I searched very carefully, not wanting to miss anything. Crystal Sheldrake kept a very neat apartment on the surface, but the interiors of her drawers were a scandal, with baubles and beads forced to keep company with rumpled panty hose and half-full make-up jars. So I took my time, and my attaché case grew heavier as my fingers grew lighter. There was plenty of time. She had left the house at seven-fifteen and would probably not return until after midnight, if indeed she returned before dawn. Her standard operating procedure, according to Craig, called for a drink or two at each of several neighborhood watering holes, a bite of dinner somewhere along the way, and then a few hours devoted to a combination of serious drinking and even more serious cruising. Of course there were nights that got planned in advance, dinner engagements and theater dates, but she’d left the house dressed for a casual night’s entertainment.
That meant she’d either bring home a stranger or go to a stranger’s home, and either way I’d be long gone before she recrossed her own threshold. If they settled on his place, the jewels might be fenced before she knew they were missing. If she brought the guy home and they were both too sloshed to notice anything was missing, and if he in turn let himself out before she woke up, she might just tag the crime on him. Either way I looked to be in the clear, and enough thousands of dollars ahead so that I could coast for the next eight or ten months, even after I gave Craig his share. Of course it was hard to tell just what the attaché case contained, and it’s a long, long way from jewelry to cash, but things were looking good for Mrs. Rhodenbarr’s boy Bernard, no question about it.