Crime Buff

Jeff Clary stood halfway down the forested hillside at the edge of a short drop-off, studying the house on the cleared land below. It was a large two-story house with a wing; Jeff thought it might contain as many as twenty-five to thirty rooms. There was an old-fashioned, moneyed look about it, and the lawns around it seemed well-tended. It could have been an exclusive sanitarium as easily as a private residence. So far, there'd been no way to decide what, exactly, it was. In the time he'd been watching it, Jeff hadn't caught sight of a human being or noticed indications of current human activity.

What had riveted his attention at first glimpse wasn't so much the house itself as the gleaming blue and white airplane which stood some two hundred yards to the left of it. A small white structure next to the plane should be its hangar. The plane was pointed up a closely mowed field. It seemed a rather short runway even for so small a plane, but he didn't know much about airplanes. Specifically—importantly at the moment—he didn't know how to fly one.

That summed up the situation.

A large number of people were engaged today in searching for Jeff Clary, but the blue and white plane could take him where he wanted to go in a few hours, safely, unnoticeably. He needed someone to handle it.

That someone might be in the house. If not, there should be one or more cars in the garage adjoining the house on the right. A car would be less desirable than the plane, but vastly superior to hiking on foot into the open countryside. If he could get to the city without being stopped, he'd have gained a new head start on the searchers. If he got there with a substantial stake as well, his chances of shaking them off for good would be considerably better than even.

Jeff scratched the dense bristles on his chin. There was a gun tucked into his belt, but he'd used the last bullet in it eight hours ago. A hunting knife was fastened to the belt's other side. A knife and a gun—even an empty gun could get him a hostage to start with. He'd take it from there.

Shade trees and shrubbery grew up close to the sides of the building. It shouldn't be difficult to get inside before he was noticed. If it turned out there were dogs around, he'd come up openly—a footsore sportsman who'd got lost and spent half the night stumbling around in the rain-wet hills. As soon as anyone let him get close enough to start talking, he'd be as close as he needed to be.

He sent a last sweeping look around and started downhill, keeping to the cover of the trees. His feet hurt. The boots he wore were too small for him, as were the rest of his fishing clothes. Those items had belonged recently to another man who had no present use for them.

He reached the side of the house minutes later. No dogs had bayed an alarm, and he'd been only momentarily in sight of a few front windows of the building. He'd begun to doubt seriously that there was anybody home, but two of the upper-floor windows were open. If all the occupants had left, they should have remembered to close the windows on a day of uncertain weather like this.

He moved quickly over to a side door. Taking the empty gun from his belt, he turned the heavy brass doorknob cautiously. The door was unlocked. Jeff pushed it open a few inches, peering into the short passage beyond.

A moment later, he was inside with the door closed again. He walked softly along the tiled passageway, listening. Still no sound. The passage ended at a large, dimly lit central hall across from a stairwell. There were several rooms on either side of the hall, and most of the doors were open. What he could see of the furnishings seemed to match the outer appearance of the house—old-fashioned, expensive, well cared for.

As he stood, briefly undecided, he heard sounds at last, from upstairs. Jeff slipped back into the passage, watching the head of the stairway. Nobody went by there, but after a few seconds the footsteps stopped. Then music suddenly was audible. A TV or radio set had been switched on.

That simplified matters.

Jeff moved across the hall and up the stairs, then followed the music along a second-floor passage to the right. Daylight and the music spilled into the passage through an open doorway. He stopped beside the door a moment, listening. He heard only the music. Cautiously he looked in.

A girl stood at one of the bedroom's two windows, looking out, back turned to Jeff; a dark-haired slender girl of medium height, wearing candy-striped jeans with a white blouse. A portable TV set stood on a side table.

Jeff came soundlessly into the room, gun pointed at the girl, and drew the door shut behind him. There was a faint click as it closed. The girl turned.

"Don't make a sound," Jeff said softly. "I'd rather not hurt you. Understand?"

She stood motionless at sight of him. Now she swallowed, nodded, blue eyes wide. She looked younger than he'd expected, a smooth-featured teenager. There shouldn't be any trouble with her. He went to the TV, keeping the gun pointed at the girl, turned the set off.

"Come over here," he told her. "Away from the window. I want to talk to you."

She nodded again, came warily toward him, eyes shifting between his face and the gun.

"Be very good, and I won't have to use it," Jeff said. "Who else is in the house?"

"Nobody right now." Her voice was unexpectedly steady. "They'll be coming in later, during the afternoon."

"Who'll be coming in?"

She shrugged. "Some of my family. There's to be a meeting tonight. I don't know just who it'll be this time—probably seven or eight of them." She glanced at the watch on her wrist, added, "Tracy should be back in around an hour and a half—about two o'clock. The others won't begin to show up before five."

"So Tracy should be back by two, eh? Who's Tracy?"

"Tracy Nichols. Sort of my cousin by marriage."

"You and she live here?"

The girl shook her head. "Nobody lives here permanently now. My Uncle George owns the place. At least, I think it's his property. It's used for meetings and so on."

