"No, bank robberies aren't what they used to be," old Dr. Sam Hawthorne was saying over his brandy. "Today someone walks up to the teller with a note and she hands him a packet of money set aside for just that purpose. He strolls out while the automatic cameras snap his picture, and that night it's on the local news. In most cases, nobody even sees a gun. In the old days, when I was a country doctor practicing in Northmont, things were different. This was the Depression, the days of John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson, to say nothing of Bonnie and Clyde. Those people didn't bother with notes. They had shotguns and tommyguns to deliver their message."

This was in the spring of 1935 (Dr. Sam continued), a few weeks before Easter, which wasn't until April twenty-first that year. I was still without an assistant since my nurse April left to marry a resort owner up in Maine. On this particular Monday I'd phoned long distance to tell her of the peculiar events leading to the sudden departure of her replacement. Perhaps I secretly hoped she'd come back for a week or two, but I should have known better. She was being married in less than three weeks, on the Saturday after Easter.

"I'm sorry about your troubles, Sam," she told me over the telephone. "I wish there was some way I could help, but we're so busy up here with the wedding arrangements. You're still coming, aren't you?"

"I wouldn't miss it for anything," I told her truthfully. "I'll be there." "I hope you find a new nurse before then," she told me.

Without an office assistant, there were a great many routine chores I had to do myself. One of them was the banking, and that Monday's mail had brought a gratifying number of checks in response to the monthly billings I'd sent out the week before. I wanted to deposit them in the bank at once so I'd have enough money for the rent on my office and my apartment, as well as the first month's salary for a new nurse, if I ever found one.

My office in a wing of Pilgrim Memorial Hospital was a short distance from town, but with no one to answer the phone I couldn't allow myself the luxury of the brisk walk to the bank I enjoyed so much. I drove the red Mercedes—my only extravagance—into Northmont and parked across the street from the Farmers & Merchants Bank.

"Hello, Doc. How's the car runnin'?"

I had been getting out of the car and recognized the raspy voice of Sheriff Lens even before I turned around. I turned to greet him. He'd been putting on a bit of weight lately, probably the result of his wife's good cooking, and I patted his middle as he came up to me. "You've got to take that off,

Sheriff. Bad for the heart."

"I know, Doc. Have you found a nurse yet?"

I shook my head. "I ran an ad in the Boston, Hartford, and Providence papers yesterday, but it's tough getting anyone with medical experience to move to a place like Northmont."

"Where you headin' for now?"

"I've got some checks to deposit at the—"

I was interrupted by a speeding black roadster that came up behind us and then cut over to the wrong side of the street to pull up in front of the bank. We saw two men run out of the bank. They were dressed like bankers, in dark suits and fedoras, but their features were covered by white handkerchiefs. The one in the lead carried a sawed-off shotgun—the other had a pistol and a money sack.

"I'll be damned," Sheriff Lens rasped, reaching for his gun.

The driver of the roadster slid across the seat to let the others in the driver's side, and I saw a flash of long blond hair. The man with the money spotted us and saw the revolver coming up in the sheriff's hand. He fired a wild shot in our direction—not close, but enough to throw off the sheriff's return shot. His bullet went wild as the car pulled away from the curb. "After them, Doc! It's a bank robbery!" he cried.

Without thinking, I took off in pursuit, with Sheriff Lens clinging to the running board. "I can only see part of the license number—8M5. The rest is mud!" he shouted. The roadster made a sudden left turn and was out of sight. I followed in time to see it turning left again at the next corner. "Step on it, Sam—I want to get a shot at them!" I reached the corner and started to turn when a Ford touring car suddenly appeared, coming toward me.

I slammed on my brakes, stopping just inches short of a collision. "Damn!" Sheriff Lens was off and running, his gun held high.

The driver of the touring car, a young woman, saw him and let out a scream, apparently afraid the weapon was meant for her. I hurried over to reassure her.

"The sheriff's after some bank robbers. They just passed you." I pointed off after them.

"Oh!" She put her hands to her mouth. "I came this way for some peace and quiet!"

Sheriff Lens came back, looking dejected. "No sign of 'em, Doc. They must have made another turn and there's no one down the block to give chase.

Come on, we'd better get back to the bank."

"Sorry about the excitement," I told the young woman.

