We tore along the boulevard into Santa Barbara. Clarice slowed as we hit the main streets of the brightly lighted city; she began swinging into the side streets and back to the main streets and she suddenly stopped before a brightly lighted hospital building.
“Make it yourself, Bill?” asked Dick.
“You bet,” said that doughty invalid as he opened the door of the car with the good arm and stepped out.
“Keep mum. You’ll hear from us tomorrow.”
We were off and turned into the highroad to San Francisco. It’s a long straight road which finally reminds you of a roller coaster because there are so many short steep hills to climb and descend. Clarice took it at breakneck speed. We had gone fifteen miles when she gave an angry exclamation.
“I’m out of gas,” she said. “Why didn’t some of you think to get gas?”
“Why didn’t you? You were driving!” retorted Dick furiously.
“Can I think of everything, you big boob?”
“Stop at the next station and fill up the tank. We’ll take the chance of their catching up with us.”
A couple of miles along we ran into a big gas station and I saw a Pay Station sign, and I had about the smartest idea of my life, though the others didn’t think so at the time. I rushed into the shack, called Los Angeles and the Ambassador Hotel, and asked for Rhoda.
She answered almost immediately. At that hour all lines were clear.
“We’re got what we went after, Rhoda,” I said.
“Steve?” she cried joyfully. My heart sank. I’d forgotten Steve for the moment.
“No, the other one. With him in our hands we’ll have Steve free in twenty-four hours. We’re going to a cottage in Tiger Cañon owned by a friend of Clarice’s named Stella Grey. Tell Reynolds it’s all over but the shouting.”
Dick was roaring for me from the car, so I hung up.
“Who were you talking to?” he demanded angrily. “You held us up.”
“Rhoda,” I said. “I had to tell her.”
Clarice looked back at me. She was glaring. “Oh, you did!” she cried. “So you’re crazy about her. Well, she loves Steve, Mr. Timothy Cody.”
“Step on it,” shouted Dick. “They’re probably right on our heels.”
“Let ’em come,” growled Jim Bridgeman.
Six miles farther along we entered the mountains. At the end of a couple of miles Clarice turned up a dirt road and began to climb a steep grade. She turned into a driveway a short distance after that and stopped before a large one-story establishment which was dark.
“Here we are,” she said triumphantly. “I don’t think they can trace us to this place.”
We dragged Jonathan out. He hadn’t spoken a word for a long time. In fact, if he had been eighty-two years of age he would have died from heart failure on account of Clarice’s driving.
She unlocked the front door, turned a switch and the place was electrically illuminated. For a cabin in the wilderness it was modern, and elaborately furnished.
Jonathan stood inside the door, a picture of dejection.
Dick inspected him and suddenly barked, “ ’Tenshun!”
The old man’s heels clicked together, his chin lifted, his arms straightened at his side, the little fingers touching the hems of his trousers. Dick roared with laughter.
“Old soldier,” he said, “you know your stuff.”
“You might as well ’fess up, Tommy Donnegan,” said Clarice, smiling broadly.
Jonathan shifted to at ease. “I ain’t saying nothin’ to nobody,” he declared.
“Jim, take him into a bedroom and stay with him,” commanded Dick. “You’re responsible for him. If he gets away your brother will do a term in jail — and the rest of us.”
“Come, Grandpa,” said Jim gently. “You ain’t going to force me to bust your skinny old neck, now are yer?”
“No, siree,” replied Jonathan, who toddled off with Jim, and Clarice and Dick and I remained alone.
“Now what’s the program?” demanded Dick with a deep sigh. “Everything has gone so smoothly that I’m scared.”
“We get him to the Soldiers’ Home in the morning, take his fingerprints, and have all the officers of the place and all the inmates identify him.”
“I suppose so. After that Patterson can have him back and welcome. Blessed if I know why they dug up this old codger from a Soldiers’ Home and christened him Jonathan Steele.”
“I don’t suppose there were many men to be found at short notice who looked like Jonathan,” I said slowly. “Come to think of it, it was smart. Here is a man who has been buried in an old soldiers’ institution for a quarter of a century. Before he went in there he had never amounted to anything. Inmates of Soldiers’ Homes never come out. The employees of the Home don’t circulate in millionaire circles. There wasn’t a chance in a million of his ever being recognized.”
“You’re right. Only how did Patterson know there was a double of Jonathan in that Home?”
We couldn’t answer that question. Dick rose. “We don’t want to be caught as Jonathan was, so I’m going outside to stand guard. I’ll leave you two love birds flat.” He laughed mockingly and went out of the place and slammed the door.
“Your face is red,” remarked Clarice. “You have a round face, so when it’s red you look exactly like a half of watermelon.”
“Yeh? What did he mean by that crack?” I asked uneasily.
“That,” said Clarice, “was satire.”
I chewed on that. I looked over the big living room we were sitting in. There was a grand piano and Oriental rugs and large overstuffed chairs.
“Nice place your friend has here,” I remarked.
“Very,” she said dryly. “I wish I had a mashie.”
“What for?” I asked, bewildered.
Clarice stood up. Her eyes were blazing. “To sock you over the head with, you chunk of something,” she screamed. “Of all the dumb clucks!”
I eyed her thoughtfully. “Does Dick think you and I are in love?” I asked bluntly.
“No,” she snapped. “He knows that you are a clod of mud and you couldn’t be in love except maybe with a turtle.”
Clarice was exceedingly angry and she certainly was good to look at when she was angry.
“Then what does he mean?” I persisted.
“He thinks that I am in love with you, you dolt,” she shouted.
“Well, are your?”
She stamped her foot and she laughed scornfully. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she demanded.
“Yes,” I replied. “Frankly, I thought so from the first time I met you. You’re about the finest girl I ever saw in my life and the best looking and you’ve more nerve than any other girl and more brains, so you couldn’t be in love with me unless you were crazy.”
“Is that so?” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter with you, for heaven’s sake?”
I got up and took a couple of steps toward her. She saw something in my eye and she backed away.
“You keep off,” she threatened.
“I never thought you’d give me a tumble, Clarice,” I told her. “I didn’t think you meant anything by kissing me tonight.”
She bristled. “So, you think I’m promiscuous with my kisses,” she exclaimed.
“Aw, shut up,” I yelled and I pounced on her. I got a fist in my right eye but after that she just nestled in my arms.
Bang! It sounded like a shot.
Dick bounced into the room.
“A car was coming toward the house,” he exclaimed. “They trailed us. I fired a shot to warn them off and they backed out in a hurry. Clarice, you go in and entertain Tommy. Send Jim out here. Looks like we’re in a mess. Put out all the lights. Keep a gun on Tommy — he’s a cute one.”