Miss Elsie!” said Fay. “You got a man up the road. Who was he?”

“A crook! And this is—”

“This is one of your mechanics. He resembles you. He must have had access to your desk. He impersonated you by putting on a wig after you set Stephney down on Fifth Avenue. He was Ponsardin’s tool. His taxi was equipped with a suction pipe and a set of snap locks on the doors. It was death to enter it. They were after big game tonight.”

The girl shuddered. She turned away from Fay and his prisoner.

“I don’t know how it all happened,” she said. “I suspected the mechanic after your visit. We followed him tonight. He had a taxi exactly like ours. We lost him in the Park. We were close behind you. Then—we found the trail again, up above Yonkers. It led here. You see, he had different tires than most cars. One was vulcanized on the tread and made a different mark in the dust.”

“That was clever!”

The girl trembled slightly.

“Who’s the third man,” Fay asked, “the one you looked at before you came over to me?”

“Oh, that’s Ponsardin! He’s the owner of the Gray Taxi Company. I wonder what will become of it now? I hate to see the boys lose their jobs.”

“They won’t, and you won’t. I’m sure I can fix things so that once in a while I can drop around and call upon Miss Elsie De Groot—President and General Manager of the Gray Taxi Company—which Mr. George Mott will surely take care of, no matter what happens to Ponsardin.”

The girl seized Fay’s extended hand.

“That’ll be corking! The Gray Brotherhood has certainly cleared its name tonight.”

“And so have you!” said Chester Fay with a smile.

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October 1920 issue of The Blue Book magazine.

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