“You did the right thing,” I said gratefully, “but why did you tell them they might get us to-morrow?”
“Ha, that’s the psychology of the situation, Kid. I mentioned also that he was insured. That reminds him that he is not losing anything, and it also saves his face with the family. He went inside and said to them and the other chap, after they had looked about the house and phoned the police, ‘Oh, well, we’re insured. Of course if we hadn’t been I would have given that other burglar a battle, tough as he was.’ Then the other chap cuts in and says, ‘You did the sensible thing, Tom. The police will pick them up to-morrow at some pawnshop.’
“You see, kid,” Sanc continued, “those people are excited and frightened. You have to think for them and for yourself, too. When I told them they might get us to-morrow I gave them another out; they say to themselves, ‘Why, of course the police will get them. How foolish of us to endanger ourselves and family over a few things that are insured and will be recovered in the pawnshops when the burglars are arrested.’
“Then I send them to the phone, and we depart.”
I listened, spellbound. “You did something to your voice. I hardly recognized it.”
“Simplest thing in the world. Put a fifty-cent piece or any little object in your mouth and see what a difference it makes in your voice. I venture to say that the loss of one tooth would cause a change that might be detected with certain instruments for analyzing sound. It’s just as well to take such precautions. Some people have uncanny memories for voices. And now we come to the last phase of the evening’s work. It hurt you to throw away your new suit. Don’t worry, it’s not wasted. Somebody will find it and wear it, and maybe get arrested. But this is no time for speculating about that. Suppose that button were found on that porch or maybe in one of the rooms. You might have lost it going in the window upstairs. It don’t belong in the house. The presumption is that you lost it in the struggle or climbing up the porch.
“Old Captain Lees (you’ve heard of him) would give that button to one of his smart young ‘dicks’ and stand him on the Richelieu corner, Geary and Market.
“He would stand there from four in the afternoon till midnight waiting for you to come along, which you do every evening. Just think what might happen to us then. He wouldn’t pinch you there. He would tail you to your room, then to my room, then to the safety box, and when they got ready in we would go. Think that over.
“If the case were big enough, Lees would go through every tailor shop in town fishing for a line on you, and he might stumble on it.
“The gold mountings you threw away could have been melted at the expense of a fifteen-cent crucible and a dime’s worth of borax, and would have brought us maybe ten dollars as old gold at any jeweler’s. But think of the chances you take in selling it, jeopardizing the stones we have and our liberty for ten dollars—bad business.