Customers had now begun to arrive, and we took a position in the
background, prepared for a long wait. Now and then Donnelly
casually sauntered past us. He and Craig had disposed the store
detectives in a certain way so as to make their presence less
obvious, while the clerks had received instructions how to act
under the circumstance that a suspicious person was observed.
Once when Donnelly came up he was quite excited. He had just
received a message from Bentley that some of the stolen property,
the pearls, probably, from the dog collar that had been taken from
Shorham's, had been offered for sale by a "fence" known to the
police as a former confederate of Annie Grayson.
"You see, that is one great trouble with them all," he remarked,
with his eye roving about the store in search of anything
irregular. "A shoplifter rarely becomes a habitual criminal until
after she passes the age of twenty-five. If they pass that age
without quitting, there is little hope of their getting right
again, as you see.
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