Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

He toyed with a paper-knife while the Little Doctor remained tactfully silent. After a pause Lucas rewarded his patience with a sigh.

“Other kinds of robbery have been on the increase,” the Inspector admitted. “In specialty and jewelry shops, for instance. A customer sweeps up a handful of jewels and dashes out to a waiting car. You’ve read about it in the papers. Almost impossible to carry off, you might say, and yet it’s done... There’s psychology in it, an element of surprise. The shopkeepers may be serving other customers at the same time — accomplices in the crime, perhaps — and it takes a minute or two for him to recover his presence of mind and turn in the alarm. Outside, it’s the same thing. The streets are full of traffic, the getaway car moves swiftly away and before anyone realizes it’s gone, leaving confusion behind it... What makes you smile?”

“Did I smile?” said the Little Doctor ingenuously.

“It seems to amuse you.”

“Why not? By the way, how many men could you let me have this evening? Men who aren’t too well-known, who can pass unnoticed in a crowd.”

“It depends on what you want to do with them.”

“Perhaps nothing at all, perhaps quite a lot. It all depends on whether my logic holds together. If it’s without a flaw, then... No, I’ll tell you later. If it doesn’t come off, I don’t want to be a jackass... How many men can you spare?”

“Half a dozen?”

“That’s not enough. I need at least twice that many. And a fast car, with no indications that it belongs to the police.”

“Do you realize that I can’t authorize an operation of this importance without consulting the higher-ups?”

“Very well,” said Dollent, imperturbably, “go ahead and consult them.”

“It’s only 6 o’clock, Inspector; we have plenty of time.”

“But if something’s going to happen, you can’t be too sure.”

“If anything happens, it will be at exactly half-past 6. Have another glass of beer.”

The two men were sitting at an outdoor café table, just across from the department store. A police car was parked, in defiance of all rules and regulations, in front of the nearby subway entrance. The Little Doctor had made all the arrangements, not on the spot, where he might have been noticed, but in the Inspector’s office, where he had drawn up a plan as thorough as that of a major military engagement, in which every man had a definite part to play.

“You, redhead: at exactly quarter past 6 you are to go to the slipper department and try on one pair of slippers after another until 6:30, when you will have your eye on cashier ‘No. 89’. And you there: you’ll treat yourself to a new wallet... Don’t worry, Lucas, it’s all on the expense account... You must be there when the bell rings, and you’ll have your eye on...”

And the Little Doctor put X marks on the plan of the store.

“Three men near the door, but they mustn’t close in until half-past. No use spreading the news that we’ve set a trap. And three others at the subway entrance.”

Dollent had carried out plenty of investigations, but this was the first time he had ever deployed such a large number of plainclothesmen. Inspector Lucas looked at him with a mildly dubious air.

“Is that all?” he asked somewhat ironically.

“No, I’d like to have one man in the toy department — just as a safety measure. I don’t want to come to the same end as Justin Galmet.”

Now, at the café table, the Little Doctor, watch in hand, dropped tantalizing hints to the Inspector as they passed the time away.

“If Galmet had been a regular department-store thief, do you think one of his accomplices would have murdered him? Don’t answer me too quickly... It doesn’t look as if he were really a big-time professional, in view of the amount of money he had in the bank. And only a petty thief would risk arrest for gains of a few thousand francs a week... But, you say, in the course of these last months... No, Inspector...”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“But I know what you were thinking! Four and a half million francs don’t come to much after twenty years of thieving, and this insignificant little man doesn’t seem the sort to inspire such a cleverly planned crime. There’s the basis of the whole thing, the leg to stand on, that I always search for from the start. I made a mistake in pinning my attention on Galmet. The murderer is the real starting point! And the fellow that thought up the shooting from the toy department is nobody’s fool. I could swear that Galmet saw him from above, while he was talking with Alice. He rushed downstairs. Alice isn’t sure that the two actually spoke, and I feel sure that if they did, it was for only a few seconds. Every day after that, Galmet came at quarter past 6 to the slipper department... Doesn’t that give you a clue?”

But Lucas merely mumbled: “It’s quarter past 6 now.”

“One more glass of beer, and we’ll be off.”