The Mystery of the Millionaire

made us think. That isn’t the most amazing thing, though. I mean, she had quite a bit of time to make that story up. The thing that gives me goose bumps is the way she reacted when we told her Mark McGraw was a fake. She made up that whole story on the spot, about why he didn’t have a phone listing. And she calmly started putting on fresh suntan oil so we wouldn’t think to ask her to go get his card right then. What nerve!” Trixie shivered.
    “Even outside the store last night, I think she was ready to con her way out of the situation,” Jim said.
    “You’d be amazed at how far con artists are willing to go,” Burt Anderson said. “I’ve heard stories of them walking away from fifty thousand dollars in cash that was lying on a table within arm’s reach, because they had a chance at bigger money down the road. Some of them have played the same con over and over again, literally for a whole career, without ever getting caught.”
    “How can they keep from getting caught?” Trixie asked incredulously. “Word must get out—”
    “No, it doesn’t,” Sergeant Molinson interrupted. “Con artists play on people’s greed first and on their pride second. Many people, like Mr. Anderson’s client, help the con artists by refusing to press charges. They’re afraid of looking foolish if word gets out. So they keep quiet and take their losses, and the con artists move on to their next victims.”
    “Well, I’m not going to keep quiet and take my losses,” Mr. Lytell said. “I want my money back.”
    Sergeant Molinson nodded approvingly, and Burt Anderson said, “Usually all it takes is one person to get the ball rolling. Once my client hears that you’ve agreed to testify, I’m sure he’ll come forward. After that, other victims of these two swindlers will undoubtedly appear. The only problem then will be deciding which charges to try them on first.”
    “Of course, the ones who have waited won’t have such a good chance of getting their money back,” Sergeant Molinson added. “These people tend to live pretty high on the hog. They have to, to be convincing.”
    “If Laura Ramsey had shown up in blue jeans and a T-shirt and driving a beat-up old car, we never would have believed her,” Trixie concurred.
    “You didn’t believe her, anyway,” Honey added loyally. “You were the only one who didn’t trust her completely, and you were right. I should have known better than to argue against your detective instincts.”
    Trixie shook her head. “I wasn’t so sure myself, at the end. Every time I was sure, Laura came up with a story that made my suspicions look silly. Last night, outside the store, when Laura said she’d come to tell Mr. Lytell her father had been found, there was a part of me that almost wondered if she wasn’t lying and if I’d wind up in hot water for phoning in a false alarm to the police!”
    “A false alarm is exactly what the desk sergeant thought it was,” Sergeant Molinson told her. “He wasn’t going to send a squad car out at all, since you hadn’t given your name and address. Luckily for you, I was just going off duty at the time. I heard him slam down the phone, and I asked him who’d called. ‘Some kid wants us to send a car to Lytell’s store,’ he said. ‘Some kid?’ I asked. ‘A boy or a girl?’ ‘A girl, I think,’ he said. Well, I hesitated for a moment; I was off duty, after all, and I just wanted to get home to my easy chair.
    “Then I thought of all those lectures I’d given you Bob-Whites about reporting things to the police. ‘What if they’re finally following orders, and I ignore them?’ I asked myself. That’s when I called for one of the guys and headed out Glen Road.”
    “It’s a good thing for us you did,” Jim said. “With both their cars out of commission, their only means of escape would have been the Bob-White station wagon. I think they would have taken it, with three of the Bob-Whites along for company.”
    “Oh, Jim,” Honey wailed. “I never thought of that when I was letting the air out of their tires. I could have made everything much worse by doing that!”
    “Nothing could have been worse than letting those crooks get away,” Trixie told her consolingly. She turned back to Sergeant Molinson. “You said before that the people who waited to press charges probably won’t get their money back. Does that mean that Mr. Lytell will?” Sergeant Molinson nodded. “They had all but a couple hundred of his