“How about the Dail girl?”
“The Dail girl evidently found out who he was by tracing Belle. She didn’t know him and therefore Moar didn’t have any idea she was wise to his alias.”
“Think Celinda traced Belle through the stolen picture?” Drake asked.
“Probably. She probably switched pictures, sent Belle’s picture on to Rooney by air mail and had him trace her.”
“That doesn’t coincide with what Rooney said,” Drake remarked.
“I’m thinking of that, too,” Mason said. “Let’s get to a telephone where I can call Della. I have an idea we can get something from this nurse. If she left the note which sent Moar up on deck, I’ll be certain we’re on the right track. Evidently she’s been playing around with a bunch of crooks. She went over to the Islands with her husband. He must have been called back and took a clipper plane. She was coming over to join him, and took a nursing job to pay expenses. On the ship she ran into Carl Moar. She recognized him, but found he was traveling under the name of Newberry. Now, that’s a perfect set-up for blackmail, and, as a blackmail victim, Carl Moar was a natural. Remember, he was carrying at least eighteen thousand dollars in cash in a money belt. That was hot money.”
“What makes you think it was hot money?”
“From the way he acted.”
“He might have won it in a lottery.”
“He might have,” Mason admitted, “but eighteen thousand bucks represented what he had left after a couple of months of playing tourist. He probably started with around twenty-five thousand dollars. Now, a man can’t win twenty-five thousand dollars on a lottery without leaving some sort of a back trail somewhere.”