"Noonville is where I go," Trenton said.

  "Well, come on. Get in with us. We'll have you there in an hour. If the bus is a half hour late it'll take two hours running time and ..."

  "Have you got room?" Rob asked.

  "Sure thing," the man in overalls said. "There are only four of us in a six-passenger car. Got any baggage?"

  "No baggage."

  "Well, come on. Let's go."

  Rob didn't stop to think until he found himself in the back seat of the big sedan between two well-dressed, quiet-spoken men. His chance acquaintance at the bus depot and the man in overalls occupied the front seat.

  Then certain matters caught Rob's attention and stirred him to vague uneasiness.

  The car was too big, too powerful, too well-appointed to match the story which had been given Rob by the man at the bus terminal. The men on each side of Rob in the back seat were too competent, too quiet, too ominously unsocial.

  For a moment Rob thought of the things he had heard about people who were 'taken for a ride'. Then he tried to dispel the vague feeling of uneasiness by cold logic. The man was a contractor. Naturally he would have men of money with him as well as some working men to do the heavy work. It was all right. Rob tried to convince himself that he must cease letting his imagination run away with him.

  And then the rushing speed of the car, the odd silence of the men who were sitting on each side of him, brought Rob to a decision.

  He looked at his wristwatch, snapped his fingers and said, "By gosh, fellows, 1 forgot ... 1 clean forgot ..."

  There were two or three seconds of silence.

  "What did you forget?" the driver asked.

  "1 forgot a telephone call that I've simply got to make," Trenton said. "I knew there was something. I know you're in a hurry, so just let me out here and I'll put in the call and take a taxi back to the bus station. I can make it if the bus is going to be half an hour late."

  "Oh, that's all right," the driver said. "We'll take him to a phone, eh, boys?"

  "Sure," one of the men in the back seat said.

  The car sped on, smoothly gliding through traffic.

  "There's a telephone in that service station," Rob said.

  "So there is," one of the men said. "Turn around, Sam. We'll run back there and let the guy phone."

  Rob heaved a sigh of relief, turned around to look through the back window to make certain that the service station actually did have a telephone sign in front of it. Once in that service station he made up his mind he would go to the men£ room, turn the bolt in the door and refuse to come out.

  The driver slammed on the brakes hard.

  The men in the back seat all lurched forward. Rob particularly, since he was facing towards the rear of the car, was thrown off balance.

  He hardly had time to appreciate the significance of the manoeuvre before the black rug in the back of the car descended over his head and handcuffs snapped on his wrist.

  "Okay, Sam," one of the men said. "Keep going."

  Rob Trenton, suffocating beneath the heavy, black rug, let out a yell for help at the top of his lungs.

  Something crashed down on the top of his head. There was a blinding flash of light and then he felt himself falling through darkness.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Rob regained consciousness by degrees. He was first aware of the painful jolting of his head, then a dim light penetrated his eyes, and the sensation of suffocation returned. For the moment he could not recall what had happened or where he was, but protective instinct cautioned him to lie still.

  Gradually memory returned.

  He found that the rug was still over his head but that a fold of the cloth enabled a limited amount of air to pass to his nostrils. Any turning of the head would result in shutting off this flow of air. His wrists were pinioned by handcuffs, but, tensing the muscles of his lower legs, he could feel no restrictive bonds on them.

  He realised that he was on the floor of the car, that the two men who had been in the rear of the car were on each side of the seat, their feet resting against his body so that they could batter him down or kick him into insensibility should he make any attempt to raise his body.

  No one said anything, but from the odour of tobacco smoke which reached him Rob knew that one of the men was smoking a good cigar.

  The car purred onward at steady speed. Rob Trenton felt that he had been unconscious for some time because the bones and muscles which were in contact with the carpeted floor of the car

  were aching. He had the distinct feeling that any attempt to move would have disastrous consequences.

  The minutes lengthened into what seemed to be an hour.