"Did you see the passengers in that car?" the sheriff asked her.

"Just a glimpse. I—"

"You'd better come with us. I'll want a statement from you."

"Come with you where?"

"Follow us to the bank," I explained. "It's just around the corner."

Some others along Main Street had seen the escape and had ventured close to the bank, but no one had dared enter the building. "It's awfully quiet in there," Seth Simpkins remarked. He owned the tailor shop across the street. "Do you think they're all dead?"

"We'll find out." Sheriff Lens pushed open the front door, his revolver still drawn.

The first we saw was Brewster Cartright, the bank manager, stretched out on the floor in a pool of blood. It's true, I remember thinking. They're all dead.

But Cartright proved to be the only one dead. The other four bank employees were found handcuffed together and locked in a back room.

The sheriff's key didn't fit the cuffs, so he went for a hacksaw while I checked them for injuries. "Tell me what happened," I asked Greenleaf, the assistant manager.

"It was terrible. They came in wearing those handkerchiefs over their faces and waving those guns. Right away I thought of Dillinger and all the bank robberies in the papers. I never thought it could happen here in

Northmont."

"What happened to Cartright?"

"The one with the shotgun came in first—by the front door—and shouted that it was a holdup. The tellers were all behind their windows, getting ready for the noon customers. Mr. Cartright was up front by his desk. He was sneaking up behind the gunman when the second one came through the door and shot him dead. No one resisted after that. We thought they'd kill us all."

"How much money did they get?"

"I don't know. They handcuffed us and locked us in the back room before they went after the money. They warned us to keep quiet or they'd shoot us, too."

I knew each of the three tellers—Magneson, Jones, and Ryder—through doing business at the bank. Female tellers were unheard of in those days, but it was a respectable if low-paying job for young men just out of school. "Did you recognize either of the two men as regular customers?" I asked them.

Magneson shook his head. He was a curly-haired young man in his early twenties. "It was hard to tell with those handkerchiefs over their faces. But the voices weren't familiar."

Sheriff Lens returned with a hacksaw and a bunch of keys. On the third try, one of the keys worked and the men were freed—rubbing their wrists and looking grateful. "Poor Mr. Cartright," Greenleaf muttered. "He was a good man. He deserved a better end than this."

At this point, word of the shooting and robbery had reached the Cartright home and Brewster's wife Lydia arrived, her face streaked with tears. I'd treated Lydia Cartright for the flu the previous winter and felt I knew her better than I'd ever known her husband. "Lydia," I intercepted. "Let me take you home."

"Dr. Sam, I heard the news and I had to come. My place is here with him."

"You can't do any good here, Lydia."

"Sam, he meant everything to me—he can't just be gone so quickly!" "Come on, I'll drive you home."

But out on the sidewalk, before I could reach the car, her brother came running up. "Lydia—I just heard!" Hank Foxe was a gangling young man still in his mid-twenties, some ten years younger than his sister. He'd worked at the bank himself a few years back, but apparently had decided the job seemed too much like charity from his sister and brother-in-law and was now employed by Northmont's first automobile dealer, who had set up shop a few blocks from the town square on Boston Street.

"Hank, he's dead."

Foxe looked at me for confirmation and I nodded. "Bank robbers shot him," I confirmed. "It was quick. He didn't suffer."

"God!" He cradled his sister in his arms and led her gently away.

"Do you still need me?" a voice behind me asked. I turned to see the young woman who'd been driving the Ford touring car.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I guess the sheriff and I forgot about you. The bank manager was killed by the bandits." "How awful," she said.

I had an opportunity to study her for the first time. She was, I thought, in her late twenties. She had bobbed hair like many of the city girls were wearing—a sort of dirty blonde in color. "Things were so rushed I didn't get your name," I said.

"It's Mary Best. I was just driving through town on my way to

Springfield. I've got a job waiting for me there."

"Doc!" Sheriff Lens called from the doorway of the bank. "Can you come back in here for a minute?"

"Don't go away," I told Mary Best. "Your description of the men might be extremely valuable."

"But I didn't really see—"

The sheriff led me over to the body. "Can you do the formalities so we can get him out of here?"

