three letters on a license plate, a hat, and a red-haired woman who didn't see his face.'
'Well, it piles up,' said Grimes cheerfully. 'You get down there.'
'I'll either fly first thing in the morning or drive tonight. What about you coming along?'
'I am a coward,' Grimes said. 'I don't want to be anywhere near this kiUer.'
'What about Sims?'
'He's too close. Makes me nervous.'
'You don't care how close I get?' grumbled Copeland. 'I'd better call home.'
'Oh, Charles,' his young wife wailed, 'you are not going off anywhere tonight. We have a bridge date.'
'I can fly first thing in the morning, then,' he said.
'Oh, why?' she pouted. 'Why must you leave me? What's happened?'
He had never told her much. She was sensitive and so young and so excitable. He felt he should keep the seamy side away from her—so young, so fair. If she were to get the notion that he was going near a dangerous killer—Charles Copeland would protect her. 'Some sad news to break,' he said. 'About a death. I must, dear. I'm sorry.'
'Anyone I kiiow?' she gasped. Her voice pleaded fxn: it not to be anyone she knew, because death upset her.
Copeland didn't see why she must be told that Emily Padgett had been murdered. So he said truthfully, and yet deceptively, 'The name is McCauley, Just don't think about it, dearest. I'U come right home. I' won't leave until- ^moming.'
CHAPTER 18
Johnny came dragging into the motel at about 8 p.m. 'He and Marshall had found no solace in the story of the two pins. Marshall had told Johnny about the man Harris and
the loan. 'Nan wasn't to get the money 'til she was twenty-one,' Johnny said. 'But I suppose her prospects . . .'
'I suppose so, too,' Marshall had said.
Neither of them had any doubt that Dick was not only a killer but a fortune-hunter. They had no proof.
Johnny was unlocking the door of his room when Dorothy Padgett materialized suddenly at his side. 'I've been waiting for hours!'
'Where did you come from?' he said wearily. 'Wait, 'til I try a phone call, can you? Then, I've got things to tell you.'
'I have things to ask,' said Dorothy ominously. 'Do you realize the wedding is tomorrow morning at eleven?'
'Oh no, it's not.' Johnny strode into the room, grasped the phone, put in a call for Roderick Grimes again. Dorothy had followed him. She stood with her hands in the pockets of her soft gray ulster, staring at his tired face.
The operator began to singsong up the coast.
Johnny said, 'He did it, Dot. Dick Bartee killed Christy. I know it in my bones, as they say. I don't know how I'm going to prove it.'
Dorothy said quietly, 'Was our Aunt Emily's real name Edith McCauley?'
Johmiy reached out with his right arm and gathered her j close to him. 'Now you know,' he sighed.
Grimes was saying, 'Hello? Hello?'
Johnny began to tell him about the ^^'inery incident, the alibi broken, the loan application. 'So now I am convinced,' j he woimd up, 'and I am going to Nan, and make her listen. ' Where is Copeland? I want him down here.'
'He's coming down,' Grimes said. 'What do you mean, i make her listen? You haven't told her!'
'I am about to tell her .'
'You better,' said Grimes sharply, 'and quick. If you don't want that girl to marry a lousy murderer. You go ; stop it. Work on the giil. That's all for you to do.' 1
'Can you put any pressure on this man, Harris,' said Johnny, 'and fiiid out what security?'
'Yes, yes,' said Grimes impatiently. 'Listen, don't worry j what you have to do to make her stop this wedding. Say j you'll kill yourself or something. There's a time for scruples but this isn't it.' Grimes hung up.
Johnny turned to Dorothy. Grimes had sounded frantic, i
Johnny's own mind was dark and his heart was heavy. 'How did you know who Nan is?'
'How did you?' she countered. 'Did Emily tell you?''
'Yes.'
Dorothy began to draw away.
'Ah, Dotty, Emily gave up her identity to keep that secret,' he said tiredly. 'McCauley gave up the acquaintance of liis own and only child. An awful lot was sacrified, for seventeen years, to keep that secret and to keep it from Nan. How could I blurt it out in five minutes? McCauley, himself, asked me to make sure . . .'
'Sme of what?'
