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She
saw me lift my wrist to look at my watch. “You’ve slept
nearly two hours,” she said. “Feel better?”

“
Much.
A nap always does wonders for me.”

I
stood up. My legs were all right and my head had felt worse during
bad headaches. I walked as far as the phone and looked down at it and
came back to the couch.

“
Aren’t
you going to call your wife?” she said.

“
No”

“
She
must be worried about you.”

“
Did
you call her?” I asked.

“
I
wanted to while you slept, but I decided that she’d think you
were terribly hurt if anybody phoned for you. Do you mean to say
you’re going to let her worry? The police must have told her
what happened.

I
sat with my hands between my knees. “I’m not going home.
You’ve got to help me disappear.”

Her
gray eyes looked me over. She said nothing.

I
laughed harshly. “No, not with the bag. You’re wasting
your time believing I know anything about it or who murdered Jasper
Vital. There's nothing I -can tell you to make it worth the trouble
you’ve taken to kidnap me.”

She
lifted her highball, sipped it, returned it to her knee. “Is
that what I did?”

“
You
stole me from the detective and the ambulance. You saw a chance to
bring me to your apartment while I was sick and groggy. I’d
talk to you in delirium, or because I wouldn’t have the
strength to hold out against your questions, or because I would be
overwhelmed by your kindness.”

“
Naturally
I want a story,” she admitted.

“
You
were kind,, though,” I said. “You patched me up and let
me sleep. I’d like to give you something for your paper, but
there isn’t anything. You can’t even print that George
Moon tried to kidnap my daughter for a little while this afternoon. I
can’t prove that he was the one.”

“
So
it was George Moon?” she said quietly. “Your wife didn’t
know.”

I
looked at her. “That’s right, you told me you were at my
house.”

“
I’m
a newspaper woman,” she said. “I don’t give up.
This evening I went to see you. You had left a short time before.
Your wife was glad to have somebody to talk to. She told me what had
happened to your daughter this afternoon. Then I drove to the police
station to see if they had anything for me there, but I never reached
it. I saw a man lying on the sidewalk.” She drank. “I saw
your daughter. She’s lovely, and so much like you,”

“
Like
me?” I said. “Part of me.” I walked across the room
and back. “When I left the police station this evening, I made
up my mind to kill George Moon. I didn’t care about being
caught as long as that would save them. Now I’m not sure that I
could step up and kill any man in cold blood. And if I could, I’m
not sure I’d accomplish anything. A lot of different people
seem to want that bag. They wouldn’t lay off because Moon is
dead, and neither will his organization.”

“
There
wouldn’t be much organization without Moon,” Molly said.

“
Do
you know him?”

“
I’ve
heard of him. In my job I know something about most of his kind. He’s
smart and ruthless and politically powerful.” '

“
What’s
his racket?”

“
He’ll
put his hand to anything that’s crooked and pays off.”

I
paced the floor. “Then it’s the only way. I’ve got
to make him think I’ve been kidnaped.”

“
By
me?” she said softly.

“
By
Larry and a mysterious woman.” A shadow flickered across her
red mouth. “Go on.”

I
said: “Look at it through the eyes of the police first. The
detective who shadowed me left me battered in the arms of an unknown
woman while he went to call an ambulance.” I frowned at her.
“Does he know you?”

“
I’m
sure he’s never seen me before.”

“
Good.
When he returned, he found me gone and the woman and her car gone. He
reported me missing and police rushed to my house to see if I’d
gone there. Then a hunt started for me — one that’s going
on this minute.”

She
leaned forward. The floorlamp caught her eyes and the flecks of
yellow in them glittered. “And when you don’t turn up
tomorrow, the police will start to wonder why you’ve
disappeared.”

“
They’ll
be pretty sure why and how. They’ll now have to accept the
existence of Larry. Enough of him was seen by the detective who
chased him to jibe with the description of him I’d given. At
first thought it would seem that Larry had beaten me up to pay me
back for having knocked him out Monday evening. But he’s out
for more than revenge; he’s after the bag and whatever
information he thinks I possess. And there’s the mysterious
woman who stole me away. Lieutenant Woodfinch puts the pieces
together and gets something like this. Larry’s had one bad
experience being alone in a car with me. This time he has an
accomplice, a woman waiting nearby in a car. His idea is to slug me
and toss me unconscious and harmless into the car. The detective
comes on the scene too soon, but the woman is clever. She gets rid of
him by sending him to call an ambulance. While he’s gone, she
lures me into her car, and I’m too battered and dazed to know
what’s happening as she drives me off. The proof that she did
that is furnished by the man and woman who saw me virtually dragged
into the car by her. And now I’m in Larry’s hands,
delivered to him by the mysterious woman. And at this moment Larry
must be working on me with his knife to induce me to talk.”

“
Neat,
if a trifle gaudy,” Molly commented and took a small sip of her
highball. “A police alarm already must be out for me.”

“
Why
for you? For a mysterious woman. You told me the detective didn’t
know you.”

“
But
he saw me,”

“
He
saw a woman, that’s all. The street was dark. I doubt if he got
a good look at your face or knows the make of your car. As for the
man or the woman, they saw even less of you. I was leaning against
you. Only a patch of your face was visible, and hardly visible at
that.”

“
All
right, I’m safe,” she conceded, “and the police are
sure Larry kidnaped you. What does that get you?”

I
ran a hand through my hair and touched a sore spot on my scalp and
winced. She held the glass in front of her chin and watched me
gravely over the rim.

“
This
is all directed at George Moon,” I said. “The police will
give the story of my kidnaping out to the papers and he’ll read
it. Or if they hold it back, he’ll find out anyway. I think he
has ways of learning whatever the police know.”

