shook inside.
'How much did they?'
The old man gave Crane that sly, secretive look. 'It seemed kind of odd. They paid a right fine price for the house.' He looked down at his slippers. 'But they only came week ends.'
Crane asked if he d seen Maxwell, and he said he had. He thought his name was assumed, but he wasn t sure.
'You ve no clue to who he was?' asked Ann.
'Your speakin of that s a funny thing.' The old man looked at her with a pleased smile. ' Bout a month ago I seen a picture that looked a lot like the feller who was askin for him in January. It was in the newspaper.'
'Who was it?'
'John March, the one that died in his garage.'
Crane flicked a glance at Ann, then asked, 'Do you think Mrs March and Mrs Maxwell were the same person?'
'I got my idears.'
Ann was wearing a three-quarter length black caracul coat, fastened at the neck with a gold chain and cut so that it hung like a tunic to just about the knees. She undid the coat and found a photograph in an inside pocket.
'Would you know Mr Maxwell?'
'I reckon so,' said the old man.
Crane stared at her with reluctant admiration. He could see it was a photograph of Richard March. Tall, tanned and blond, he looked like a movie actor in gray slacks and an open shirt. Ann handed the picture to the old man, smiled at Crane.
He made a face at her. She was too darned efficient. He thought he had better go to work. He thought it was a fine thing when a man had to work hard to keep ahead of a woman. Especially one as pretty as Ann.
The old man handed back the photograph. 'That s him.'
'Well, thanks,' Crane said.
'One more thing,' said the old man, 'though I don t know as it s much of a clue…'
'It might be,' Ann said. 'What is it?'
'Well, twice I borrowed matches from Mr Maxwell. An both times he gave me a package from the Crimson Cat. That s a night club near here.'
A middle-aged man with spectacles and dandruff flakes on his blue serge suit came into the office. He turned out to be the old man s son, Charles, who operated the realty business. The old man told him Crane was an insurance investigator, looking up the Maxwells.
'Been a lot of interest in them today,' the younger Mr Jameson said.
'How s that?' Crane asked.
'A fellow came a couple of hours ago to collect the Maxwell things. He had a note from Mrs Maxwell.' Ann said excitedly, 'He wouldn t still be there?'
'I don t know.'
Crane said, 'How do we get there?'
Following the younger Mr Jameson s directions, it took them three minutes to reach February Lane. The house was a Cape Cod cottage, white, with a high roof and a screened porch on the side. In the driveway was a big sedan with a woman in the driver s seat.
As Ann brought their car to a stop the woman hooped the horn. Crane couldn t see her very well, but he got an idea she was young.
A hollow, metallic voice called from the rear of the house, 'What s wrong?'
Ann exclaimed, 'Our burglar!'
The woman hit the horn again, pushed the starter. Arms bearing a cardboard box, the man came around the house, turned his face toward Crane and Ann, broke into an unsteady run. He jerked open the sedan s door, jumped in as it started. The door swung crazily. He reached out and closed it. The woman gave the motor gas.
'Hey!' Crane called. 'Wait a minute.'
The car swayed as it entered the street, swung wide around their sedan. Crane caught a vivid impression of the woman. She was handsome with milk-white skin and carrot hair, and her large mouth looked as though it had been lipsticked with a vermilion squirt gun. The man kept his face turned away.
Ann pulled Crane back into the sedan. 'Come on.'
They got around in a wide sweep which carried them over the curb and onto the soft lawn of a Spanish cottage across the lane. The other car was still in sight. Ann shoved the sedan to fifty-five before she shifted into high. Motor and tires began to scream.
Crane clutched desperately at the dashboard. 'Do you think this is a good idea?'
Ann didn t answer. She watched the road, her foot holding the accelerator against the rubber floor mat. Her eyes gleamed and her face was determined. She held the wheel so firmly her knuckles showed white through her skin.
She was a beautiful girl, Crane thought, but he wondered if she didn t have just a shade too much character. She seemed to take the detective business too seriously. She didn t act like a blonde at all. He wondered if she d been a redhead, too, and had bleached her hair.
With a wail of tires, the sedan rounded a turn. He looked at the speedometer, saw with horror they were going eighty miles an hour. The other car, swaying violently from one side of the clay road to the other, was about two hundred yards ahead. He hoped his car was more stable, but he suspected it was not. They seemed to be gaining on the other car.
He had to shout to be heard. 'What do we do when we catch them?'
'Arrest him. He s a burglar.'
'What if he resists?'
'Knock him down.'
They were passing through a long valley, and the light was dim. Ann switched on the headlights, but they didn t do much good. The road undulated slightly, and every time they raced over a crest and dropped into the following hollow Crane felt his stomach turn over. It didn t seem to be the road they had come over from Marchton.
Crane shouted, 'What if he has a gun?'
'Shoot him.'
'With what?'
'In my purse… a pistol.'
The pistol was a. 25 automatic with an effective range of about ten yards. He examined it gingerly, then put it back in the purse.
'You haven t got a drink in there?' he shouted.
She ignored him. She was concentrating on the chase, which was turning out to be a pretty even affair. She drove well, catching the turns with a minimum of slide and seldom allowing the arrow indicator to fall below seventy miles an hour.
The other car had more trouble. On one abrupt curve it slid onto the grass, throwing up a screen of dust, and Crane thought it was going to overturn. He could see suitcases and boxes tumbling about the rear and the man and woman leaning far over to the right, away from the pull of momentum. Almost on the lip of the ditch the car straightened, careened back onto the road.
An instant later Ann hit the turn and Crane held his breath. They made it without trouble.
'Good gal,' he said.
He felt a little better. He was beginning to have confidence in her. He was also beginning to feel they would never catch the other car.
Ahead, dark green in the half-light, a wavelike barrier of low hills obstructed the road. The road went up at an easy angle for a half mile, then abruptly made a hairpin turn to the left so that it came back parallel to them, about twenty feet away, but higher. The sedan in front cut almost into the left-hand ditch to make the long turn, taking advantage of the natural banking provided by the ditch. As it came back toward them, not more than thirty yards to the left, Crane could see the woman clinging to the wheel, her face half a foot from the windshield. The man leaned
