“Help me find him.” Her words were a cry of pain.
“I will do my best.”
“One more thing, Johnny.” She leaned over to whisper in his ear before they parted. “I am not a book sales person at the store. That is a blind. I am a store detective.”
Before Johnny could recover from his astonishment at this fresh revelation, she was gone.
“Well,” he thought to himself, “so that dark-eyed girl has put one over on me. She’s a store detective!”
After sober reflection he realized that the thing was logical enough. The girl was born a detective. Her father, one of the greatest of them all, had always inspired her. Girl though she was, she had resolved to follow in his footsteps.
“Of course,” he told himself, “she couldn’t get on the city force. Too young for that. But a great store; that’s different. They use the material they have at hand. And a young girl, even in her late teens, would be of service to them. The shoplifters, the purse snatchers, all that light-fingered tribe, would hardly suspect her of being a dangerous person. Even her fellow employees would not suspect her.” Full well Johnny knew that all too often youthful employees of a great store, dazzled by all the wealth and splendor about them, fell before temptation and began secretly carrying away small articles of merchandise for their own use.
“And that makes it hard for the honest ones,” he told himself.
He paid his check and was about to leave the place when, to his surprise, a young man tapped him on the shoulder.
“You’ll excuse me, I’m sure.” The other’s tone was apologetic. “I’m Mike Martin from the World. Reporter, you know.”