Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

Meyerhold nodded solemnly. “Perfectly right.” To the policeman who had come up he explained. “This man came in and looked at some stones. I take a diamond necklace out of the window for him. He had not left the shop a moment before I see that for my necklace he has substituted paste.”

Jones noticed that Quarles had returned and was pushing his way through the crowd.

Meyerhold greeted him joyfully and the policeman said: “Hello, Mr. Quarles. You’re right on the spot.”

The driver of the car was dark and spoke with a slight drawl. “Look here, Arnold, this is a lot of nonsense, but the quickest way out of it is to let them search you.”

He turned to Jones. “Forget that stuff about assault. You were doing what you thought was right. But you can testify that if my friend did take this necklace it must be in his possession now. He’s had no chance to get rid of it.”

Jones agreed unwillingly. This business of being a hero didn’t seem quite as simple as he had thought.

“Just to keep you company, Arnold, I’ll let myself be searched, too,” said the dark man. He got out of the car.

“Seems fair enough,” said the policeman.

Meyerhold exploded. “It is not fair enough. He changed over my necklace, and if he has got rid of it now it is by some devil’s trick.”

“I’ve changed my mind, officer,” Arnold said. “I’ll not only permit myself to be searched, I demand to be searched, and if you don’t find a diamond necklace on me I’ll ask you to draw the obvious conclusion. It wouldn’t be the first time a jeweller had tried to fake a robbery and frame an innocent customer.”

Meyerhold’s face was purple with fury. The policeman asserted his authority. “Let’s keep calm. If you’ll come along to Mr. Meyerhold’s shop perhaps we can get this straightened out. Would you care to come along, Mr. Quarles?”

But Francis Quarles was not paying attention to the two men or the policeman. He was looking at Pinch, who was some yards up the street, and was behaving towards the liver-colored toy spaniel with an affectionate playfulness embarrassing both to the spaniel and its owner, who was now pushing his barrel organ up the street.

“The collecting-box has gone from round its neck,” Quarles said. Turning to Jones he went on: “I’d suggest that you perform another of your excellent flying tackles on that organ-grinder and then open that attache case he is holding so tightly.”

Jones dashed forward and dived again. The organ grinder measured his length on the pavement. The attache case flew from his grasp and burst open. Out of it fell a necklace which glittered in the light. Out of it also came — a liver-colored toy spaniel with a curly tail.

Afterwards, Francis Quarles said to Jones. “Meyerhold will certainly give you a substantial reward for the recover of his necklace. And I shall speak to my friend, Sir Alan MacIntyre, of British Commercial Pictures, about you. That tackle would look splendid on the screen.”

Jones, a modest young man, blushed. “I still don’t understand what happened.”

Quarles explained: “There were two dogs. It has all been prearranged. The thief dropped the necklace into the collecting box, and at a word from the organ grinder the two dogs changed places. They’d been trained to do so.”

“But how did you know it wasn’t the same dog?”

“Pinch told me.” And when Jones looked mystified, Quarles continued: “When Pinch walked down Deal Street with me he paid no attention to the toy spaniel. When we came back he rushed away from me to go after it. Can’t you guess why?”

A light dawned on Jones. “The second dog was—”

“Precisely. The female of the species, my dear young man, is irresistible to Pinch. He left me for her and neatly solved a puzzle.”