Corrio shrugged.
"Would you like me to take the case, sir?"
"What, you?" Fernack paused to take careful aim at the cuspidor. "I'll take the case myself." He glowered at Corrio thoughtfully for a moment. "Well, if you know so much about it, you can come along with me. And we'll see how smart you are."
Ten minutes later they were in a taxi on their way to Oppenheim's house.
It was a silent journey, for Fernack was too full of a vague sort of wrath to speak, and Corrio seemed quite content to sit in a corner and finger his silky moustache with an infuriatingly tranquil air of being quite well satisfied with the forthcoming opportunity of demonstrating his own brilliance.
In the house they found a scene of magnificent confusion. There was the butler, who seemed to be getting blamed for having admitted the thief; there was a representative of Ingerbeck's, whose temper appeared to be fraying rapidly under the flood of wild accusations which Oppenheim was flinging at him; there was a very suave and imperturbable official of the insurance company which had covered the jewels; and there was Mr. Oppenheim himself, a short fat yellow-faced man, dancing about like an agitated marionette, shaking his fists in an ecstasy of rage, screaming at the top of his voice, and accusing everybody in sight of crimes and perversions which would have been worth at least five hundred years in Sing Sing if they could have been proved. Fernack and Corrio had to listen while he unburdened his soul again from the beginning.
"And now vat you think?" he wound up. "These dirty crooks, this insurance company vat takes all my money, they say they don't pay anything. They say they repudiate the policy. Just because I tried to keep the emeralds were they couldn't be found, instead of leaving them in a safe vat anyone can open."
"The thing is," explained the official of the insurance company, with his own professional brand of unruffled unctuousness, "that Mr. Oppenheim has failed to observe the conditions of the policy. It was issued on the express understanding that if the emeralds were to be kept in the house, they were to be kept in this safe and guarded by a detective from some recognized agency. Neither of these stipulations have been complied with, and in the circumstances—"
"It's a dirty svindle!" shrieked Oppenheim. "Vat do I care about your insurance company? I will cancel all my policies. I buy up your insurance company and throw you out in the street to starve. I offer my own reward for the emeralds. I will pay half a mil — I mean a hundred thousand dollars to the man who brings back my jewels!"
"Have you put that in writing yet?" asked Lieutenant Corrio quickly.