'scorpion' connected with that bank job at all? In any way at all."

Stevenson looked at the reporter and smiled. He said, "As a matter of fact, Mr. Roberts, there was."

Roberts blinked. "There was?"

"Yes, indeedy. There certainly was." And Stevenson told him the full story of the bank job.

"I see," said Roberts dazedly when Stevenson was finished. "I see. Or, I don't see. I don't see it at all."

"Your turn," Stevenson told him. "Now you tell me what made you ask that."

"This," said Roberts. He reached into the inside pocket of his sport jacket and withdrew a business-size envelope, which he handed over to Stevenson.

It was another crank letter, in the same newspaper clipping form as the first two. It read:

Dear Mr. Editor,

The bad boys were captured. They could not escape the Scorpion. I left the mark of the Scorpion on their jackets. Criminals fear the mark of the Scorpion. They cannot escape. This is my third letter to you. You should warn all criminals to leave the city. They cannot escape the Scorpion. WARN YOUR READERS.

Sincerely yours, THE SCORPION

Stevenson read the letter. "Well, well," he said.

"He says that's the third letter," Roberts pointed out. "We asked around in the office, and we found out who got the first two. They were both back a ways. The first one was early in the summer, and the guy who read it remembered it said something about a bank robbery. So I was sent out this morning to check up on bank robberies in June and July. You're the third one I've talked to this morning. The first two figured me for some kind of nut."

"My Captain figures me the same way," Stevenson told him. "What about the second letter? Or, wait, don't tell me, I'll tell you. It's that guy in August, the one who ran amok over in Canarsie."

"Right you are," said Roberts. "How did you know?"

"I was there. He left his mark on the rifle stock."

"Okay," said Roberts. "So there's something in it, after all."

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