"Who looks after it?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Wells are the caretakers. They left yesterday after they got everything set up, and they won't be back till tomorrow night when we're gone again."

"Why did they clear out?"

"They always do. The family doesn't want other people around when they have a meeting."

Jeff grunted. "You got secrets?"

The girl smiled. "Oh, there's a lot of talk about business and so on. You never know what's going to come up."

"Uh-huh. What's your name?"

"Brooke Cameron."

"Where do you live?"

"Place called Renfrew College. Two hundred miles from here. You're Jeff Clary, aren't you?"

She'd added the question with no slightest change in inflection, and Jeff was jolted into momentary silence. Watching him, she nodded slowly, as if satisfied.

"Take away the beard—yes, that's who you are, of course!" Interest was kindling in her face. "Pictures of you were shown in the newscasts, you know. But you were supposed to be heading north."

Jeff had heard as much on a car radio ten hours ago.

"Pretty sharp, the way you walked out of that maximum security spot," Brooke Cameron went on. "They said it's only happened once before there."

"Maybe you talk a little too much," he told her. "If you know who I am, you should have sense enough not to play games."

Brooke shrugged. "I'm not playing a game. Of course, you might kill me, but I wouldn't be any use to you then. I'd like to help you."

"I bet you would."

"Really! I'm a sort of crime buff, and you're a very interesting criminal. That's not all, either!" Brooke smiled engagingly. "So, first, what do you need here? The plane's your best chance out, and it got a full tank this morning. Can you handle it?"

"No," Jeff said after a moment. "Can you?"

"Afraid not. They didn't want to let me learn how for another two years. But Tracy's flown it sometimes. She took it out today to get it gassed. You'll have to wait till she gets back."

"I could take your car," Jeff remarked, watching her.

"No car here now, Jeff. Tracy brought me in with her early this morning and went on to the city to pick up some stuff she ordered. Either way you want to go, you'll have to stay till she gets back. The only thing you'd find in the garage is an old bicycle, and that's probably got flat tires. You can go look for yourself."

"I might do that." Jeff studied her curiously. "You'd like to help me, eh?" She nodded. "Well, let's try you. This should be good hunting country. Any guns in the house?"

"Not sporting guns," Brooke said promptly. "But there could be a loaded revolver in Uncle George's desk. He usually keeps one there. His room's down the hall." Her gaze flicked over the gun in Jeff's hand. "Ammunition, too," she said. "But it won't fit the gun you have."

Jeff grunted. "You're wondering whether this one's empty?"

"Well, it might be." Her blue eyes regarded him steadily. "You put two bullets in the guard you shot, and you wouldn't have found any spare shells on him. There was more shooting, and then they must have been pushing you pretty hard for a time. If this isn't a gun the couple you kidnapped happened to have in their car, it could very well be empty."

Jeff grinned briefly. "Are you wondering now where that couple is?"

Brooke shook her head. "No, not much. I mean you're here by yourself, and I don't think you'd let them get away from you." She shrugged. "Let's go look in Uncle George's desk."

The revolver was in a desk drawer, a beautiful shop-new .38. Brooke looked on silently while Jeff checked it and dropped half a dozen spare shells into a jacket pocket.

"So now you have that," she remarked. "You want to shave and clean up next, or eat? A ham was sent in for dinner."

"What makes you think I want to do either?" Jeff asked dryly.

She shrugged. "We can go sit in a south room upstairs, of course," she said. "You can watch the road from there and wait for Tracy to drive up. But that'll be a while. She'll call, anyway, to let me know when she's ready to start back."

Jeff laughed. "That's convenient, isn't it? I'll try the ham."

He hadn't realized until he began to eat how ravenous he was. Then he concentrated savagely on the food, almost forgetting Brooke sitting across from him at the kitchen table. When he'd finished and looked over at her, he saw the worn brown wallet she'd laid on the table. Jeff stared at it, eyes widening.

"How—"

"I'm quite a good pickpocket," Brooke said absently. She frowned at the wallet. "Told you I'm a crime buff—and I don't just read about it." She touched one of three irregular dark stains on the wallet with a finger, looked at Jeff and pushed the wallet across the table to him. "I got it while we were going to Uncle George's room. So Mr. and Mrs. Rambow didn't get away, did they?"

"No, they didn't get away," Jeff said harshly. He hadn't noticed her brushing against him or touching him in any manner as they went along the passage, and the thought of her doing it without letting him catch her made him uneasy. "And they shouldn't have tried," he went on. "Their car got smashed up enough while they were about it that I couldn't use it anymore. It's down in a nice deep gully back in the hills where it isn't likely to be found very soon, and they're inside. Now you know."

Brooke brushed back her hair. "I really knew anyway," she said. "You have a sort of record, Jeff."

Anger faded into curiosity. "Aren't you scared?"

"Oh, yes, a little. But I'm useful to you—and I'm not trying to get away."

"I'd like to know what you are trying to do," Jeff admitted. "Whatever it is, there'd better be no more tricks like that."

"There won't be," Brooke said.

