The fight was brief, for we outnumbered them more than three to one.
O'Connor himself snapped a pair of steel bracelets on the thin man,
who seemed to be leader of the party.
"It's all up, Pitts Slim," he ground out from his set teeth.
One of our men flashed his bull's-eye on the three prisoners. I
caught myself as in a dream.
Pitts Slim was Maloney, the detective.
An hour later, at headquarters, after the pedigrees had been taken,
the "mugging" done, and the jewels found on the three yeggs checked
off from the list of the Branford pearls, leaving a few thousand
dollars' worth unaccounted for, O'Connor led the way into his private
office. There were Mrs. Branford and Blake, waiting.
Maloney sullenly refused to look at his former employer, as Blake
rushed over and grasped Kennedy's hand, asking eagerly: "How did you
do it, Kennedy? This is the last thing I expected."
Craig said nothing, but slowly opened a now crumpled envelope, which
contained an untoned print of a photograph. He laid it on the desk.
"There is your yeggman - at work," he said.
We bent over to look. It was a photograph of Maloney in the act of
putting something in the little wall safe in Mrs. Branford's room.
In a flash it dawned on me - the quick-shutter camera, the wire
connected with the wall safe, Craig's hint to Maloney that if some
of the jewels were found hidden in a likely place in the house, it
would furnish the last link in the chain against her, Maloney's
eager acceptance of the suggestion, and his visit to Montclair
during which Craig had had hard work to avoid him.
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