Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

When he started on the locks an idea started to form in my mind — I thought I might be able to use these locks somehow to help snare Leon Schell. The idea wasn’t clear yet, but I didn’t want the locks damaged.

“No,” I told him. “Is there anyone you know who’s a specialist at something like this. Someone who could get them open without damaging them?”

He did know of a specialist, probably the top man in the whole field. According to him this man could open locked chests and vaults even in sunken ships. His place of business was up in Harlem, so Inspector O’Leary called the Harlem Precinct and told them to pick this man up and run him down to us in a radio car. While we waited you could feel the tension building up in the room.

“I’m an old Navy man myself,” Inspector O’Leary announced. “Just get me a bigger hammer and I’ll open the damn thing up.”

I couldn’t help smiling. Inspector O’Leary is a big, brawny Irishman. I don’t know how old he is, but his hair is jet black, despite the wrinkles in his face. His manner is pleasant, but gruff. His eyes are truly remarkable, they’re sky blue but as hard and penetrating as chipped steel. He could look right through you. He had the reputation of being a good friend but a terrible man to cross, and I think that this reputation was deserved, because I noticed that all his subordinates, even the men only a rank under him, gave him a lot of respect.

He asked me why I insisted on not damaging the locks or the case, so I told him how I thought I could use the case to wrap up Leon Schell — if I could get to him. His eyes got a little twinkle in them, they looked almost human, and he nodded his approval.

“It will be dangerous, I’ll tell you that,” he said. “But you’ve done wonders on this case so far. If the stuff is in that bag I’ll say go ahead if you’re sure you know what you’re doing.”

The master locksmith came in then, and he was really a character. He was over sixty with a shiny bald head fringed with gray tuft, and a happy, absolutely beaming smile. Right then he was the only happy guy in the room. I told him what we wanted and he went to work like a surgeon performing a delicate brain operation. While he worked over the locks he sang almost continually — German lieder, Italian and French arias, American and Argentine cowboy songs, anything and everything. In between he told us about Bach and Mozart and Wagner while we were biting our nails. He got the first one open in about forty minutes, then started on the other one.

“Now it will be quicker,” he said. “I think I know who made this case — there is only one man I know of and he died five years ago. He was a true craftsman, a shopkeeper in Dusseldorf, Germany. Nobody else could make work like this.”

I wondered how I could tie that to Leon Schell, probably with a little digging it wouldn’t be too hard. But it wasn’t enough.

When he finally got the other lock open and threw back the lid of the case I breathed a long sigh of relief. It was almost all there, dazzling in its massed brilliance. By then several officials of the jewelry firm that was robbed were there. They had a check list and started taking an inventory of what we had. Except for a few watches and some smaller stones we had the whole thing.

The locksmith was beaming more than ever and all ready to break into a song, so I told him what I wanted him to do in a hurry, and he went back to work. I had sent out for some fake jewelry to a firm which specialized in stuff like that and they had sent quite a bit of it down to us. When the attache case was ready I started packing it with the false glassware. This stuff wasn’t junk though, it was so good only an expert would be able to spot it as phoney — an expert like Leon Schell. To make it look as good as I could I asked for and got the diamond studded watches back from the jewelry firm officials and put them back in the case the way they were. Then the locksmith carefully closed the case and locked both of the locks again. I was all ready to start what I had to do. I told my men to get back to our office and wait there, then started out with the attache case in my right hand. Hardly anyone noticed me, but I did see Inspector O’Leary watching me with those cold blue eyes. He only nodded to me.

I went down in the elevator to the main floor, walked through the terminal until I came to a row of public lockers, slid a dime in the slot and put the attache case in and closed and locked the door, just as I told Monk a few hours later. Only I didn’t mail myself the key, that was still in my pocket. I only needed one more thing. I cabbed down to Radio Row on Cortland Street to see a friend of mine who ran an electronics parts store and asked him if he could rig up one of the new miniature recording machines with the tape in a cartridge so that I could conceal it on my body. He thought he could and promised to have it ready in a couple of hours.