Taught by Kennedy, I did not allow a first impression to rule. Might it be any one else? I thought of Irene Maddox, of Frances Walcott. It did not seem to fit them.
Paquita? Perhaps the note referred to her. If so, who would have sent it? Sanchez? And if from Sanchez, to whom was it sent?
“How about Sanchez?” I queried.
“As much surprised at her disappearance as the rest of us,” replied Burke.
“How was that?”
“I picked him up and had him shadowed. I know that her disappearance mystified him, for he had no idea he was observed, at the time. He got away again, though. If we are ever to pick that girl up again, shadowing Sanchez may be the best way. I have had Riley out—”
“Not the same hand that wrote the cipher,” interrupted Kennedy, studying the note. “I beg pardon. What of Riley? Any word?”
“I should say,” burst out Burke. “Down in the cove—Little Neck they call it—in a deserted barn we’ve found a racer—answers the description of the one seen in New York the morning of the robbery and on the road out here. It’s my dope that you made the little garage here untenable, Kennedy, and that whoever it was took the car to the cove to hide it.”
He paused, but not for want of something to say. Before we could urge him he added, “And that scout cruiser, too. She’s been scuttled, out past the point, at the entrance to the cove. Whoever it is, he’s been wiping out all the evidence against him that he can.”
“No word of Paquita or Sanchez?” inquired Kennedy again.