“Oh, you can have the auto all right, but I don’t quite see how you are going to make good in it. What makes you hold to your theory?”
“Because of this.” Larry held up the object he had secured on his visit to the clerk’s home. It was nothing but an automobile catalogue, but, on looking through it, Larry had found a page turned down at an illustration showing a powerful car. And on the margin of that page were the penciled words: ‘This one!’
“Then you think—?” began the city editor.
“I’m almost sure that Norton bought an automobile, and that he is on his way to some place of hiding in it. In fact, I know that the car was delivered to him here in New York, and that he started off in it.”
“You do? Then why haven’t you started after him?”
“Because I only learned that a little while ago. I was puzzling my brains over how to get on his trail, and I never thought of the perfectly simple plan of going to the headquarters of the automobile concern here. As soon as I thought of that I went there, and they told me they had sold a man of Norton’s description a powerful car. He drove off at once in it. He had a valise with him. Probably that contained the million.”
“But look here, Larry. A man can’t go in a place, buy an auto, and start off with it as if it was a baby carriage,” objected the city editor. “He has to know how to run a car, you know, and he has to have a license, and all that sort of thing. It isn’t so simple as it sounds.”
“It was in Norton’s case. He lives in Staten Island. He has had a small runabout car for about a year, and knows how to run it. He has a New York license, and not long ago he had his new car registered, and so all he had to do was to go to the place, get in it, and start off.”
“Then why hasn’t he been arrested before this, Larry? He is a big man, and one easily picked out of a crowd. His picture has been scattered broadcast. Why hasn’t he been arrested?”
“For the simple reason that he left his car in his garage—I mean, the little runabout. I believe no one suspects that he has a new and powerful one. He bought it under an assumed name. Then, too, with a cap on, an auto duster, big gloves and goggles, he has the best disguise in the world, and a perfectly natural one. His best friend wouldn’t know him.”