Doodle gave orders to his staff to immediately report to him when they found a cake of soap missing from its tray, and on the first day he waited anxiously. John Jefferson had philanthropic ideas and he considered the exposure of a soap thief an act for the benefit of the community. He had not long to wait. Dinner had scarcely begun when a cake of soap was reported missing and the proprietor immediately stepped to the washroom and took the film from its place of concealment. The last snapshot was that of a well-dressed middle-aged man, and Doodle, with the long film in his hand, walked down the big dining-room in search of the original. At the very last table he found his man, and, leaning over, addressed him.
"Pardon me," he said, quietly, touching an overcoat that hung near the customer, "is this your overcoat?"
The diner nodded.
"Then," continued John Jefferson, "will you kindly take out of the pocket the cake of soap you took from the wash-stand a few moments ago?"
The accused man grew red in the face and indignant, but Doodle was persistent.
"Very well," he said, when the customer refused to comply with the request, "I will take it out myself. It belongs to me."
He inserted his hand in the pocket of the overcoat and drew forth the missing soap wrapped in one of the small hand towels also belonging to the establishment.
"As I thought," commented Doodle. "A wet piece of soap calls for a dry wrapper, and I suffer doubly. Now, sir, you had better keep quiet. I have the picture of the fellow who took the soap, and that picture is yours." He pushed the film before the eyes of the astonished diner and that person immediately grabbed his hat and coat, paid his check, and fled.
The Thief Detector did good work on its first day. Twenty-seven prominent citizens were among those detected, and the machine finished up the day's work by photographing the mayor of the city, who was accompanied by three ladies. The official blustered when Doodle made the accusation, but, like the others, was forced into a corner when confronted with the tell-tale film, and he drew a cake of soap from his pocket when the proprietor threatened to call an officer.
In ten days Doodle had recovered thirteen hundred and eleven cakes of soap, or, more correctly speaking, he had recovered several cakes thirteen hundred and eleven times from the same number of soap thieves, who were ignorant of the fact that their theft had been recorded by the unseen instrument. And in no single instance had the Detector made a mistake.