  A voice finally broke the silence "Say, is that goof all right?"

  "Sure."

  "You conked him pretty hard."

  "He's all right."

  Rob sensed motion above him. A hand clapped itself on his forearm, then slid down to the waist. The middle finger, pressing in just the right place, counted the pulse. "Hell, he's doing fine."

  The men settled back in the seat.

  Rob Trenton could stand it no longer. He stirred and as soon as he changed position the folds of the rug fell about his nose, virtually shutting off the air.

  "Air!" he muttered quickly, surprised at the sound of his own voice. "Air, give me air."

  One of the men laughed. A foot kicked him at the base of the spine.

  Rob tried to struggle erect. Anything was better than this suffocation.

  He heard a voice say, "No more of that. Give the guy some air."

  There was motion above him and the rug was pulled halfway back and cool air struck Rob's face, was drawn down deep into his oxygen-starved lungs.

  "Don't try to get up," a voice said. "Don't try to see where you're going. Stay in that position. Don't talk."

  "But what in the world is this ..."

  "Shut up."

  "Let him talk," an authoritative voice from the front seat said.

  The man in the right rear promptly vetoed the suggestion. "Better let him do all his talking at once." His voice was ominous in its quiet contradiction.

  . "Okay," agreed the man in the front seat, gruffly.

  The car was moving rapidly now and Rob Trenton felt certain from the smooth purr of the wheels they were on a modern highway. The sounds of passing traffic indicated they were either approaching or leaving some large city.

  A few moments later Rob decided they had left the city behind as the car rocketed into increasing speed.

  He tried slowly shifting his position. There were no objections from the men in the back seat.

  "Why the dickens can't you take these things off?" Rob asked, as the steel handcuffs bit into his wrists again.

  "You're doing all right the way you are, buddy. It won't be long now."

  "They hurt."

  "Well, now, ain't that too bad?"

  Someone laughed.

  Abruptly, unable to endure the torture of lying in one cramped position any longer, Rob braced himself against the pain in his wrists and rolled completely over so that he was facing the back seat. He saw the feet of two men, their neatly creased and tailored trousers.

  "Hey, none of that," one of the men said. "Go on back to where you were."

  "I can't. I'm too cramped."

  The man on the other side of the rear seat interposed a comment, "He's been down there quite a while. Let the guy roll over if he wants. Dont try to get up, buddy, or we'll kick you into a headache you'll remember as long as you live."

  Rob, feeling easier now that he had rolled over on the side away from the tortured muscles, settled down to wait.

  The car swung into a right-angle turn, jolted over a rough road. The smell of greenery, vegetation and dampness came to Rob's nostrils. The car slowed, jolted painfully, then, after some ten minutes, came to a stop.

  One of the men opened the door, said, "Okay, buddy out you

  go"

  Rob tried to get to his feet but with his hands handcuffed behind his back he could only flounder around like an awkward fish in death-struggles on a wharf.

  The other men partially lifted him to the ground. Rob had a brief glimpse of trees, the shimmer of afternoon sun on water, and then a blindfold was whipped over his eyes and tied tightly into position.

  Rob wondered how prisoners ever endured the torture of handcuffs. The pressure of the metal against the bone had become a steady, insistent torture.

  "For heaven's sake, take these handcuffs off!" he said.

  "Take them off," the quiet voice ordered. "He's had a pretty rough time of it."

  A man took Rob's right arm. Another moved over to take his left arm. The handcuffs were unlocked and clicked open.

  "Now just walk quietly and straight," the quiet voice ordered.

  They started walking. After a few minutes Rob realised he was walking on planks. The hollow sound led him to believe it was a pier of some sort. Then a moment later one of his guards said, "Take it easy now, Trenton. Lift your right foot high. Now a long step."

  Trenton thrust out his right foot, afraid for the moment that he might find nothing but water underneath. Then this foot came on the deck of a boat. From the motion of the boat as the five men boarded it, Rob judged it was perhaps fifty or sixty feet in length - a big shallow-draft houseboat.