"All right." Jeff tugged at the shoulder of his jacket. "Are there clothes in this spooky house that could fit me?"

Brooke nodded. "Uncle Jason's just about your build. He's got a room upstairs, too. Let's go see."

Jeff stood up. "What kind of place is this?" be asked irritably. "A home away from home for any of you who happens to feel like it?"

"I guess it's used like that sometimes," Brooke said. "I don't know everything the family does."

Uncle Jason's room was at the south end of the house. It was equipped sparsely and with the neat impersonality of a hotel room. Several suits hung in plastic sheaths in the closet and two pairs of shoes stood in a plastic box on the closet shelf. The shoes would be a bit large for Jeff, but a relief after the cramping boots he'd been wearing. He decided any of the suits should fit well enough, and he found an electric shaver. He peered out a window. No vehicle was in sight, and anyone coming could be spotted minutes away. All good enough.

He hauled a straight-backed chair away from a table, turned it facing the window. "Come here and sit down," he told Brooke. She'd been watching him silently as he moved about, not stirring herself from the position she'd taken up near the passage door.

She came over now. "You want me to watch the road?"

"Just sit down."

She settled herself in the chair. Jeff said, "Now put your arms behind you." He fished a piece of rope out of a pocket.

"You don't have to do that," she said quickly.

"I'll be busy for a while," Jeff said. "I don't want to worry about you."

Brooke sighed, clasped her hands together behind the chair. Jeff looked down at her a moment. Brooke Cameron bothered him. The way she was acting didn't make sense. It wasn't just the matter of the wallet, though that had been startling. He'd suspected at first that she was trying to set a trap for him while pretending to be helpful, but he didn't see what she could attempt to do, and it didn't seem to fit in with telling him where he could find a loaded gun. Perhaps she was hoping help would arrive. He didn't feel too concerned about that possibility. He'd be ready for them.

He could put an abrupt end to anything she might have in mind by slipping the rope around her slender neck; but that would be stupid. If some unexpected trouble arose before he got out of here, a live hostage would be an immediate advantage, and he might still find her useful in other ways.

He fastened her wrists together, drawing the rope tight enough to make it hurt. She wriggled her shoulders a little but didn't complain. He knotted the end of the rope about a chair rung below the seat, grinned at her. "That'll keep you safe!"

He washed his hands and face, shaved carefully and put on Uncle Jason's suit and shoes, interrupting what he was doing several times to come back to the window and study the empty road. When he'd finished, he went downstairs and found a door that opened into the garage. There was a bicycle there, as she'd said, and no car, though the garage had space enough for three of them. Jeff returned to the top floor.

Brooke looked around as he came into the room.

"I suppose you'll be going to Mexico," she remarked.

His eyes narrowed. At it again—and she happened to be right. "Sounds like a good first stop, doesn't it?" he said.

She studied him. "You'll need a good paper man to fix you up once you're down there."

Jeff laughed shortly. "I know where to find a good paper man down there."

"You do? Got the kind of money he's going to want?"

"Not yet." There wasn't much more than a hundred dollars in the stained brown wallet. "Any suggestions?" he asked.

"Twenty-eight thousand in cash," Brooke said. "I keep telling you I want to help."

He stiffened. "Twenty-eight—where?"

She jerked her elbows impatiently. "Get me untied and I'll show you. It's downstairs." He didn't believe her. He felt an angry flush rising in his cheeks. If it was a lie, she'd be sorry! But he released her.

She got up from the chair, rubbing her bruised wrists, said, "Come along. Have to get keys from my room," and went ahead of him into the passage.

Jeff followed watchfully, close on her heels, looked on as she took two keys from a purse. They went back to the stairway, down it to the central hall on the ground floor. Brooke used the larger of the keys to open a closet behind a section of the hall's polished oak paneling. A sizable black suitcase stood inside. Brooke nodded at the suitcase.

"The money's in there." She offered Jeff the other key. "You'll have to unlock it."

Jeff shook his head.

"We'll take it to your Uncle Jason's room before we look at the money," he told her. "I'll let you carry it."

"Sure," Brooke said agreeably. "I carried it in here."

She picked up the suitcase, shut the closet, and walked ahead of Jeff to the stairs. The way she handled the suitcase indicated there was something inside, but something that wasn't very heavy. It could be twenty-eight thousand dollars, but a variety of rather improbable speculations kept crossing Jeff's mind as he followed her upstairs. Was the thing rigged? Would something unpleasant have happened if he'd unlocked it just now? He shook his head. It wasn't at all like him to engage in nervous fantasies.

Nevertheless, he found himself moving a few steps back from the suitcase when he told Brooke to put it on the carpet and open it. She knelt beside it and unlocked it, and nothing remarkable occurred. She opened the suitcase and Jeff saw folds of furry green material. "What's that?" he asked.

"My cape. Dyed muskrat. The money's under the clothes." Brooke took out the green cape, laid it on the floor, added several other items while Jeff watched her motions closely.

"There's the money," she said finally.

Jeff nodded. "All right. Take it out and put it on the table."