"Certainly." I glanced up to make sure one of his deputies was taking notes. "The deceased is known to me as Brewster Cartright, manager of the Farmers & Merchants Bank of Northmont. He was pronounced dead at—" I glanced at my watch "—twelve-eight P.M., death having been caused by a bullet wound in the chest near the heart. The exit wound indicates the bullet passed through or near the heart, then out the back. Death was instantaneous."

Sheriff Lens nodded at me, his eyes watering as they sometimes did, and he signaled to a pair of ambulance attendants to come and take the body away. I reminded him of the young woman waiting outside. "Are you going to question her?" I asked him.

"Yes, I have to get her name and address. Bank robbery is a federal crime. We'll have the F.B.I. in here before dark. They'll want to talk with her, too.

I've already called the state police to set up roadblocks."

"The driver could have been a woman. I saw a flash of long blond hair."

"I saw it, too," Mary confirmed, and I realized she had followed me into the bank. "But I didn't see any of their faces. They went by too fast."

"You should wait outside, Miss," Sheriff Lens suggested, trying to block her view of the body as it was placed on the stretcher.

"It's all right," she said. "I'm a nurse."

"You are?" My face must have registered my surprise. "I've been advertising for a nurse to work in my office."

She gave me a smile. "I already have a job waiting for me in Springfield." "What will your address be there, Miss—?" the sheriff asked.

"Best. I don't have a place to live yet, but you can reach me through Springfield General Hospital." She turned back to me. "I gather you're a doctor. You pronounced him dead."

"Forgive me for not introducing myself. I'm Dr. Sam Hawthorne. I've had a private practice here for thirteen years." "You must have started when you were a child." "Almost." I smiled, basking in her compliment.

The telephone rang and Greenleaf, the assistant manager, answered it. "The state police want you, Sheriff," he said, handing over the phone.

"Sheriff Lens," the sheriff said. Then, "What? —Hell, they must have gone somewhere!"

"No sign of them?" I asked when he'd hung up.

"Not a trace. They had all four crossroads covered within minutes of my call and no car of that description went through."

"That just means they're still in the township. There are still plenty of back roads and farmers' barns where they could be hiding."

"It also means that we've got 'em trapped," Sheriff Lens said with a determined smile. "It's only a matter of time."

The agent in charge of the F.B.I. office for our region was named Clint Walling. He was a tall, slim man about my age, wearing a suit and a soft grey fedora that stood out in a town like Northmont. He arrived about midafternoon and drove directly to the bank, where Sheriff Lens was just winding up his investigation. I'd gone off to check on a patient at the hospital but had returned in time to meet him. "What have we here?" he asked after shaking hands. "Bank robbery and murder?"

He stared at the bloodstain on the floor. "You put out an alarm, of course."

"The state police had the roads blocked within minutes, but there's been no sign of the car. Either they managed to slip through or they're still around town."

"Did they leave behind any physical evidence?" Walling asked, producing a pipe which he began filling with tobacco.

"Only those handcuffs on the counter."

The F.B.I. agent grunted as he studied them. "The sort police use, but they can be bought almost anywhere."

"One of my keys unlocked them," the sheriff told him.

"Let's take a look at that back room." Walling followed Sheriff Lens into the storeroom and I tagged along. The back door was metal and bolted top and bottom. He asked the sheriff where it led.

"To Maple Street. It runs behind the bank."

"So they could have gotten out this way."

"The tellers couldn't. They were handcuffed together, and one was cuffed to a leg of this desk. The robbers left by the front door—they had a car

waitin'. Doc and I seen it drive up as they came runnin' out."

Walling took a long drag on his pipe. "How much money did they get?"

"The head teller says almost forty thousand dollars."

"Nice haul for a few minutes' work." He made some notes. "I'll have another agent joining me in the morning. We usually work in teams. I'll want to interview the employees and any other witnesses."

"You can begin with us," I suggested. "The sheriff and I saw the getaway." I ran through the story.

"What about this woman in the other car?"

"She's been waiting at the lunch counter across the street," the sheriff told him, "along with the bank employees. Doc, go get them for us, will you?"

I found them clustered around a table, talking over the robbery and killing with Simpkins, the tailor. Old Seth never worried about business when something exciting happened, and I knew without looking that I'd find an Out To Lunch sign on his shop door. "The F.B.I. man is over there," I announced. "He wants to see you all."

