Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 6, June, 1994

A troubled Jerry walked through the engineering department to his small office at the end of the corridor. He had to admit that Dave was probably right. There could very well be a leak from his section, probably from one of his own designer-draftsmen. They were the ones most privy to the projects that Jerry worked on.

Industrial espionage was not exactly new in the toy business, but Jerry felt particularly violated. He had worked with these six men for over two years. He knew them, and he knew some of their families. Finding out who the spy was would be one problem. Facing him and firing him would be an even bigger one. He had never done anything like that, and the thought of it gave him a sick feeling. For some reason, his fishing experience with his father flashed through his mind. Jerry knew that Sacha was watching his relationship with Miriam growing warmer, but he also knew that Sacha would expect no less than fast and efficient action to protect his business, no matter who was hurt.

So this is what being a big-shot in a big organization is like, thought Jerry. He didn’t like it.

Jerry was sitting at his desk, deep in thought when the five o’clock exodus of the sales and engineering departments began. He was still sitting there at six o’clock when the engineering department was completely empty.

He stared at the upper right-hand desk drawer. It was securely locked, as it always was whenever he had any important papers in it, but from what Dave Rabb had said, the drawings of the talking, walking doll might as well have been spread out on the top of the desk along with the bunch of other papers piled there.

Who could have seen those drawings? How could they have seen them?

The who might be easier to figure out.

Frank Duval had been with the company for twelve years. He was three years older than Jerry, and though they got along well enough when they were working together, Frank’s attitude noticeably changed when Jerry became head of Research and Development. In many small ways Frank let it be known that the position should have been his.

Yes, it could be — it very probably was — Frank. But how?

Jerry thought back. He couldn’t remember saying anything to Frank about his doll idea. That drawer was locked from the moment Jerry had his first idea and made the first sketches of the basic mechanism for the doll. Yet according to Harry those copies of Acme’s were not just similar, they were basically the same. Frank — or someone — had been getting into his desk drawer undetected.

All the engineers worked overtime occasionally. Sometimes alone, so anyone had an opportunity to get into his drawer if he had a key. Jerry kept copies of all the keys of the Research Department desks and cabinets in a padlocked cabinet in his office, but the key to his special drawer was never there. He kept that one on his personal key ring.

Playing detective was second nature to Jerry. Every mechanical challenge he had been faced with was like a Sherlock Holmes story in miniature. There was the apparently insoluble problem, the locked room, the unbreakable alibi, and then the sudden flash of light as the answer revealed itself with brilliant clarity. This was just another challenge, perhaps a little more important than most but just as susceptible to solution. All he needed was that flash of light.

For a long while Jerry sat expressionless, swaying from left to right in his swivel chair. It often helped to approach a problem from the back door. A different point of view. Suppose Jerry were the thief. How would he have stolen secrets locked in someone else’s desk drawer without ever having access to the key of that lock, and without leaving a clue that anything had been disturbed? For twenty minutes the office was quiet except for the slight squeak as the swivel chair turned back and forth. In time a small smile began to form on Jerry’s face. For a second it stayed there, then his face tightened.

He rose quickly and went across the hall to the now empty experimental machine shop. He picked up a small screwdriver that one of the machinists had left on the workbench and returned to his office. He slid open his special drawer. It was never locked when he had nothing in it. With the drawer open, he could unscrew, from the inside, the two screws that held the cylindrical desk lock in position. When the screws were removed, Jerry pushed the lock into the drawer and picked it up.

Jerry leaned back and lightly tossed the lock cylinder in his hand while he thought back to his childhood. As a youngster, everything mechanical had fascinated him. He had once disassembled a lock of this type from his father’s desk and was fascinated by the cleverness of the design. It would allow only a specially cut key to be inserted into the center barrel, be rotated within the outer barrel, and open the lock. Jerry knew that the center cylindrical barrel that the key slid into would have five holes bored in it, matching five holes in the outer casing. Two brass pins, held against each other by a tiny spring, would fit into each hole. The pins would be of different lengths, so that only a key with the proper depth of cuts could align the separation between the two pins with the separation between the inner and outer cylinders. When that happened, the key could turn the inner cylinder and unlock the drawer. With five pins of various lengths, the number of possible key cuts was astronomical.