Brooke glanced over at him with a quick grin. "Don't trust me yet, do you?"

"Not much," Jeff agreed.

"You should. That's my money I'm letting you have."

"Your money, eh?"

"Well—sort of. I stole it."

"That I can believe," Jeff said. "Get it up on the table."

Brooke took six slender stacks of bills from the suitcase, laid them side by side on the table and moved back. "Count it!" she invited, then looked on as Jeff riffled slowly through the stacks.

"Where did you steal it?" he asked.

"Man named Harold Brownlee—city councilman. He has a home in the suburbs. The money was in his den safe. I picked it up two nights ago."

"Just like that, huh?"

"No, not just like that," she said. "It was worked out pretty carefully. Twenty-five thousand was bribe money on a land development racket. I don't know about the rest—probably just a little something Brownlee wanted to have on hand, like people do. We knew when the bribe payoff was to be and where he keeps that kind of cash between his trips out of town to get it deposited."

"How did you know?" Jeff put the last bundle down. It was twenty-eight thousand dollars and a little more.

She shrugged. "Family intelligence. How? They don't let me in on that kind of thing yet. But they did let me do the Brownlee job by myself—well, almost by myself. Tracy insisted on being a lookout at the country club where the Brownlees were that night. She'd have let me know if they started home before I finished." Brooke added with a trace of resentment, "It wasn't necessary. If they had come back early, they wouldn't have seen me."

Jeff was staring at her. An hour ago, he would have considered it a crazy story. Now he simply wasn't so sure. He was about to speak when he heard a tiny sound, like the tinkle of distant fairy chimes. "What was that?" he asked sharply.

"Just Tracy," said Brooke. "She wants to talk. I guess she's ready to start home." She tapped her wristwatch. "Two-way transmitter," she explained. "Tracy has one just like it. You want me to talk to her?"

Startled, Jeff hesitated. The chimes tinkled faintly again. Now it was clear that Brooke's little watch was producing the sound.

"Go ahead," he told her. He added, "You'd better remember what not to say."

Brooke smiled. "Don't worry! You'll have to stand close if you want to hear Tracy. They're made so you can talk privately." She slid a fingernail under a jeweled knob of the watch, lifting it a scant millimeter, gave it a twist. "Tracy?" she said, holding the watch a few inches from her ear. Jeff moved over to her.

"I'll be on my way back in just a few minutes," the watch whispered. "Have there been any calls?"

"No," Brooke said. "Didn't know you were expecting any." Her own voice was low but not a whisper.

"I'm not really expecting one," the ghostly little voice said from the watch. "But I remembered Ricardo wasn't sure he could make it tonight. He said he'd phone the house early if he couldn't come, so we'd be able to get someone else to give us a quorum."

Brooke winked at Jeff, said, "Well, he hasn't called yet, so he'll probably show up."

"Right. See you soon. 'Bye."

" 'Bye," said Brooke. She pushed down the knob, told Jeff, "That switches it off again."

"Uh-huh." Jeff scratched his chin. "How long will it take Tracy to get here now?"

"Forty minutes probably. Not much more. It's a good road most of the way, and she drives fast."

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-four. Seven years eight months older than I am. Why?"

"Just wondering." Jeff held out his hand, "Let's see that thing."

"The two-way? Sure." Brooke slipped the instrument off her wrist, gave it to him. "Be careful with it," she cautioned. "It's mighty expensive."

"It should be!" Jeff turned it about in his fingers, studying it. A stylish little woman's wristwatch, and it was running. There was nothing at all to indicate it could be anything other than that, but he'd heard it in action. "Yes, very expensive!" he said thoughtfully. He placed the watch on the table beside the bills. "That sounds like a peculiar family you've got," he remarked. "You really weren't lying about the Brownlee job?"

Brooke smiled. "Take a look at what's inside the cape," she said. "That's my prowling outfit, or most of it."

Jeff laid the dyed muskrat cape on one end of the table, opened it, fur side down. There were a number of zippered pockets in the lining. Jeff located variously shaped objects in some of the pockets by touch, took them out and regarded them.

"Earphone," he said. "So this matchbox-sized gadget it's connected to should be another radio?"

Brooke nodded. "Local police calls."

"Yes, handy. And a fancy glass cutter. The two keys?"

"Duplicates of the ones Brownlee had for his den safe."

"Which made that part of it simple, didn't it?" Jeff remarked. "And a pocket flash could be useful, of course. Why the cigarette case, if that's what it is?"

"Open it," Brooke told him.

He pressed the snap of the case, looked at the long-tipped narrow cigarettes clasped inside, a brand he didn't know. "Imports?" he asked.

"Uh-huh."

Jeff sniffed at the cigarettes. "Anything special about them?"

"Just their length. They taste lousy." Brooke put out her hand. "There's a back section, you see. Let me—"

"Just tell me what to do," Jeff said.

Opening the hidden inner section of the case turned out to be a more complicated operation than switching the wristwatch over to its transmitter function, even under Brooke's guidance, but after some fumbling Jeff accomplished it. He pursed his lips, considered a silk-packed row of thin metal rods, in silence for a moment.

