration.  With thousands of dollars’ worth of goods lying unprotected on the counters, it is really no wonder that some are tempted to reach out and take what they want.”