We trooped back across the street, with Seth tagging along. When Mary Best and the bank employees had been introduced to Clint Walling, Simpkins chimed in, "I was the first one on the scene after the holdup. I saw the whole thing from my tailor shop. I came across the street after Sheriff Lens and Doc Hawthorne took off after them, but I was afraid to come in the bank. I thought maybe they were all dead."

Walling turned back to Sheriff Lens. "How many shots were fired in all?"

"Mr. Cartright was killed by a single bullet," Greenleaf interrupted. "That was the only shot fired in the bank. But after we were locked up, we heard more shots from the street."

"The one with the pistol fired at me and I shot back," Sheriff Lens explained. "We both missed. Before I could get off another shot, this gal cut in front of us."

Walling shifted his attention once again, after setting his pipe down in the ashtray. "Miss Best?"

"I was driving to Springfield to take a job as a nurse. I detoured this way to see a little of the countryside. Somehow I was on that back street— Maple Street—approaching the intersection when this black roadster came screeching around the corner with three people in the front seat. It came toward my side of the street, then it swerved away."

"Could you describe any of the men?"

"No. I don't even remember if they were still masked or not. They might have been. One had long blond hair and could have been a woman."

"The driver?"

"No, not the driver—the passenger on the right-hand side."

"That's correct," I said. "He—or she—slid over from behind the wheel so the other two could get in. The one with the pistol was last in and took the wheel."

Walling nodded wearily. "I want to get straight in my mind exactly what happened inside the bank. Can one of you take the part of the dead man and show me where he was standing? I'll need two more for the robbers."

Greenleaf, the assistant manager, stepped forward. "I saw the whole thing. Ryder, you be the first bandit and come in the door as if you're holding a shotgun."

Embarrassed, the young teller followed instructions. Magneson, the head teller, was recruited for the part of the manager, moving out of his office behind the first bandit as if to grab him. Then Greenleaf, playing the second bank robber, came through the doorway and pantomimed shooting the manager in the back.

The F.B.I. had them go through the handcuffing and locking in the back room. "There were no other customers in all this time?" he asked.

"Our big rush comes at noon," the head teller explained. "This was about ten minutes before twelve. But the one with the shotgun kept the door covered all the time."

"That's the right time," I confirmed. "When we got back here and I pronounced Cartright dead, it was eight minutes after twelve. We'd already been here a few minutes. The robbery had to have happened between quarter and ten to twelve."

"Where was the money taken from?" Walling asked the assistant manager.

"These cash drawers were all open, as well as the drawers in this little storage safe. If they got just that, it's forty thousand. Of course, we'll have to check further to see if anything else is missing."

"Sounds like one of them midwestern bank robbin' gangs, don't it?" Sheriff Lens asked the federal man.

"Most of them are dead now," Clint Walling pointed out. "Just last year Bonnie and Clyde were killed by a posse in Louisiana, and the F.B.I. shot

Dillinger outside a theater in Chicago—"

"Some say it wasn't Dillinger at all," Seth Simpkins interrupted.

Walling ignored him. "We got Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson last fall. That's pretty much the end of the big-time bank robbers, we think." "There are always people ready to imitate them," I observed.

Walling nodded. "It seems they knew the bank would probably be empty just before noon. Have you noticed any stranger hanging around lately, Mr.

Greenleaf?"

"No."

"A man came in yesterday to change a fifty-dollar bill," Ryder volunteered. "I don't remember seeing him before."

"Could he have been one of the men today?"

The teller looked at the F.B.I. man, alarmed. "Could have been, I suppose."

"Do you need me any longer?" Mary Best asked. "I really must be on my way to Springfield."

Walling eyed her for a moment and then said, "I'd like you to stay around a while longer, Miss."

"What for?"

"You're a possible material witness."

"But I saw nothing!"

I sensed her rising anger. "Let's go outside," I suggested.

Outside the bank, she said, "He suspects me, doesn't he?"

"Of what?"

"Of being in league with the bank robbers. He thinks I was stationed at that intersection to block off any pursuing cars. That's what I did with you and the sheriff!"

"Oh, I don't know about that." The thought hadn't occurred to me, but I couldn't be sure what Clint Walling might be thinking.

A fancy yellow convertible pulled up and I recognized Hank Foxe, Lydia Cartright's brother, behind the wheel. "How's Lydia taking it?" I asked him as he peered at the bank, the motor of the car still running.