"Picks," he said then. "You any good at using them?"

"Pretty good, I think," Brooke said. "I should be able to open almost any ordinary lock with one or another of those."

"Look kind of light."

"Not too light, Jeff. That's beryllium—harder than steel."

"I suppose you know it can be worth ten years just to be found with a set of picks like those on you?"

"That's why it's a cigarette case," Brooke told him.

Jeff shook his head. "Where did you get all these things?"

"They were custom-made. For me."

Jeff snapped both sections of the cigarette case shut and put it down. "None of it really makes any sense!" he remarked. "Your people must have money."

"Plenty," Brooke agreed.

"Then why do you play around with stuff like this? Are you nuts who do it for kicks?"

"It's not for kicks," Brooke said. "It's training. The Brownlee job the other night was a test. It's a way of finding out if I can qualify for the fancy things the family does—that some of them do, anyway."

"And what do they do?" Jeff asked.

"I don't know that yet, so I can't tell you. The family operates on a theory."

"Okay. Let's hear the theory—"

"If you decide to stay legal," Brooke said, "you give away too much advantage to people who don't care whether they do or not. But if you do things that aren't legal, you can get yourself and others into trouble. It takes a knack to be able to do it and keep on getting away with it. So it's only those who show they have the knack who get into the nonlegal side of the family. The others don't break laws and don't ask questions, so there's nothing they can spill. The family keeps getting richer, but everything looks legitimate. And most of it is."

Jeff shook his head again. "Just who is this family?"

"Oh, the Camerons and the Achtels and some Wylers and a few on the Nichols side. There could be others I don't know about." Brooke added, "The Wylers and Nichols are kind of new, but the Camerons and Achtels have been working together a long time."

Jeff grunted. "Supposing you'd got caught at the Brownlee house?"

She shrugged. "That would have been it for me. Nothing much would have happened. The family's got pull here and there, and I'd have been a fool rich kid playing cops and robbers. But I'd never have got near a nonlegal operation after that. I'd have proved I didn't have the knack."

"What if it was just bad luck?"

"They've got no use for someone who has bad luck. It's too risky."

Jeff nodded. He watched her a moment, head tipped quizzically to the side. "Now, something else." He smiled. "Why are you pretending you want to help me?"

"I do want to help you." Brooke frowned. "After all, how likely is it you'd have come across the cash if I hadn't told you?"

"Then what do you figure on getting out of it?"

"You're to take me to Mexico with you."

"You're out of your mind!" Jeff was honestly startled. "From what you've been telling me, you have it made here."

"You think so." Brooke turned to the suitcase. "There's something you haven't seen yet."

"Hold it right there," Jeff said. "What's that something?"

"You can keep your gun pointed at me while I'm getting it out," she told him, half scornfully. "I picked up more than money at the Brownlee place."

He made no further move to check her then but kept close watch as she opened a side section of the suitcase and brought out a small leather bag. She loosened the bag's drawstrings and shook its contents out on the table. "What do you think of those?" she demanded.

Jeff looked at the tumbled, shining little pile and moistened his lips. "Nice stuff—if it's genuine."

"If it's genuine!" Brooke's eyes flashed. She reached for a string of pearls, swung it back and forth before his face. "If you knew pearls, you wouldn't be calling that just 'nice stuff!' You need someone like me, Jeff. For one thing, I do know pearls. They were in the safe with the money, and there was a very good reason for that."

She dropped the pearls back on the other jewelry. "But you know what would have happened if you hadn't come along today? The meeting at the house tonight was supposed to be about me. A quorum of the active side of the family was going to review the Brownlee job and decide if I was maybe good enough to go on to something a little bigger than I've been allowed to do so far. The job wasn't much for sure—I just went in and did what I was supposed to do—but I did everything right; there's nothing they can fault me on.

"So probably I'd pass. And then?" She waved her hand at the table. "I wouldn't see any of that again! Oh, sure, a third of what the haul's worth would be credited to my family account. When I'm twenty-one, I'll finally have a little something to say about that account. The rings and the watch and those lovely pearls and the rest of it would leave the house with Ricardo Achtel—he runs a jewelry firm for the family, imports, exports, manufacture. And they'd decide I could move up a notch. You know what that would mean?" She laughed. "I'd be working out with a lousy circus for a couple of years at least!"

Jeff blinked. "A circus?"

Brooke nodded. "Right! We've got one in Europe. It's a small circus, but putting in a hitch there while you're young is family tradition for active members. It goes back for generations." She grimaced. "There're all kinds of things you can learn at the circus that will be useful later on, they tell you."

Jeff grinned warily. "Well, there might be."

Brooke tossed her head. "I don't need all that discipline. I don't want to be thinking about the family in everything I do. They're so cautious! Now, you're somebody who doesn't mind cutting corners fast when it's necessary. We'd be a team, Jeff!"

Jeff felt a touch of amazed merriment. "What about Tracy?" he asked.

