Pearl looked at him, then her eyes lit up. "Of course!" she exclaimed.
"Of course what?"
"It's the Devil. He's chained up in our basement, and he can't go around stirring up trouble! That's why there isn't any crime going on! Crime has taken a holiday while the Devil is chained up. Oh, Joe, isn't it wonderful!"
"Yes," said Joe. "It's wonderful. If it gets much more wonderful, I don't see how we're going to pay our bills."
"Pay our bills?"
"Yes. I haven't made a dime in two weeks! Not one single client has come into my office since the night we chained old Beelzebub to the basement wall."
Pearl looked thoughtful. "Do you really think that he can't do any mischief while he's chained up? It doesn't seem to me that he's always been present at the scene of every crime. How could he be? Why, he'd have to be in a million places at once."
Joe shrugged. "I used to think that he did it all with a sort of world-wide influence. Something like a powerful mental wave that suggested all sorts of evil things to susceptible people—which is almost everybody."