Bert was still laughing. “You’re just not used to the way these two carry on,” he told Ken’s father. “Every time they see a doughnut they begin to worry about who stole the middle out of it. Anything for a mystery—that’s their philosophy.”
“Now wait a minute,” Pop said mildly. “It does sound as if there might be a sneak thief around Brentwood. We don’t have them often, but I suppose Christmas is a likely time, with everybody’s house full of presents. I’ll call Andy Kane and tell him to alert the force. That satisfy you?” He looked at Ken and Sandy. “But I will not,” he added, “call the New York police chief with a similar suggestion. So you two just take your dark suspicions out of here, and get over to Sam Morris’s while he’s still got time to fix that catch.”
Ken and Sandy looked at each other. Ken smiled first.
“All right,” he said. “I guess that does make sense. Come on, Sandy. But save your best stories until we get back, Dad.”
As soon as they arrived at the jeweler’s shop they were glad they had waited no longer. The place was crowded with customers, all wearing the harried expression of those who have delayed their Christmas shopping until the last possible moment. Sam Morris and his two clerks looked equally harried as they tried to wait on several people at a time.
Ken and Sandy chose the least crowded area along the glass-topped display counter that bisected the store lengthwise, running back toward Morris’s partitioned-off workroom at the rear. After they had waited for a few minutes, Sam, hurrying past with a heavy mahogany mantel clock, noticed their presence.
“I’ll be with you as soon as I can, boys,” he murmured. He put the clock down in front of a woman several feet away, told her to take her time examining it, and came back to where Ken and Sandy stood.
“This is the box, Sam,” Sandy explained, lifting it out of its carton. “The catch broke when it fell. See?”
Sam studied the injury, murmuring, “Nice workmanship. Nice. Yes—ought to be able to fix that all right.”
A hand holding a wrist watch thrust itself between the two boys, and a voice behind them said politely, “Excuse me. Could you put a new crystal in this watch while I wait?”