"Not good," he said. "I'm on my way to Brewster's to make the funeral arrangements now. The family's with her."

I remembered Mary at my side. "This is Mary Best, one of the witnesses.

Hank's sister is the wife of the man who was killed." "I'm terribly sorry," she told him.

"Had your brother-in-law mentioned anything about strangers hanging around the bank?" I asked Hank.

"Not that I know of. Confidentially, Doc, they may not have been strangers."

"What do you mean?"

Hank Foxe, with his know-it-all attitude I'd always disliked, pressed on. "You know how bankers make enemies. I saw that tailor—Simpkins— hanging around in there. He had a little house and garage around the corner on Maple Street the bank foreclosed on last month. Now the house is standing empty and Simpkins has to live with his daughter. He was cursing

Brewster every chance he got."

The notion was so bizarre I had to laugh. "If you think Seth Simpkins is in league with bank robbers, you need to have your head examined, Hank.

The man's a tailor, not a thief."

"This here Depression's making thieves of us all, Doc. People will do most anything to put a decent meal on the table."

"You seem to be doing all right." I patted the fender of the yellow convertible. "This another new car?"

My question seemed to embarrass him. "I got it off the lot," he mumbled. "It's good publicity to drive 'em around town, show people what we got to offer."

He started to pull away and then paused to back up. "Doc, if you get a chance you might take a ride out and see my sister. I think she could use something to calm her nerves and help her get a good night's sleep." "I'll do that," I assured him.

We watched him drive away and went back inside the bank. Sheriff Lens had just completed another call to the state police. "Still no sign of the black roadster," he told us. "They've got a man on his way here with a report."

Sergeant Mullens, a trooper I knew slightly, was a ruddy-faced young man who seemed nervous in the presence of an F.B.I. agent. "We've gone over every mile of road in the county," he told the sheriff. "There's no sign of that roadster."

"Nothing went through your roadblocks?"

"Nothing of that description. The closest thing to it was a red roadster with some college kids."

"How about a large truck of some kind—a moving van?" I asked.

The sheriff's face brightened. "You think they drove the car inside it?" "It's worth considering."

Mullens gave us a slightly superior smile. "We learned that trick back in Prohibition days. We check the inside of all trucks in a roadblock."

Walling wasn't impressed. "There are still plenty of places to hide a car. And there's always the possibility they got through a checkpoint before your roadblock was in place."

"I doubt that, sir," Mullens answered.

Greenleaf and the tellers were growing restless after nearly four hours of questioning. "Can we go home to our families now?" he asked.

Walling nodded. "I suppose so. Do you have any better idea about how much was stolen?"

The head teller looked up from his books. "Our first estimate was pretty close. It looks like forty-two thousand, more or less."

"All right. When my partner gets here in the morning we'll want individual statements from each of you. That's all for now."

"Will we be able to reopen the bank in the morning?" Greenleaf asked.

"That will be up to your directors. We have no objection."

Outside again, I led Mary to my car. "Wait a minute, Dr. Hawthorne—I'm on my way to Springfield, remember?"

"I thought you might come with me to visit Mrs. Cartright. She might need the comfort of another woman."

"I'm hours late already!"

"Then another hour won't matter," I suggested with a grin.

She smiled wearily and climbed into the front seat of my Mercedes. "Why am I doing this?"

"Because you're a good person, and a good nurse."

"With a good job waiting in Springfield."

I circled the block as the bank robbers had done, turning onto Maple Street. Except for the tailor's empty house, there were mainly the back ends of buildings fronting on Main Street, across from vacant lots where the town hoped one day to build a new school. I turned right at the next intersection, following the route the escaping bank robbers must have taken. Now I was on Boston Street, and before long I came to the auto dealership where Hank Foxe worked. I glanced over the lot for the yellow convertible he'd been driving, but there was no sign of it. Perhaps he'd gone back to his sister's house.

"Weren't you able to get the license number of the getaway car?" Mary asked.

"Sheriff Lens got the beginning of it—8M5—but there was some convenient mud over the rest. The car was probably stolen, anyway." "The sheriff sounded as if you've helped him before." "A few times," I admitted.

