Beware the Young Stranger by Ellery Queen Page B

they were in Vallancourt’s car, Hibbs said, “A rented car, John? I mean, after he ditches the Packard?”
    â€œI think we can rule that out, Ralph. He’d have to identify himself, show his driver’s license.” Vallancourt studied the highway briefly. “He means to make his try tonight, in that jalopy with the other man driving.”
    â€œNewt sounds like an unwholesome character,” Hibbs said. “Keith might have bribed him. He was pretty well heeled with the money from Dorcas’s cashbox.”
    â€œThe primary question is direction,” Vallancourt said. “The right turn on the highway might have been a deception play. But we’ll have to play the odds. He was under pressure and in a hurry, conditions that don’t make for complicated thinking.”
    A block from the motel Vallancourt turned into a filling station. While the Continental was being gassed, he used the station telephone and called police headquarters.
    A desk sergeant had to say hello three times before Vallancourt could bring himself to answer. Let him go through, he was thinking. Hang up and don’t throw Nancy into the danger of what might happen at a roadblock.
    But let him through, and you make him drunk with triumph. It might be catching.
    Stop him?
    Surely by this time Nancy has begun to think, to be her old self. Whatever her feelings for him, she must know now that this route is inexorably downward. At this very moment she may be praying that you’ll do the best thing for both of them.
    On the other hand … play the ostrich and you make the showdown tougher. The moment of truth you and Nancy will have to face some time, somewhere …
    â€œJohn Vallancourt speaking.”
    â€œOh, Mr. Vallancourt. Have you heard from your daughter?”
    â€œNot directly. But I’ve run across their trail.” Vallancourt gave the desk sergeant the motel woman’s story about the Packard.
    He hung up, the steadiness of his hand a passing mockery. He went outside, paid for the gas, and got into the Lincoln.
    As the car hissed onto the highway, Hibbs said sulkily, “I’m still here, you know.”
    â€œThe roadblocks are ready for him, Ralph.”
    Hibbs looked at him a moment longer; then he shifted his gaze to the highway ahead.
    The big car pressed over the outer edge of the speed limit.
    Suddenly Hibbs jerked forward in the seat. “John! Off there in the ditch!”
    Vallancourt had already seen the wrecked car. He eased off, letting the Continental roll onto the shoulder before bringing it to a stop.
    He had the door open and was out before Hibbs could hitch himself around.
    Vallancourt had swung in several yards past the ditched car. He had completed his circuit of the old Packard by the time Hibbs came puffing up.
    â€œLooks like the one,” Hibbs gasped.
    â€œIt is. The license checks.”
    â€œIs she … Are they …?”
    Vallancourt shook his head. His eyes were probing the darkness.
    Ralph had lumbered around to the front of the jalopy. “Doesn’t look as if they hit anything—until the ditch.” He glanced from the car to the road. “It’s a straight stretch. Funny place for a car to go off the highway. Unless an oncoming car forced them off.”
    Or there was trouble inside the car, Vallancourt thought.
    â€œMight as well notify the men at the roadblocks.”
    Vallancourt nodded absently. His brain was busy trying to put itself behind the dark, brooding eyes under the fine forehead and widow’s peak.
    Newt is driving, he thought. And I’m sitting beside him.… No, that would leave Nancy alone, out of my line of vision, in back. I am in the rear seat where I can watch Newt and lay a steadying hand on Nancy’s shoulder.
    Everything is going well. We have the car and Newt to drive us out.
    Then it begins to go sour. How? Why? Perhaps Newt wants more money. Or gets cold feet. No … won’t