No! thought Tracy. I won’t let them send me back there.
The front doorbell shrilled.
Lieutenant Melvin Durkin had been on the Sea Cliff police force for ten years. Sea Cliff was a quiet town, and the main activity of the police was handling vandalism, a few car thefts, and occasional Saturday-night drunken brawls. The setting-off of the Bellamy alarm was in a different category. It was the type of criminal activity for which Lieutenant Durkin had joined the force. He knew Lois Bellamy and was aware of what a valuable collection of paintings and jewellery she owned. With her away, he had made it a point to check the house from time to time, for it was a tempting target for a cat burglar. And now, Lieutenant Durkin thought, it looks like I’ve caught one. He had been only a short distance away when the radio call had come in from the security company. This is going to look good on my record. Damned good.
Lieutenant Durkin pressed the front doorbell again. He wanted to be able to state in his report that he had rung it three times before making a forcible entry. His partner was covering the back, so there was no chance of the burglar’s escaping. He would probably try to conceal himself on the premises, but he was in for a surprise. No one could hide from Melvin Durkin.
As the lieutenant reached for the bell for the third time, the front door suddenly opened. The policeman stood there staring. In the doorway was a woman dressed in a filmy nightgown that left little to the imagination. Her face was covered with a mudpack, and her hair was tucked into a curler cap.
She demanded, ‘What on earth is going on?’
Lieutenant Durkin swallowed. ‘I … who are you?’
‘I’m Ellen Branch. I’m a houseguest of Lois Bellamy’s. She’s away in Europe.’
‘I know that.’ The lieutenant was confused. ‘She didn’t tell us she was having a houseguest.’
The woman in the doorway nodded knowingly. ‘Isn’t that just like Lois? Excuse me, I can’t stand that noise.’
As Lieutenant Durkin watched, Lois Bellamy’s houseguest reached over to the alarm buttons, pressed a sequence of numbers, and the sound stopped.
‘That’s better,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.’ She laughed shakily. ‘I was just getting ready for bed when the alarm went off. I was sure there were burglars in the house and I’m all alone here. The servants left at noon.’
‘Do you mind if we look around?’
‘Please, I insist!’
It took the lieutenant and his partner only a few minutes to make sure there was no one lurking on the premises.
‘All clear,’ Lieutenant Durkin said. ‘False alarm. Something must have set it off. Can’t always depend on these electronic things. I’d call the security company and have them check out the system.’
‘I most certainly will.’
‘Well, guess we’d better be running along,’ the lieutenant said.
‘Thank you so much for coming by. I feel safer now.’
She sure has a great body, Lieutenant Durkin thought. He wondered what she looked like under that mudpack and without the curler cap. ‘Will you be staying here long, Miss Branch?’
‘Another week or two, until Lois returns.’
‘If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know.’
‘Thank you, I will.’
Tracy watched as the police car drove away into the night. She felt faint with relief. When the car was out of sight, she hurried upstairs, washed off the mudpack she had found in the bathroom, stripped off Lois Bellamy’s curler cap and nightgown, changed into her own black overalls, and left by the front door, carefully resetting the alarm.
It was not until Tracy was halfway back to Manhattan that the audacity of what she had done struck her. She giggled, and the giggle turned into a shaking, uncontrollable laughter, until she finally had to pull the car off onto the side of the road. She laughed until the tears streamed down her face. It was the first time she had laughed in a year. It felt wonderful.
It was not until the Amtrak train pulled out of Pennsylvania Station that Tracy began to relax. At every second she had expected a heavy hand to grip her shoulder, a voice to say, ‘You’re under arrest.’
She had carefully watched the other passengers as they boarded the train, and there was nothing alarming about them. Still, Tracy’s shoulders were knots of tension. She kept assuring herself that it was unlikely anyone would have discovered the burglary this soon, and even if they had, there was nothing to connect her with it. Conrad Morgan would be waiting in St Louis with $25,000. Twenty-five thousand dollars to do with as she pleased! She would have had to work at the bank for a year to earn that much money. I’ll travel to Europe, Tracy thought, Paris. No. Not Paris. Charles and I were going to honeymoon there. I’ll go to London. There, I won’t be a jailbird. In a curious way, the experience she had just gone through had made Tracy feel like a different person. It was as though she had been reborn.
She locked the door to the compartment and took out the chamois bag and opened it. A cascade of glittering colours spilled into her hands. There were three large diamond rings, an emerald pin, a sapphire bracelet, three pairs of earrings, and two necklaces, one of rubies, one of pearls.
There must be more than a million dollars’ worth of jewellery here, Tracy marvelled. As the train rolled through the countryside, she leaned back in her seat and replayed the evening in her mind. Renting the car … the drive to Sea Cliff … the stillness of the night … turning off the alarm and entering the house … opening the safe … the shock of the alarm going off, and the police appearing. It had never occurred to them that the woman in the nightgown with a mudpack on her face and a curler cap on her head was the burglar they were looking for.
Now, seated in her compartment on the train to St Louis, Tracy allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. She had enjoyed outwitting the police. There was something wonderfully exhilarating about being on the edge of danger. She felt daring and clever and invincible. She felt absolutely great.
There was a knock at the door of her compartment. Tracy hastily put the jewels back into the chamois bag and placed the bag in her suitcase. She took out her train ticket and unlocked the compartment door for the conductor.
Two men in grey suits stood in the corridor. One appeared to be in his early thirties, the other one about ten years older. The younger man was attractive, with the build of an athlete. He had a strong chin, a small, neat moustache, and wore horn-rimmed glasses behind which were intelligent blue eyes. The older man had a thick head of black hair and was heavy-set. His eyes were a cold brown.
‘Can I help you?’ Tracy asked.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the older man replied. He pulled out a wallet and held up an identification card:
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
‘I’m Special Agent Dennis Trevor. This is Special Agent Thomas Bowers.’
Tracy’s