I pulled in before the large white house where Brewster Cartright had lived. There was no sign of Hank Foxe, but Lydia Cartright met us at the door. She'd changed to a black dress with a single strand of pearls, and her eyes were puffy from crying. "Thank you for coming, Dr. Sam."

"It's no trouble. Let me leave you a powder to help you sleep." "That will be a blessing." She stared at Mary as if trying to place her.

"Mary's a nurse who's helping me out," I said.

"Have the police caught the killers yet?"

"No, but it's only a matter of time," I assured her.

"I won't rest until they're behind bars. Could they still be in the area?"

"It's a possibility," I told her. I comforted her as best I could, and Mary's soothing words helped her, I could tell.

When we finally left, it was nearly five o'clock. "Is there still time for you to get to Springfield?" I asked her.

"I've probably lost the job already. Is there a place in town where I could stay overnight? Then I can phone them and see where I stand."

I drove her to the Northmont Inn, which was as good a place as any. Then I went over to see Sheriff Lens at his office. Groups of people were still clustered in the street near the bank, discussing the day's tragedy in grim and hushed voices. Some worried about their money on deposit at the bank, others speculated that the bandits had been masterminded by an undead John Dillinger.

The sheriff was depressed by the whole thing. "Damn it, Doc, that F.B.I. guy as much as called me incompetent. He says that's why there are so many small-town bank robberies these days—because the small-town

lawmen are incompetent. Do I have to take that from him?"

"Calm down, Sheriff. He won't think you're so incompetent when you solve this case."

"How'm I gonna do that?"

"I've got an idea where that black roadster might be hidden. It would explain why it never left town."

"What are you talkin' about, Doc?"

"Come with me. But first I want to stop at the inn and pick up that nurse, Mary Best. She saw the car head-on—she may be able to help identify it."

The sheriff grinned at me. "You sure that's not just an excuse to see her, Doc? I think you're a little sweet on her."

"Come on, you old rascal," I said, "or I'll leave you at the mercy of the Gmen."

After she joined us in the car, I told Mary, "This may be the climax of the investigation. I thought you'd want to see it, and maybe help identify the roadster."

"You mean you've found it?"

"Not exactly, but I think I know where it is."

"Tell me!" she begged, her clear hazel eyes turned toward us both.

"You'll see in a few minutes." I steered the car around the town square, the three of us crowded into the wide front seat. "In one of Chesterton's stories, he has Father Brown ask the question, 'Where does a wise man hide a pebble?' The answer is on the beach. 'Where does a wise man hide a leaf?' Father Brown asks, too, and this time the answer is in the forest."

I pulled into the auto dealer's lot and saw Hank Foxe come outside to greet us. "Hi, there! What can I do for you, Sam? Sheriff Lens?" "Where do you hide a black roadster, Hank? On a used-car lot?" "Huh?" He stared at me, looking blank.

"You were driving that getaway car, Hank, wearing a blond wig. You got it off this lot. After the robbery, you drove back here, let your partners out, and parked the car in line with the others. Maybe you even painted a price on its front windshield."

"That's crazy, Sam. You think I'd put Brew in danger?" "Is the car here, Doc?" the sheriff asked.

I let my eyes wander over the lot. I thought I'd seen one when we passed earlier and now I saw it again, in a back row. A black roadster of the same make the bank robbers had used. "There it is." I pointed.

"I'll get the keys and prove to you it couldn't have been used in the robbery," Foxe insisted. He ran into the showroom and returned in a moment with a ring of labeled keys. He tried to start the car, but the engine wouldn't turn over. "See? No gas—we keep them empty so they're harder to steal at night."

"You'd have had plenty of time to siphon the gasoline out of it," I countered.

Mary had gone around to look at the front of the car. "You'd better look at this," she said to me.

"What's that?"

"There's an American Automobile Association medallion attached to the radiator grille. The car that almost hit me didn't have anything on the grille."

"You see?" Foxe said triumphantly.

Mentally, I must have withdrawn from the case on the spot. I went home alone to my apartment and tried to forget all about it, immersing myself instead in the latest medical journals. In the morning, I was making breakfast when my bell rang. I answered the door and found Mary Best standing there.

"I'm leaving now," she said. "I stopped by to say goodbye. I enjoyed meeting you yesterday, if not the circumstances."

