Continental Op Stories

and fifty dollars apiece, and in case either was caught later, Binder could be counted on not to identify them.

That was the scheme as Binder knew it. There were angles he didn’t suspect.

Between Inés, Maurois and the Kid there was another agreement. She was to leave for Chicago with the stones as soon as Binder gave them to her, and wait there for Maurois and the Kid. She and the Frenchman would have been satisfied to run off and let Binder hold the sack. The Whosis Kid insisted that the holdup go through as planned, and that the foolish Binder be killed. Binder knew too much about them, the Kid said, and he would squawk his head off as soon as he learned he had been double-crossed.

The Kid had his way, and he had shot Binder.

Then had come the sweet mess of quadruple and sextuple crossing that had led all three into calamity: the woman’s private agreements with the Kid and Maurois⁠—to meet one in St. Louis and the other in New Orleans⁠—and her flight alone with the loot to San Francisco.

Billie was an innocent bystander⁠—or almost. A lumber-handler Inés had run into somewhere, and picked up as a sort of cushion against the rough spots along the rocky road she traveled.

The Scorched Face

I

“We expected them home yesterday,” Alfred Banbrock wound up his story. “When they had not come by this morning, my wife telephoned Mrs. Walden. Mrs. Walden said they had not been down there⁠—had not been expected, in fact.”

“On the face of it, then,” I suggested, “it seems that your daughters went away of their own accord, and are staying away on their own accord?”

Banbrock nodded gravely. Tired muscles sagged in his fleshy face.

“It would seem so,” he agreed. “That is why I came to your agency for help instead of going to the police.”

“Have they ever disappeared before?”

“No. If you read the papers and magazines, you’ve no doubt seen hints that the younger generation is given to irregularity. My daughters came and went pretty much as they pleased. But, though I can’t say I ever knew what they were up to, we always knew where they were in a general way.”

“Can you think of any reason for their going away like this?”

He shook his weary head.

“Any recent quarrels?” I probed.

“N⁠⸺” He changed it to: “Yes⁠—although I didn’t attach any importance to it, and wouldn’t have recalled it if you hadn’t jogged my memory. It was Thursday evening⁠—the evening before they went away.”

“And it was about⁠—?”

“Money, of course. We never disagreed over anything else. I gave each of my daughters an adequate allowance⁠—perhaps a very liberal one. Nor did I keep them strictly within it. There were few months in which they didn’t exceed it. Thursday evening they asked for an amount of money even more than usual in excess of what two girls should need. I wouldn’t give it to them, though I finally did give them a somewhat smaller amount. We didn’t exactly quarrel⁠—not in the strict sense of the word⁠—but there was a certain lack of friendliness between us.”

“And it was after this disagreement that they said they were going down to Mrs. Walden’s, in Monterey, for the weekend?”

“Possibly. I’m not sure of that point. I don’t think I heard of it until the next morning, but they may have told my wife before that. I shall ask her if you wish.”

“And you know of no other possible reason for their running away?”

“None. I can’t think that our dispute over money⁠—by no means an unusual one⁠—had anything to do with it.”

“What does their mother think?”

“Their mother is dead,” Banbrock corrected me. “My wife is their stepmother. She is only two years older than Myra, my older daughter. She is as much at sea as I.”

“Did your daughters and their stepmother get along all right together?”

“Yes! Yes! Excellently! If there was a division in the family, I usually found them standing together against me.”

“Your daughters left Friday afternoon?”

“At noon, or a few minutes after. They were going to drive down.”

“The car, of course, is still missing?”

“Naturally.”

“What was it?”

“A Locomobile, with a special cabriolet body. Black.”

“You can give me the license and engine numbers?”

“I think so.”

He turned in his chair to the big roll-top desk that hid a quarter of one office wall, fumbled with papers in a compartment, and read the numbers over his shoulder to me. I put them on the back of an envelope.

“I’m going to have this car put on the police department list of stolen machines,” I told him. “It can be done without mentioning your daughters. The police bulletin might find the car for us. That would help us find your daughters.”

“Very well,” he agreed, “if it can be done without disagreeable publicity. As I told you at first, I don’t want any more advertising than is absolutely necessary⁠—unless it becomes likely that harm has come to the girls.”

I nodded understanding, and got up.

“I want to go out and talk to your wife,” I said. “Is she home now?”

“Yes, I think so. I’ll phone her and tell her you are coming.”

II

In a big limestone fortress on top a hill in Sea Cliff, looking down on ocean and bay, I had my talk with Mrs. Banbrock. She was a tall dark girl of not more than twenty-two years, inclined to plumpness.

She couldn’t tell me anything her husband hadn’t at least mentioned, but she could give me finer details.

I got descriptions of the two girls:

Myra⁠—20 years old; 5 feet 8 inches; 150 pounds; athletic; brisk, almost masculine manner and carriage; bobbed brown hair; brown eyes; medium complexion; square face, with large chin and short nose; scar over left ear, concealed by hair; fond of horses and all outdoor sports. When she left the house she wore a blue and green wool dress, small blue hat, short black seal coat, and black slippers.

Ruth⁠—18 years; 5 feet 4 inches; 105 pounds; brown eyes;