"What about her? She takes us there; we ditch her. I sort of like Tracy, but she's sold on the family. She won't make trouble for us afterward, and neither will the others. They're too careful for that. They know the kind of trouble I could make for them. You have a place to go to down there?"

Jeff nodded. "Uh-huh. Friendly old pot rancher, fifty miles from the border. Nice quiet place. You know, I've been thinking, Brooke."

"Yes?" she said eagerly.

"You've got these cute miniaturized gadgets. A cigarette case that isn't really one, and a watch that's something else besides." Jeff picked up the pencil flash he'd discovered in Brooke's cape. "This looks custom-built, too."

Her eyes might have flickered for an instant. "It is," she said. "It's the best."

"The best what, aside from being a light?"

"Well—nothing. I want a light I can rely on, naturally."

"Uh-huh. But it's thicker at this end than it really needs to be, isn't it? As if something might be built in there." Jeff fingered the pencil flash. "And this little hole, you'll notice, points wherever you point the light. I don't see how the thing can be opened either."

"Opening it is a little tricky," Brooke said. "If you'll let—"

"No, don't bother." Jeff smiled. "Here's where you switch on the light—fine! So it is a flashlight. What does this ring do?" He turned the flash up, pointing it at Brooke's face.

"Twist it to the left, and it dims the beam," Brooke said, watching him.

"To the right?"

"That brightens it, of course. And—" Her breath caught. "Don't twist it too far, Jeff."

"Why not?"

"Well, don't point it at me then." She smiled quickly. "I'll explain."

"Sure, explain." Jeff lowered the flashlight.

Brooke was still smiling. "I didn't really know about you. You can see that."

"Uh-huh. I understand."

"So I didn't want to tell you about it yet. It's a tranquilizer gun."

Jeff raised his brows. "Doesn't look much like one."

"Family specialty. You couldn't buy that kind of tranquilizer anywhere. I don't know what it is, of course, but we might be able to have it analyzed."

"Maybe we could," Jeff said. "What's its range?"

"You're not supposed to try to use it over thirty feet. Indoors, that's likely to be as much range as you'll want."

"You've used it?"

"No," Brooke said. "I saw it used once, but it's only for a real emergency. The family doesn't want it to get out that someone makes a gun like that."

"What was the effect?"

Brooke grimaced. "Worked so fast it scared me! The man didn't even know he'd been hit, and he didn't move for another two hours. But it won't kill anyone, and there isn't supposed to be much aftereffect. It's a little hollow needle."

Jeff nodded thoughtfully. "Very interesting. It seems we now have the explanation for your generous offer to finance me."

Brooke looked startled. "I told you—"

"You told me a lot of things. I'll even believe some of them—that this is a gun, for example. It's what you were working to get your hand on right from the start, wasn't it?"

Brooke said reluctantly, "I would have felt better if I'd had it. You see—"

"I know. You just weren't sure you could trust me. All right, obviously I can't be sure I can trust you either." Jeff raised the pencil flash, pointing it at her. "So why don't I see for myself what that little hollow needle does after it hits?"

Brooke shook her head. "You don't want to do that, Jeff."

"Why not?"

"Tracy's sort of slippery. If I'm awake and in the plane with you two, she'll be a lot easier to handle. I can keep her conned. Whether you believe it or not, I do want to go to Mexico with you."

Jeff grinned and dropped the pencil flash into a coat pocket.

"And you're getting your wish!" he told her. "Go sit down in your chair."

He tied Brooke's hands behind the chair back, secured the rope to a rung, testing all knots carefully. Then he checked the time and said, "Keep your month shut from now on unless I ask you something."

Brooke nodded silently. Her expression indicated she might be frightened at last, and she might have reason for it. Jeff went to the window, studied the valley road. Nothing to be seen there yet. Rain clouds drifted over the lower countryside though the sky remained clear above the house. There was a distant roll of thunder. Jeff left the room, returned with a silk scarf. He laid the scarf on the table, restored the bundled bills, the jewelry and Brooke's burglary equipment to the suitcase, except for the pencil flash, which stayed in his pocket along with the two-way watch. He covered the assortment in the suitcase with Brooke's cape, thinking there still might be stuff concealed in it that he hadn't discovered. If so, it could wait. He closed and locked the suitcase, pocketed the key. The clothes and boots he'd been wearing went into the closet from which he'd taken Uncle Jason's suit and shoes.

He returned to the window, stood looking out. He felt a little tense, just enough to keep him keyed up, which he didn't mind. He was always at his best when keyed up. He knew exactly what he was going to do, and it was unlikely that anything could go wrong. Even if Brooke happened to have lied about Tracy's ability to fly a plane, it wouldn't affect his plans seriously. He'd leave the two of them here, dead and stowed away where they shouldn't be found at once, and go off in Tracy's car. A few hours' start was all he needed now. The plane would be preferable, of course. If the two disappeared with him, he could work out a way to put heat on their precious family.

