open the doors. An' sure enough, there's a coupe with its engine still hot. It ain't been in long. Also it's the

same kind of coupe the lad who's seen the gal says she was driving.

"I lock the place up again, an' go back to the boys. I watch with 'em the rest of the night. Not a light in

the doll joint. But nigh eight o'clock, the gal shows up inside the shop and opens up!"

"Still," I said at this point, "you have no real evidence she had been out. The girl your man thought he saw

might not have been she at all."

He looked at me pityingly.

"She got out in the afternoon without 'em seeing her, didn't she? What's to keep her from doing the same

thing at night? The lad saw her driving a coupe, didn't he? An' we find a coupe like it close where the

wench dropped out of sight."