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“
That’s
how they did such a thorough job disguising the stolen cars,” I
said. “The serial and motor numbers of a car are like a
person’s fingerprints; they’re the one sure method of
identification. They’re stamped on the block or frame or
dashboard, depending on the make of car and the year. The carburetors
and generators are also numbered. They obliterated the numbers on the
blocks or wherever they were and stamped on different ones with the
dies and changed the license plates and put in new carburetors and
generators. In effect, they altered the basic identity of the cars.”

“
But
the new numbers wouldn’t be registered at the Motor Vehicle
Bureaus,” Esther pointed out.

“
No,
but the job they did was good enough for practical purposes. It could
get by ordinary inspection by a cop. Even an expert like Booth Mawrey
found his list of stolen cars useless when he tried to match them
with the cars in the lot. Registration, bill of sale, license, serial
and motor numbers, everything appeared to be in order. But only
because they had these tools. That was why they had stopped working
when I was there. They couldn’t go on until they got the bag
back, and they’d do anything at all to get it back.”

“
And
I thought they were just a bunch of old tools.” Esther started
to giggle. When she didn’t stop, I shook her. She tossed her
head and drew in her breath. “I’ve been holding off
hysterics for days,” she said.

“
There's
no reason for it now,” I told her “We have the bag and we
know who murdered Jasper Vital.”

“
You
do know?”

“
George
Moon,” I said.

She
frowned up at me. “But that's what we were so sure of in the
beginning, and we thought we were wrong.”

“
The
irony is that we were right. Everything pointed to Moon. You had told
him over the phone that the bag was in the car. He'd be expected to
hurry right over for it, but he never showed up. The answer seemed to
be that he had come without being seen and got it by murdering Vital
for it.”

“
But
when he didn't have the bag . . .”

“
It
put us off the track,” I said. “Now that we know where
the bag was all along, we're back to the original answer. Both men
are dead, so we'll never get the exact details, but it's not hard to
see what happened. Moon headed directly for the garage. Why ring the
bell and ask for the bag? We might ask him to identify himself and
prove he was Teacher's brother and perhaps decide to turn over the
bag to the police. It was simpler to go and take it without fuss if
he could. Vital must have just forced the car trunk open when he saw
Moon come down the driveway. His escape was cut off. He hid the bag
under the junk in the cabinet and then came forward to meet Moon as
he entered the garage. Vital wasn't armed, but he knew that Moon
didn't like to carry a gun, so they were on even terms. Probably it
started merely as an argument.”

Esther
said: “I was in the house. I didn't hear a thing.”

“
They
would have kept their voices low. Moon always did anyway, argument or
no argument. There they were, two men who hated each other. Each knew
why the other was there, of course, and Moon saw the forced car
trunk. I think that Vital told Moon that I had tricked him, that I
had guessed at the value of the bag and had hidden it. He was anxious
not to let Moon suspect that the bag was still in the garage. But
that didn't save him. It wasn't the best time and place for a careful
man like Moon to kill anybody, not even a man he was committed to
kill for doublecrossing him. Maybe Moon lost his head, the way those
slow-moving, slow-speaking men sometimes do, or maybe Vital made a
gesture Moon thought was toward a gun. The tire iron was right there
in the open car trunk. All Moon had to do was stretch out his hand
for it.”

“
And
then left without looking for the bag.”

“
At
any rate, without finding it,” I said. “Probably he made
a hurried search of the car and the garage. If he opened the cabinet,
it seemed to contain only the usual junk you expect to find in it.
What was more reasonable than that I had become suspicious when two
different men had wanted the bag within a few minutes. And he'd come
on Vital without warning, as he thought, and Vital hadn't had it, and
a garage was hardly the place where I would have hidden a thing as
big as that. But the main thing was that Moon was in a terrific hurry
to get out of there. It isn't healthy to linger in a place where
you've just murdered a man, especially when there are houses and
people all around.”

Esther
shuddered. “He might have come into the house.”

“
No.
That was the one thing we were spared. With a murdered man in the
garage, and one who'd been part of his organization at that, he
wouldn't want to be seen in the neighborhood. His size made him too
easy to identify. He had to take the chance that I wouldn't hand the
bag over to the police. If I still had it next day, he would try to
buy it from me or use more drastic methods to get it.”

“
How
can you be certain that was what happened?”

“
The
proof is Moon's absolute certainty that I had the bag. He knew that
the murderer hadn't taken it, because he was the murderer. That left
me.”

“
And
next day the police searched only the house”' The giggles
started again. With an effort, she controlled them.

“
You
can't blame the police,” I said.

“
Monday
night they'd spent hours in the garage on the usual routine after a
murder. Vital had been murdered for the bag; therefore, the murderer
had taken the bag with him. They searched the house and my place of
business because there was a possibility that I was the murderer or
else had hidden the bag before Vital was killed. A garage is no place
to hide anything. But a house with all the nooks and . . . “

The
doorbell rang.

My
heart leaped and settled back into place. There was no longer reason
to fear the ringing of a bell. The crooks were in jail and the police
were welcome.

“
Answer
the door, baby,” I said, “while I put this stuff back in
the bag.”

Esther
went out to the hall. I heard the door open and her friendly greeting
and then I heard a husky voice I would never forget.

“
It’s
Miss Crane,” Esther called.

“
I’ll
be out in a minute.” I had all the stuff back inside. I lifted
the bag.

“
Hello,
Adam,” Molly said.

She
had come into the living room with Esther. She wore her short belted
blue coat and the wide blue ribbon tied around her honey-brown hair
and the broad double earrings like wedding rings. Beside her, Esther,
small and trim in a simple cotton house dress, looked girlish.

“
How
are you, Molly?” I said.