He'd been tempted to wait, to let that crew of cautious wealthy practitioners of crime start drifting in during the afternoon, nail them down as they arrived, and then see what he could make out of the overall situation, but that might be crowding his luck. He'd got a great deal more than he'd expected to get at the house, and he liked the way the setup looked now.

He inquired presently, "What color is Tracy's car?"

Brooke's tongue tip moistened her lips. "Red," she said. "Cherry red. Sports car. Is she coming?"

"In sight," Jeff said. "Still a few minutes away." He went to the table, picked up the silk scarf. "Let's make sure everything stays very quiet in here when she shows up!" He wrapped the scarf tightly around Brooke's mouth and jaw, knotted it behind her head and came back to the window.

He stood away from it a little, though there was no real chance the sharpest of eyes could have spotted him from the road. Tracy, he decided, did drive fast—and expertly. The little red car was flicked around curves, accelerated again on the straight stretches. By the time the sound of the engine grew audible on the breeze, he could make out a few details about the driver: a woman, all right—goggled, bright green scarf covering her head, strands of blonde hair whipping out back of the scarf. She was coming to the house because there was nowhere else to go; the road stopped here. Satisfied, Jeff left the room, went unhurriedly downstairs.

He'd made up his mind a while ago about the place where he'd wait for Tracy, and he was there a minute later. A side door opened on the garden near the angle formed by the house with the garage. The angle was landscaped with thick dark-green bushes, providing perfect cover. For the moment, he remained near the door. The chances were that Tracy would come directly to the garage; and if she did, he'd have the gun on her as soon as she stepped out of the car. If, instead, she drove around to the front entrance of the building, he'd slip back into the house through the side door and catch her inside. The rest would be simple. It shouldn't take long to make her realize what she had to do for her own sake and Brooke's, that Jeff didn't really need either of them, and that if she didn't follow his orders, exactly, he'd shoot them both and leave with her car.

From his point of concealment, he watched the car turn up the driveway from the road. The section of driveway leading to the garage curved out of sight behind a stand of ornamental pines sixty yards away. The car swung into it, vanished behind the trees. There was a momentary squeal of brakes.

Jeff frowned, listening, Uncle George's .38 in his hand. He heard the purring throb of the engine, but the car obviously had stopped. It shouldn't make much difference if Tracy left it there; she still had to come to the house. But it wasn't the way Jeff had planned it, and he didn't like that.

He gauged the distance to the pines. He could reach them in a quick sprint and find out what she was doing. However, he didn't favor that idea either. If she had the car in motion again before he got there and caught sight of him in the open, he could have a real problem. Undecided, Jeff began to edge through the bushes toward the front of the garage.

He heard a sound then, a slight creaking, which he might have missed if his ears hadn't been straining for indications of what was delaying Tracy. He turned his head, and something stung the side of his neck. He swung around, startled, felt himself stumbling oddly as his gaze swept up along the side of the house.

A window screen in a second-floor room above him was being quietly closed. Jeff jerked up the revolver. He was falling backward by then, and he fired two shots, wildly, spitefully, at the blurring blue of the sky before he was lying on the ground, the gun somehow no longer in his hand. He had a stunned thought: that Brooke couldn't possibly have done it, that he had her tranquilizing gadget in his coat. And besides—

* * *

He didn't finish the second thought. Tracy was standing next to him, holding a gun of her own, when Brooke came out through the side door.

"Well!" Tracy said. "So now I know why you were giving me the high sign from the window." She glanced down at Jeff's face, back at Brooke. "Tranquilizer?"

"No," Brooke said reluctantly. "He spotted that while we were talking and took it."

"So it was Last Resort, eh?"

"Yes."

Tracy grimaced. "Suspected it, by the way he looks." She shook her head. "Well, Brooke—curare. You know, the rules. You may have quite a bit of explaining to do."

"I can explain it."

"Yes? Start with me!" Tracy invited. "A sort of rehearsal. Let's see how it will stand up."

"You know who that is? Was, I guess."

Tracy looked at Jeff again. "No. I should?"

"Jeff Clary."

Tracy blinked. "Clary? The escaped convict they're hunting for? You're sure?"

"I'm sure," Brooke said. "They've been broadcasting his picture and I recognized him as soon as he turned up in the house. Anyway, he admitted it. He's killed three people in the past twenty-four hours, and he had plans for you and me after you'd flown him across the border."

"Now, that doesn't start the explanation off too badly," Tracy conceded. "Still—"

Brooke said, "He had to go anyway."

"Probably. But not at your discretion. If you had to let him take your sleepy-bye kit, what about mine? You know where I keep it. The bag's upstairs in my closet at present."

"I thought of that," Brooke said, "but I didn't think I'd have time to hunt around for the bag. He had me gagged and tied to a chair, and he stayed right there in the room with me until you were almost driving in. Last Resort was quicker. I grabbed it."

"Um!" Tracy tapped her nose tip reflectively. "Well, that really should do it! They can't give you too much of an argument." She smiled. "So the big bad convict ties you to a chair? Angelique the Eleven-Year-Old Escape Artist. Remember the howl you raised when they sent you off to the circus that summer?" She looked at the gun in her hand. "Might as well put this away, and we'll start tidying up."