  Rob was guided down a steep flight of stairs and into a room. The blindfold was removed. Rob found himself in a small, sparsely furnished room. Through a porthole he could see the tops of a thick clump of trees and a patch of blue sky.

  He rubbed his wrists, sparring for time.

  The man who was wearing the overalls and the man who had occupied the right-hand corner of the rear seat remained in the room. The other left.

  The man with the overalls did the talking.

  "Well?" he asked.

  "That's what I want to know," Rob said. "1 have no idea what this is all about."

  "Forget it," the man with the overalls cut in. "We're interested in that Rapidex automobile. We took it from your place last night. Something had happened to it between the time it left the Customs shed and when it arrived at your place. Now I want to know what."

  Rob tried to keep from showing that he had any idea of what the man was talking about. "You mean you took that car?"

  "That's right."

  "You had no right to touch it without my permission. That's theft, that ..."

  "Sure it's theft," the man agreed. "Don't bother talking about that. We want to know what happened to the car."

  "What do you mean? What happened to it? You've just admitted you stole it. That's what happened to it."

  "You know what 1 mean."

  "What time did you take the car?" Rob countered.

  "What does that have to do with it?"

  "It may have a lot to do with it," Rob said. "1 left that car parked in my driveway. And if all this fuss is over a blown-out tyre - but no, all this wouldn't be over a tyre. It couldn't be."

  The men exchanged glances.

  "Where was it when you had the blowout, Trenton?"

  "I can't tell you. it was ... well, I can't remember the exact place."

  The chunky man, who had been in the back seat, said, "When you come right down to it, Rex, someone could have beat us to it there at the driveway and ..

  "Oh, nuts," the man in overalls said.

  He got up out of the chair, took off the blue denim jumper, hesitated a moment, then took off his shirt and undershirt. Naked to the waist, he walked towards Rob and, suddenly pivoting on the hip, smashed Rob flush on the jaw.

  Rob's head shot back on his neck. He saw a shooting procession of stars and staggered back against the wall. A red rage enveloped him. He went charging blindly at the blurred image of the man's naked torso, and a straight left snapped his head back.

  Abruptly Rob became deadly cool.

  The man stepped in, hooking a vicious right to the chin. Rob stepped back, avoided the blow, then moved forward with a swift left and had the satisfaction of feeling his whole arm tingle with the shock of impact.

  The heavy-set man sat with one hip propped on the table. He was smoking a cigar and seemed to be enjoying the fight.

  "Why, you little squirt," Rex said, and came forward, weaving back and forth with the unmistakable manner of a professional boxer.

  He feinted with his left, his right whipped into Rob's ribs,

  Rob swung slightly and crashed a straight right with lots of force behind it. He felt the fist strike squarely on his opponent^

  nose.

  The man who had been sitting on the table, watching the fight with amusement, carefully laid down his cigar, slid down off the table.

  Rob's opponent stepped back.

  A red stream came from his nose, down across his lips and chin, spattered to his naked chest.

  His eyes narrowed with rage; he closed in, Rob ducked.

  The heavy-set man kicked Rob in the stomach. Rob pivoted but the pain of the kick robbed his punch of its power. He hit the other man in his ribs, then went down.

  The heavy-set man opened the door, whistled a shrill summons. Two men came running down the corridor. Rob heard an exclamation of incredulous surprise at the bloody nose of the man in overalls, then felt the bite of ropes on his arms.

  They tied Rob with the thoroughness of sailors who are accustomed to doing a workmanlike job with ropes.

  Rob was trembling now with the reaction of rage and physical effort. He saw a battered, bloody face and for a moment could hardly realise that his own fists had wrought that havoc. It was the first lime he could remember that he had smashed at a man with his fists in rage.