“
You
can take my word for it that Moon has wires into high places.”

“
Then
tomorrow morning at the latest he learns I’m gone. He’ll
be even more sure than Lieutenant Woodfinch that Larry has kidnaped
me. He knows Larry. Vital and Larry were part of his organization in
the south. During the ride Larry told me that he and Vital tired of
working for peanuts. What’s in the pigskin bag must be part of
what they’re after. Moon knows it, and knows that Larry is
still after-it. So he is convinced that Larry has me, which is the
whole point of my disappearance.”

Molly
uncrossed her legs and rolled her glass between her palms. “And
Moon will leave your wife and daughter alone because while you’re
in Larry’s hands he can’t scare you into giving up the
bag. Or he’ll think you’re dead because Larry would
likely kill you when he got what he wanted out of you.”

“
Yes.”
I stood in front of her chair and looked down at her. “You’re
a newspaper reporter. You’ve had more experience with such
things. What’s wrong with it?”

“
Nothing
very much. Except that your wife will go crazy worrying about you.”

“
I
know.” I felt sick again, not now because of the beating I had.
taken. “What else can I do? I’ve got to divert Moon from
Carol and Esther.”

“
Call
her up and tell her not to say that she’d heard from you.”

I
turned to the phone and looked at it. “I can’t take the
chance,” I said hollowly. “The wires might be tapped by
the police or by both. Or Esther might confide in somebody, a friend
or a relative, and it will get out. It will be hard on her, but not
as hard as anything happening to Carol. Eventually I’ll be
back.” I looked down at Molly. “It depends on you.”

“
What
do you want me to do?”

“
It’s
simple. Just don’t tell anybody you’re the mysterious
woman.”

Molly
stood up and said: “Let’s have some coffee.”

I
sat on one .of the two maple chairs at the table and watched her as
she spooned fresh coffee into a small electric percolator. She placed
the percolator on the table, plugged it in, returned to the
kitchenette for dishes, and sugar and cream. She looked like too much
woman for any man but a big man — big, I thought, in more than
size.

When
the table was set, she sat down opposite to me and rested her chin on
her fist. “Where will you go?” she asked.

“
I’ve
around forty-five dollars on me. I’ll use part of it to get me
far enough away so that I won’t be recognized. I’ll get a
job under an assumed name.”

“
And
then?” she said. “After a month, or two months, or a
year?”

“
I
don’t know. What’s the use planning if you don’t
tell me that you are not going to give me away?”

The
coffee started to percolate. She looked at her wristwatch. She was
wearing those double earrings like wedding rings and they tinkled
when she lifted her head. “You haven’t been on the level
with me.”

“
I’ve
tried to be.”

“
No.
I’ve had the police handouts on the case and I’ve picked
up a little here and there myself, but there are a lot of gaps.”

“
I
can’t fill them in,” I said, “but I can let you
have what I know.”

It
seemed to be less every time I told it. She sat listening
impassively, her gray eyes fixed on my face without blinking.

When
I finished, she said: “That’s what’s wrong. Moon is
sure you have the bag. He’d have reason to be sure.”

“
You
sound like Lieutenant Woodfinch.”

“
I
sound like anybody who listens to you. And who killed Jasper Vital?”

“
Whoever
has the bag?”

“
Moon
hasn’t it. Larry hasn’t it. Your idea that Crooked Nose
got it just before or after tailing you and Larry is too far-fetched.
Whom does that leave?”

“
Maybe
somebody I never even heard of,” I said. “Esther’s
name and address were in the paper. Anybody could have learned that
Teacher’s bag had remained in the car. The coffee is getting
too strong.”

“
Forty
seconds more,” she said, con- suiting her watch. “There’s
just one clue — the Tilly’s place Larry mentioned to you.
Maybe a beer joint in Brooklyn.”

“
Badley
Place,” I corrected her. “I’m not sure it’s
Badley, but close to it. He asked me if I knew Tilly in Badley —
“ I stopped.

“
What’s
the matter?” she asked.

“
Tilly’s
place,” I said slowly. “Was it Tilly’s place in
Badley instead of Tilly in Badley Place? So then Badley wouldn’t
be a place or a street, but a community. That makes more sense.”

Molly
disconnected the percolator and poured coffee. “I never heard
of Badley.”

I
sat staring at the rich brown liquid pouring into my cup. “I’m
still wrong. During that ride with Larry I wasn’t in a state of
mind to remember exactly what he said. But I remember now that he
didn’t mention Tilly and Badley together. There was an
interval.” I spoke very slowly, straining to send my memory
back. The dull pain in my skull became a throbbing. “He asked
me about Tilly. What’s happening there? What’s doing
there? Something like that. He was after information. When I told him
I’d never heard of Tilly, he didn’t believe me. He said
he knew they were working in the Badley place now.”

I
looked up eagerly. “That’s it — working in the
Badley place. As if there were a number of places and one of them was
in a town called Badley.” Molly went to a tall, narrow bookcase
only half-filled with books. “I’ve an old atlas which has
an index of every city, and village in the country.” She
returned with a wide yellow book. She pushed the sugar bowl out of
the way and placed the atlas flat on the table and turned pages and
then bent her head.

“
There’s
no Badley,” she announced.

“
I
was never sure it was Badley. What places begin with B-a-d?”

“
Well,
here’s a Bade- and a lot of Badens and Badgers and Badham and
Badin and Badmont and . . .”

“
Badmont!”
I exclaimed.

She
looked up from the atlas, and for the first time she caught some of
my excitement “Are you sure?”

“
Badmont.
I’m like a man who’s had amnesia. You mention a familiar
name and it all comes back. I’m positive. Where is it?”