I tucked my crutch in between one knee and the arm of my chair, so my hands would be free to check off my points on my fingers.
“First—whoever planned the job knew the island—not fairly well, but every inch of it. There’s no need to argue about that. Second—the car on which the machine gun was mounted was local property, stolen from the owner here. So was the boat in which the bandits were supposed to have escaped. Bandits from the outside would have needed a car or a boat to bring their machine guns, explosives, and grenades here and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why they shouldn’t have used that car or boat instead of stealing a fresh one. Third—there wasn’t the least hint of the professional bandit touch on this job. If you ask me, it was a military job from beginning to end. And the worst safe-burglar in the world could have got into both the bank vault and the jeweler’s safe without wrecking the buildings. Fourth—bandits from the outside wouldn’t have destroyed the bridge. They might have blocked it, but they wouldn’t have destroyed it. They’d have saved it in case they had to make their getaway in that direction. Fifth—bandits figuring on a getaway by boat would have cut the job short, wouldn’t have spread it over the whole night. Enough racket was made here to wake up California all the way from Sacramento to Los Angeles. What you people did was to send one man out in the boat, shooting, and he didn’t go far. As soon as he was at a safe distance, he went overboard, and swam back to the island. Big Ignati could have done it without turning a hair.”
That exhausted my right hand. I switched over, counting on my left.
“Sixth—I met one of your party, the lad, down on the beach, and he was coming from the boat. He suggested that we jump it. We were shot at, but the man behind the gun was playing with us. He could have wiped us out in a second if he had been in earnest, but he shot over our heads. Seventh—that same lad is the only man on the island, so far as I know, who saw the departing bandits. Eighth—all of your people that I ran into