"Come in. I'm just having coffee."

I poured her a cup and she sat down across the table from me. "I had another reason for coming. There's something I think you might have overlooked yesterday. I couldn't leave without telling you."

"What's that?"

"Well, you see—"

She talked for some time and she made sense.

"It should be easy enough to prove," I said. "The car should still be there."

"It is still there. I looked."

"You looked?"

"Of course—I had to be sure I was right."

"Come on!"

We picked up Sheriff Lens on the way and reached the bank just as Clint Walling and his partner were entering the bank. Greenleaf seemed surprised to see us. "We're just opening for business."

"You'll have to close again," I said, keeping an eye on the three tellers.

"Why? There's enough money."

"But no employees. Special Agent Walling here is about to arrest all four of you for bank robbery and murder."

Clint Walling's mouth dropped open, and behind the tellers' cages Jones went for a gun, but then thought better of it. Walling's partner had already drawn his revolver and Sheriff Lens had his weapon out.

"Suppose somebody explains what's going on," Walling suggested.

"Do you want the honors?" I asked Mary.

"No, you go ahead," she said. "You worked out the details."

"Mary noticed something very elementary yesterday which escaped me completely," I began. "When I examined the body of Brewster Cartright, I observed that the bullet entered his chest near the heart and came out the back. Yet when Greenleaf and the others reenacted the killing, they had the robber shooting Cartright in the back. They lied about the circumstances of the robbery. As soon as Mary pointed that out to me, I began to remember other things. My first impression as they ran out of the building was that the robbers were dressed like bankers. That's because they were bankers. One of them had left earlier to get the car, wearing a blond wig to confuse witnesses. He pulled up and the other two jumped in. They weren't carrying the real money—it had been removed from the bank and hidden earlier."

"But you found them handcuffed together in the storeroom," Walling reminded me. "How did they get there?"

"Mary pointed out to me that the gang's car, in front of the bank on the wrong side of the street, turned left at the first intersection and then left again before disappearing. That put it on Maple Street, right behind the bank. The storeroom has a bolted door leading to Maple Street. The fourth bank employee, probably Greenleaf here, stayed in the bank and they locked him in the storeroom. If witnesses had run into the bank at once, Greenleaf could have talked to them through the locked door, delaying the rescue long enough for the others to return through the back door, bolt it, and handcuff themselves together. Also, of course, he was there to unbolt the door and let them in."

"But what happened to the car?" Walling wanted to know.

"Mary thought it swerved as it rounded the corner into Maple Street, as if heading toward her side of the street. What's there on Maple besides the backs of all these buildings? The house and garage where Seth Simpkins lived until the bank foreclosed on him. The empty house, which means the bank had keys to it. The missing roadster is in that garage, and has been since the robbery."

"Are you sure?" the agent asked.

"I looked during the night," Mary told him. "Through a window."

The F.B.I. man shook his head. "How could they pull a trick like that in broad daylight without being seen?"

"There are just vacant lots across the street, and mostly the backs of buildings. Mary's car was on the street, of course, but luckily for them she kept going around the corner. If anyone else had been in sight I suppose they'd have circled a few blocks and come back—or perhaps dropped two of the tellers off while the third drove the car far enough away to abandon it. In that case, Greenleaf could have claimed the missing teller was out to lunch during the robbery."

"Are any of you ready to talk?" Walling asked.

It was Greenleaf who finally broke the silence. "We were short in some accounts," he said quietly. "Cartright gave us until yesterday to put back the money. He was going to call the sheriff. That's when we killed him and faked the bank robbery."

"You killed him," Ryder said. "It was all your idea."

Walking Mary to her car, I congratulated her. "We'd make a great team here, healing the sick, solving mysteries. I wish you'd think about it."

"That was my one and only try at mystery-solving." She slid behind the wheel of her car, giving me a thoughtful look. "Well, I'm off to

Springfield."

"Good luck, Mary."

She drove off and I watched her go. I was still watching when the touring car made a U-turn and headed back to me.

She leaned out of the window and asked, "How much did you say the job pays?"

"And that was how Mary Best came to be my nurse," Dr. Sam Hawthorne concluded. "With her arrival, life was never quite the same for me, as you'll hear next time, when I tell you about some bizarre events that happened at Pilgrim Memorial Hospital."