wife would keep me from being charged with murder if anything slipped, and I knew I was safer seeing the thing through than running. When the excitement had quieted down I packed up and came down to San Francisco, resuming my own name—Edward Bohannon. But I held onto all of Ashcraft’s property, because I had learned from it that his wife had money, and I knew I could get some of it if I played my cards right.
“She saved me the trouble of figuring out a deal for myself. I ran across one of her advertisements in the Examiner , answered it, and—here we are.”
I looked toward Tijuana. A cloud of yellow dust showed in a notch between two low hills. That would be the machine in which Gorman and Hooper were tracking me. Hooper would have seen me set out after the Englishman, would have waited for Gorman to arrive in the car in which he had followed Gooseneck from Mexicali—Gorman would have had to stay some distance in the rear—and then both of the operatives would have picked up my trail.
I turned to the Englishman.
“But you didn’t have Mrs. Ashcraft killed?”
He shook his head.
“You’ll never prove it.”
“Maybe not,” I admitted.
I took a package of cigarettes out of my pocket and put two of them on the seat between us.
“Suppose we play a game. This is just for my own satisfaction. It won’t tie anybody to anything—won’t prove anything. If you did a certain thing, pick up the cigarette that is nearer me. If you didn’t do that thing, pick up the one nearer you. Will you play?”