“They wouldn’t have had to do that,” Anderson said. “They could have got the Cadillac and the money anyway.”

“They were playing it safe. With the phony victim really killed, no one could go to the police. They could use the Cadillac as long as they wanted without fear of being picked up.”

“Vicious sonsofbitches,” Anderson muttered.

“That was how we got the idea that the cases were connected,” Grave Digger said. “There was an extraordinary viciousness about both capers.”

“But why did they take the car back to the dealer’s?” Anderson wondered.

“It was the safest thing to do when they finished with it,” Coffin Ed contended. “The dealer’s name and address were on a sticker in the rear window. Roman and his girl just didn’t notice it.”

Anderson sat for a time, musing.

“And you don’t think his wife was connected in any way with his caper?” he asked.

“It doesn’t figure,” Grave Digger said. “She hates him.”

“She’d have tipped the police if she had known about it in advance,” Coffin Ed added.

“She tried to give us a lead, but we didn’t pick it up,” Grave Digger admitted. “When she sent us down to Zog Ziegler’s crib. She figured that somebody down there would probably know about it, and we could find it out without her telling us.”

“But we figured she was tipping us on Baron, and we missed it,” Coffin Ed said.

“But she helped you to save him in the end,” Anderson said. “How do you figure that?”

“She didn’t want him taken by those hoodlums who had knocked her out and robbed her,” Grave Digger said.

“Besides, she might still think Casper is a great man,” Coffin Ed said.

“He is a great man,” Grave Digger said. “According to our standards.”

Anderson took his pipe from his side coat pocket and cleaned it with a small penknife over a report sheet. He filled it from an oilskin pouch and struck a kitchen match on the underside of the desk. When he had the pipe going, he said:

“I can understand Casper pulling off a caper like that. He probably wouldn’t even think he was hurting anybody if he got away with it. The only people who’d get hurt would be some out-of-town hoods. But why would his wife get mixed up in a cheap chiseling racket like that? She’s a lovely woman, a socialite. She had a hundred activities to keep her occupied.”

“Hell, the reason is obvious,” Coffin Ed said. “If you were a woman and you had a husband who played about with the little boys, what would you do?”

Anderson turned bright red.

Several minutes passed. No one said anything.

“You can hear your own thoughts moving around in this silence,” Coffin Ed said.

“It’s like an armistice, when the guns stop shooting,” Anderson said.

“Let’s hope we don’t have to go through that again,” Grave Digger said. “What I have been thinking about is why Casper went by his office when it’s obvious by now that he doesn’t have the money hidden there,” Anderson said.