“Miss Carroll,” Rob Trenton said with dignity, “let me have... that is, she loaned me an automobile and it’s been stolen.”
“Gave you an automobile “
“No, loaned it to me.”
“Well, make up your mind which it was. You said first she gave it to you, then you said she loaned it to you.”
“I beg your pardon. I may have said she let me have it. I certainly didn’t say she gave it to me, and since you’re not the woman I have in mind...”
“Now don’t try to back up,” she interrupted. “Someone’s been impersonating me, and I s’pose I should go to the police. However, I’ll let you tell me the whole story so I can judge what I’m going to do.
“Now you just go right ahead, young man, and tell me the whole thing right from the start. How’d you meet this woman, anyway?”
“It’s rather a long story.”
“Well, I should think it would be. And what’s happened to the automobile?”
“I don’t know. It was stolen from my place last night.”
“You reported the theft to the police?”
“No, not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I... I thought I should see her first and I haven’t the data on the car, the serial number or... well, it would all sound rather strange to go to the police with a story the way it is now. I’d like to have some details clarified before I report it.”
“I should think you would want to have things clarified. It sounds terribly fuzzy to me. If someone’s been impersonating me I want to know it.”
“No one was impersonating you,” Rob Trenton said. “I simply have to find the Linda Carroll who was on the ship with me. There must have been some mistake in the address. Certainly this city isn’t so big but what...”
“Well, I can tell you that it’s small enough so I’d know if there was any other Linda Carroll in town, and particularly if she were a painter. Either someone’s been spoofing you, or you’re trying to spoof me!”
Despite the fact that words and voice were sharp, there was a certain twinkling kindliness about her eyes.
Rob Trenton tried to keep his voice sufficiently under control so that it would not show undue interest. “May I ask if you have a passport?” he asked.
“Of course I have a passport. What does that have to do with it?”
“I just wondered. Perhaps your passport has been stolen.”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“Have you looked for it recently?”
“I’m telling you my passport hasn’t been stolen. Now that’s all there is to that. You don’t need to start trying to cross-examine me, young man. The shoe should be on the other foot.”
“I’m not trying to cross-examine you,” Trenton said. “Quite evidently you feel someone was using your name, and in view of the fact that it takes a passport to get anywhere at all in Europe, I’m quite certain the passport must have had your name on it.”
“And my photograph?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see the photograph.”
“Well, no one has taken my passport, I can assure you of that.”
“Would you mind giving me definite assurance?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Showing me your passport. I have a very firm conviction that you’ll find the passport is missing.”
“Nonsense!”
“Well, will you at least please look for it?”
She hesitated a moment, then said, “All right. You sit right there. Don’t move out of that chair. Don’t go snooping around. I don’t like to have people prowling around here.”
Rob smiled. “All right. I’ll promise. You go and look for your passport and I think you’ll be surprised.”
She left the room, was gone two or three minutes then came back and triumphantly pushed a green-backed folder under Rob Trenton’s nose. “Perhaps you’d like to look at it yourself.”
So firmly had Trenton become convinced the girl he knew as Linda Carroll had been using the passport of this woman he could hardly conceal his surprise.
He took the passport and thumbed through the pages. There was no question that this was the passport of Linda Carroll of Falthaven, and that it had not been tampered with. The photograph in the front of the passport was undoubtedly that of the woman who was standing in front of him and could not, by any possibility, have been the photograph of the woman whom he had known as Linda Carroll.
“Satisfied?” she asked at length.
Robert Trenton handed the passport back to her.
She saw the expression in his eyes and suddenly softened. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m afraid someone has victimized you. Now suppose you tell me exactly what’s wrong?”
Rob Trenton shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you any of it.”
“You said something about an automobile?”
“My story sounds absolutely incredible,” Rob said. “I need time to think it over. I... I’m very sorry that I intruded on you, Miss Carroll, and I hope I haven’t been too much of a nuisance.”
She placed a sympathetic hand on his arm. “Now don’t you be all upset,” she said in a motherly manner. “You met this woman who said she was Linda Carroll... and what happened?”
Rob just shook his head, dumbly.
“I want you to tell me.”
Trenton said, “There is nothing to tell. The whole thing is beyond my comprehension. I’m sorry... you’ll excuse me.”
He started for the door.
She followed him, again took his arm. “I think you’d better tell me,” she said. “What is it? Did you fall in love?”
Rob didn’t answer, and the woman with the sharp nose and the glasses stood in the doorway watching him as he walked dejectedly down the wooden steps to the sidewalk, walked to the battered, decrepit station wagon and climbed in.
Then, as he started the car, she quietly closed the door, her face wearing a thoughtful, puzzled frown.
Chapter 10
Five blocks from the big frame house of Linda Carroll, the station wagon suddenly clattered into organized sounds of metallic distress and stopped abruptly. Rob Trenton tried to make an inspection. It seemed that something had torn loose in the differential and had stripped gears, then locked the whole driving mechanism. A garage with a tow car finally removed the station wagon and left Trenton with no alternative to return by bus.
He ate lunch at a little restaurant in the bus station.
A few minutes before the bus was due he walked down the street to the drugstore, called State Police Headquarters, failed to give his name, and reported the Rapidex sedan as having been stolen. He hung up in the middle of the conversation before embarrassing questions could be asked and then went back to the bus station.
A thin, nervous man who stood by the gate kept looking at his watch. He finally engaged Trenton in conversation. “Seems like that bus will never get here. Is that time right?”
He indicated a clock on the wall.
“That’s the right time,” Rob said, consulting his watch.
The man said irritably, “I’m doing a contracting job in Noonville. I have to get there. What I can’t understand is what happened to the other fellows who are working on the job with me. They were supposed to show up in their car twenty minutes ago. I told them if they didn’t get here I’d take a bus... hang it, it’s irritating.”
Rob Trenton was in no particular mood to take on anyone else’s troubles. He merely nodded.
The door opened. A squat, broad-shouldered man in overalls and jumper, a disarming grin on his face, pushed his way towards the gate. “Hello, Sam.”