“
I’m
trying to fight off a cold.” She wasn’t looking at me,
but at what was in my hands. “I came to see if you’d
recovered.”

I
put the bag down on the table. Molly came forward. “So it was
here all along, Adam?”

Esther
said quickly: “This morning I found it in the garage cabinet.
Adam didn’t know it was there.”

Molly
moved to the table and touched the slit in the bag and let her hand
fall away. “I suppose Jasper Vital hid it?”

“
Just
before Moon came into the garage and murdered him,” I said.

She
nodded: “It had to be something like that to make Moon positive
you had the bag.” She uttered a short, bitter laugh. “And
it was in the garage for anybody to simply walk in and take.”

I
said quietly: “For you and Larry Goodby to walk in and take.”

Molly
smiled. It wasn’t a major effort. The smile was frozen at the
comers and didn’t extend to her eyes.

“
Larry
and I,” she said wryly. “Oh, come, Adam, not Larry and I.
He was hardly my type.”

“
Jasper
Vital and you,” I said. “A handsome lad a woman could
easily fall for. Was he your husband?”

Molly,
thrust both hands into her coat pockets. An elbow held her alligator
handbag against her side. “Not exactly my husband, but the
nearest thing to it. Toward the end I almost told you, when we were .
. .”

Her
face started to turn toward Esther and stopped and came back to me.
“I didn't want you to think too badly of me. But you knew,
anyway.”

“
It
built up,” I said. “I don't mean because you brought me
to your apartment to pump me, and kept your gun always handy, and
went with me to Tilly's, and knew a lot of answers. All that could be
explained by the fact that you were a newspaper reporter. But there
was the coincidence of you driving along that particular street a few
moments after Larry slugged me, and the assault was all wrong. A boy
could have smashed in my face with a kick, but Larry kicked me twice
and didn't do much more than bruise me, though he had plenty of
reason to hate me. But coincidences happen and maybe I’d kept
Larry from hurting me more. I wasn’t sure of anything about you
until you tried to save Larry’s life.”

Esther’s
wide, bewildered eyes kept shifting from Molly to me and back.

At
the moment she was out of it, a spectator. This was between Molly and
me.

“
You
tried to save Larry’s life,” I went on, “but he did
save yours, and mine too. He was watching your window from the car in
the lot. You’d phoned him that morning when you when you went
down to buy rolls. He was to hang around Tilly's place under cover in
case you got into serious trouble and needed him. And when I caught
him, he didn't give me away to Moon. He had no reason to want to
protect me, but if he told Moon that I was Adam Breen, he would also
be exposing you. So he kept quiet, and that told me beyond a doubt
that you two were working together. There was irony for you. The
story I wanted the police and Moon to believe, that you and Larry had
planned my abduction, was true after all.” I paused and then
added: “For a while I thought you really were Clara Darby.”

Molly
took her right hand out of her coat pocket and let her handbag slip
down to her fingers. “I'm not Clara Darby, you can believe
that. I got friendly with her a couple of years ago when she and her
mother came down to Florida for a few weeks.”

“
I
know you’re not. This morning the police spoke to your father
in Baltimore.”

A
shadow crossed her face. “What did my father have to say?”

“
That
he wasn’t surprised the police were asking about you and wasn’t
interested.”

“
He
would,” she said bitterly. “My mother died when I was
fourteen. My father hadn’t time for me. I guess I was wild
anyway, but the way he ignored me didn’t help. When I was
nineteen, I left home and never came back. And then he blamed me
because I wasn’t the kind of daughter Dr. Crane could be proud
of.” Molly scowled as if at herself. “I’m not
making excuses. I’m not ashamed of anything I did. Not even . .
.”

She
stopped. I knew what she meant, and I was angry at her for having
come here. I glanced at Esther who was watching with a kind of
breathless fascination that tall, attractive woman.

“
Two
years ago I met Jasper Vital in Miami,” Molly continued as if
relating something remote in time and not particularly important. “He
was nicer than the men I had known. Not only handsome. Considerate
and kind. To me, anyway.”

“
I
owe his memory something,” I said dryly. “He didn’t
let Larry come into the house and force Esther to give up her car
keys. He sent Larry away with me because he was afraid that the three
of us hanging around the garage would bring Esther out of the house
got the bag and Moon wouldn’t have had the chance to kill
Vital. If Larry had stayed, they would have got the bag and Moon
wouldn't have had the chance to kill Vital.”

“
That
was Jasper all right. He had a soft spot for women. He kept me away
from his racket. Moon and Rufus Lamb and others came down to Florida
occasionally, but none of them saw me or even heard of me. That was
why I could go openly to Tilly’s.”

“
Just
an innocent lass,” I sneered. As soon as the words were out, I
regretted them.

Her
gold-flecked eyes looked at me without emotion. “I knew what
the score was. I knew what money was paying my rent and buying my
clothes. When Jasper and Larry decided that they were being rooked by
Moon and came north to eliminate him and take over the organization,
I didn’t hesitate to come along. And when Jasper was murdered,
I took up where he had left off. I wanted what was in that bag. You
were right, Adam — Larry’s attack on you was planned. I
wouldn’t let him torture you. I persuaded him that I could make
you talk in my own way. But you were too much for me — or I
thought you were. I couldn’t understand why, having the bag,
you would want to go to Tilly’s. You remember how I tried to
talk you out of it. What I was really doing was making you talk so
that you would tell me things. When that didn’t work, I went
with you to Tilly’s, because I was sure at that time that you
had the bag.”

I
shook my head. “That’s only part of it.”

“
Is
it?” Molly stepped backward, not taking her eyes off me. Her
hands fumbled at the catch of her handbag. “What’s the
other part, Adam?” she said softly.