Max said We were sitting in the darkness of his car, the one place where I knew we would not be overheard. The two photographs of the mountain trail were in my lap. I had not intended going quite this far with it, but once I started to tell it I had to fill in the gaps to maintain credibility. Piece by piece, then, it came out, the whole story of Robert Holland and the cave and the man of the black Oldsmobile. The one thing I did not tell him was Jill’s part in it, partly because my story did not need that for credibility; mainly because, even after finding the Holland journal in her room, I was not sure of the thrust of her involvement. There was another factor, of course: my reluctance to admit, in the face of cold proof, that she was mixed up in it and had been for some time. Whatever the reason, I avoided mentioning her. Max sat through it without reacting either way. When I had told it all, he held the pictures and the gold coin under the dashboard light and examined them closely.