  Somewhere above him a man said thickly through puffed lips, ' Now you damn little jerk, if ye think we're going to let you play ring-around-the-rosy with a half million dollars' worth of powder, you're nuts."

  A foot crashed into his jaw and he lost consciousness.

  Rob had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious. As he came to, he heard low voices. Slowly the sounds made words. Almost unwillingly Rob's mind translated those word sounds into meaning. Two men were sitting at the table, a bottle of whisky, two glasses and a siphon of soda water between them. Rob heard the clink of ice and it emphasised the thick dryness of his tongue. His head was throbbing with one vast ache. His whole body was racked with pain. Having dared open his eyes just enough to see the men, he closed them again, lay motionless.

  One of the men said casually, "I tell you, I think the guy's right. He isn't the type to have pulled a stunt like that. If he'd found it, he'd have gone to the police."

  "Well, then," the other man said, "there's only one possible solution, and that is someone high-graded it while it was in the driveway before we got there, and 1 don't think that's possible."

  Rob heard soda squirt into the whisky glasses, then one of the men said, "Well, we've got to figure it out inside a couple of hours. We have to think of a getaway."

  "I'm not making any getaway that leaves all our profits behind."

  "Forget it, we've made enough."

  "You mean we will have made enough when we get this deal over. Until then we're just suckers. We've pyramided our profits on this. The big pay-off is all tied up in this deal."

  "The big pay-off with me is keeping out of stir. You haven't done time. 1 have. 1 don't want any more of it."

  There was silence save for the tinkle of ice against glasses, a sound which tortured Rob Trenton's ears, made him even more conscious of his burning throat.

  Rob heard the sound of quick, excited steps in the passage outside the room. Then the doorknob was twisted and the door burst open.

  One of the men at the table said angrily, "Knock when you come in here. What the hell ..."

  A voice in the doorway interrupted in a hoarse whisper, "There's a man out in the bushes, over on the point, studying the place with binoculars, he's built a regular blind like a duck blind, right in the edge of the brush, and ..."

  Two chairs scraped back as though the action had been rehearsed. A calmly authoritative voice said, "Well, take another one of the boys with you, sneak up behind him, throw down on him with a rod and bring the guy in. We want to talk to him."

  Rob heard above the sound of feet on the bare boards someone saying, "How about this guy here?"

  "Lock him in," someone said. It was a voice of command. Rob thought it was the voice of the heavy-set man who had been perched on the edge of the table smoking while Rob had been fighting, but he couldn't be sure. "Get that electric spark device connected with the gasoline," the voice went on. "If we clean out of here we want to be sure the boat isn't left for the bulls to prod around in. Shake the lead out and let's go."

  The men hurried out, paused once more for a huddled conference in the corridor, then pounded upstairs.

  Rob, his ears straining to listen, lay absolutely motionless, with his eyes closed, keeping his breathing slow and regular.

  Two of the men remaining behind discussed strategy in a low voice.

  "We're getting in deeper and deeper," an anxious voice said.

  "Well, you can't help it now."

  "We started out with dope, now we've gone in for kidnapping. You know what that means."

  "All right. Quit now and get caught," the other voice said savagely and sarcastically. "You can figure it out lor yourself What we're going to do now, is to keep from getting caught ."

  "Well, if we go on from here, let's be damned certain we don't get caught."

  "I tell you this is the wind-up. We can get out but we've got to get this thing cleaned up and cashed in. Did you ever try being on the lam when your dough had run out? If I'm taking a powder 1 want to be dough-heavy. Now get your knees so they'll work and get the hell out of here."

  The door closed and Rob heard the click of a key on the outside. Then he heard swift activity below decks on the boat and someone giving orders.

  A man climbed to the deck, and Rob heard steps moving along the dock. After a brief interval a figure walked past the porthole on the outside, temporarily shutting out a bit of the late afternoon sunlight ... Four or five minutes later another man walked to the deck and moved casually along the planks. Then two more left quietly.