"Hadn't you better use the gun first?" Brooke said.

"Huh?" Tracy looked thoughtful. "Yes!" she said then. "Good thinking, Brooke! They should prefer to let Clary be found if the coroner doesn't have reason to poke around too closely. We'll take away the reason."

She pointed the gun at a spot between Jeff's eyebrows.

* * *

There had been assorted activities in the house in the latter part of the afternoon and the early part of the evening, but around ten o'clock things were quiet again. The rain, after holding off to the south most of the day, had moved in finally, and there was a gentle steady pattering against the closed windows in Tracy's room. For the past half hour, Brooke and Tracy had been playing double slap solitaire at a small table. Neither was displaying her usual fierce concentration on the game.

Tracy lifted her head suddenly, glanced at Brooke. "I think the reporting committee's coming!"

Brooke listened. Footsteps were audible in the passage. "Well, it's a relief," she muttered. "They've been discussing it long enough."

She put down her card pack and went to the door.

"Here we are, George!" she called. "Tracy's room."

She came back and looked on as the tuxedoed committee filed in. George Cameron, president of Renfrew College and scholarly authority on the Punic Wars, entered first; then Ricardo Achtel, who handled Baldwin Gems, Imports and Exports, among other things. Finally came Jason Cameron, best known in some circles as big-game hunter and mountaineer. Three big guns of the family. All gave her reassuring smiles, which struck Brooke as a bad sign. She drew a deep breath.

"What's the verdict?" she asked.

"Let's not look on it as a verdict, Brooke," said George Cameron. "Sit down; we'll have to talk about it." He glanced around, noted the absence of free chairs. "Mind if we use your bed, Tracy?"

"Not at all," Tracy told him.

George and Jason sat down on the bed. Ricardo Achtel leaned against the wall, hands shoved into his trousers pockets. "There was a special news report some ten minutes ago," George remarked. "I don't believe you caught it?"

Brooke shook her head.

George said, "They've found the unfortunate Rambow couple in their car. Each had been shot from behind almost at contact range—a deliberate execution. Clary afterward ran the damaged vehicle off the road, as he told you. A highway patrol happened to notice smashed bushes, investigated and discovered the wreck and the bodies in a ravine."

"How far from where Clary was found?" Tracy asked.

"Less than four miles. We worked out his probable backtrail closely enough," George said. "And that should wind it up. The theory that Clary tried to kidnap another motorist, who was lucky or alert enough to shoot first, and may have sufficient reason for not wanting to identify himself, is regarded as substantiated. Either of the two bullets found in Clary's body should have caused almost instant death. Police will try to trace the gun. The usual thing."

There was a short pause. "All right, and now what about me?" Brooke asked. "I've flunked?"

"Not at all," George said. "On the whole, you did very well. You were dealing with a killer and stalled him off until you could create an opportunity to end the threat to yourself and Tracy. Naturally, we approve."

"Naturally," Tracy agreed dryly.

"However," said Jason Cameron, "there was a rather serious breach of secrecy."

"I've tried to explain that," Brooke told him. "I had to do something to keep Clary working to outfigure me. I couldn't think of a good enough set of lies on the spot. He didn't seem exactly stupid. So I told him the truth, or mostly the truth, which made it easy."

George scratched his jaw. "Yes, but there you are, Brooke! In doing it, you took a chance. Mind you, no one's blaming you. If there's any fault, it's in those responsible for your progress—which certainly must include myself. But as far as you knew, there was a possibility, however slight, that the police would trace Clary to the house and take him alive. We could have handled the resulting problem, but some harm might have been done. Further, in being frank with Clary, you made killing him almost a necessity—thus reducing your options, which is never desirable."

Jason nodded. "There's a definite streak of candor in you, Brooke. It's been noticed. Your immediate inclination is to tell the truth."

"Not," observed Ricardo Achtel, "that there's anything essentially wrong with that."

"No, of course not," George agreed. "However, one can also argue in favor of facile dissimulation. Those who don't seem born with the ability—I had a good deal of early difficulty in the area myself—must acquire it by practice. It's felt you fall short on that point, Brooke."

"In other words," Brooke said, "I didn't flunk out, but I didn't get upgraded tonight either?"

"Not formally," George told her. "We believe you need more time. The matter will be brought up again at your next birthday."

"Seven months," said Brooke. She looked discouraged.

"They'll pass quickly enough for you," George assured her.

"In a sense, you see," Jason remarked, "circumstances did upgrade you today by presenting you with a difficult and serious problem, which you solved satisfactorily though in a less than optimum manner. It seems mainly a question of letting your experience catch up."

George nodded. "Exactly! So you'll continue your formal education at Renfrew, but you'll also start going to drama school."

"Drama school?" Brooke said, surprised.

"Ours. The training you receive there won't precisely parallel that given other students, but you should find it interesting. Tracy went through the process a few years ago."

Brooke looked over at Tracy.

"Uh-huh, so I did," Tracy said slowly. She shook her head. "Poor Brooke!"