CHAPTER IX

THE SHOPLIFTERS

"Madam, would you mind going with me for a few moments to the office on the third floor?"

Constance Dunlap had been out on a shopping excursion. She had stopped at the jewelry counter of Stacy's to have a ring repaired and had gone on to the leather goods department to purchase something else.

The woman who spoke to her was a quietly dressed young person, quite inconspicuous, with a keen eye that seemed to take in everything within a radius of a wide-angled lens at a glance.

She leaned over and before Constance could express even surprise, added in a whisper, "Look in your bag."

Constance looked hastily, then realized what had happened. The ring was gone!

It gave her quite a shock, too, for the ring, a fine diamond, was a present from her husband, one of the few pieces of jewelry, treasured not only for its intrinsic value but as a remembrance of Carlton and the supreme sacrifice he had made for her.

She had noticed nothing in the crowd, nothing more than she had noticed scores of times before. The woman watched her puzzled look.

"I've been following you," she said. "By this time the other store detectives must have caught the shoplifter and bag-opener who touched you. You see, we don't make any arrests in the store if we can help it, because we don't like to make a scene. It's bad for business. Besides, if she had anything else, we are safer when the case comes to court, if we have caught her actually leaving the store with it. Of course, when we make an arrest on the sidewalk, we bring the shoplifter back, but in a private, back elevator."

Constance was following the young woman mechanically. At least there was a chance of recovering the ring.

"She was standing next to you at the jewelry counter," she continued, "and if you will help identify her the store management will appreciate it--and make it worth your while. Besides," she urged, "It's really your duty to do it, madam."

Constance remembered now the rather simply but richly gowned young woman who had been standing next to her at the counter, seemingly unable to decide which of a number of beautiful rings she really wanted. She remembered because, with her own love of beauty, she had wanted one herself, in fact had thought at the time that she, too, might have difficulty in choosing.

With the added feeling of curiosity, Constance followed the woman detective up in the elevator.

In the office, apart in a little room curiously furnished with a camera, innumerable photographs, cabinets, and filing cases, was a young woman, perhaps twenty-six or seven. On a table before her lay a pile of laces and small trinkets. There, too, was the beautiful diamond ring which she had hidden in her m.u.f.f. Constance fairly gasped at the sight.

The girl was sitting limply in a chair crying bitterly. She was not a hardened looking creature. In fact, her face bore evident traces of refinement, and her long, slender fingers hinted at a nervous, artistic temperament. It was rather a shock to see such a girl under such distressing circ.u.mstances.

"We've lost so much lately," a small ferret-eyed man was saying, "that we must make an example of some one. It's serious for us detectives, too. We'll lose our jobs unless we can stop you boosters."

"Oh--I--I didn't mean to do it. I--I just couldn't help it," sobbed the girl over and over again.

"Yes," drawled the man, "that's what they all say. But you've been caught with the goods, this time, young lady."

A woman entered, and the man turned to her quickly.

"Carr--Kitty Carr. Did you find anything under that name?"

"No, sir," replied the woman store detective. "We've looked all through the records and the photographs. We don't find her. And yet I don't think it is an alias--at least, if it is, not an alias for any one we have any record of. I've a good eye for faces, and there isn't one we have on file as--as good looking," she added, perhaps with a little touch of wistfulness at her own plainness and this beauty gone wrong.

"This is the woman who lost the ring," put in the other woman detective, motioning to Constance, who had accompanied her and was standing, a silent spectator.

The man held up the ring, which Constance had already recognized.

"Is that yours?" he asked.

For a moment, strangely, she hesitated. If it had been any other ring in the world she felt sure that she would have said no. But, then, she reflected, there was that pile of stuff. There was no use in concealing her ownership of the ring. "Yes," she murmured.

"One moment, please," answered the man brusquely. "I must send down for the salesgirl who waited on you to identify you and your check--a mere formality, you know, but necessary to keep things straight."

Constance sat down.

"I suppose you don't realize it," explained the man, turning to Constance, "but the shoplifters of the city get away with a couple of million dollars' worth of stuff every year. It's the price we have to pay for displaying our goods. But it's too high. They are the department store's greatest unsolved problem. Now most of the stores are working together for their common interests, seeing what they can do to root them out. We all keep a sort of private rogue's gallery of them. But we don't seem to have anything on this girl, nor have any of the other stores who exchange photographs and information with us anything on her."

"Evidently, then, it is her first offense," put in Constance, wondering at herself. Strangely, she felt more of sympathy than of anger for the girl.

"You mean the first time she has been caught at it," corrected the head of the store detectives.

"It is my weakness," sobbed the girl. "Sometimes an irresistible impulse to steal comes over me. I just can't help it."

She was sobbing convulsively. As she talked and listened there seemed to come a complete breakdown. She wept as though her heart would break.

"Oh," exclaimed the man, "can it! Cut out the sob stuff!"

"And yet," mused Constance half to herself, watching the girl closely, "when one walks through the shops and sees thousands of dollars' worth of goods lying unprotected on the counters, is it any wonder that some poor woman or girl should be tempted and fall? There, before her eyes and within her grasp, lies the very article above all others which she so ardently craves. No one is looking. The salesgirl is busy with another customer. The rest is easy. And then the store detective steps in--and here she is--captured."

The girl had been listening wildly through her tears. "Oh," she sobbed, "you don't understand--none of you. I don't crave anything. I--I just--can't help it--and then, afterwards--I--I HATE the stuff--and I am so--afraid. I hurry home--and I--oh, what shall I do--what shall I do?"

Constance pitied her deeply. She looked from the wild-eyed, tear-stained face to the miscellaneous pile of material on the table, and the unwinking gaze of the store detectives. True, the girl had taken a very valuable diamond ring, and from herself. But the laces, the trinkets, all were abominably cheap, not worth risking anything for.

Constance's attention was recalled by the man who beckoned her aside to talk to the salesgirl who had waited on her.

"You remember seeing this lady at the counter?" he asked of the girl.

She nodded. "And that woman in there?" he motioned. Again the salesgirl nodded.

"Do you remember anything else that happened?" he asked Constance as they faced Kitty Carr and he handed Constance the ring.

Constance looked the detective squarely in the face for a moment.

"I have my ring. You have the other stuff," she murmured. "Besides, there is no record against her. She doesn't even look like a professional bad character. No--I'll not appear to press the charge--I'll make it as hard as I can before I'll do it," she added positively.

The woman, who had overheard, looked her grat.i.tude. The detectives were preparing to argue. Constance hardly knew what she was saying, as she hurried on before any one else could speak.

"No," she added, "but I'll tell you what I will do. If you will let her go I will look after her. Parole her, unofficially, with me."

Constance drew a card from her case and handed it to the detective. He read it carefully, and a puzzled look came over his face. "Charge account--good customer--pays promptly," he muttered under his breath.

For a moment he hesitated. Then he sat down at a desk.

"Mrs. Dunlap," he said, "I'll do it."

He pulled a piece of printed paper from the desk, filled in a few blanks, then turned to Kitty Carr, handing her a pen.

"Sign here," he said brusquely.