"How did you know 1 was going to be driving it away?" Rob asked, trying to keep the eagerness from his voice, yet dreading to hear the answer.

  The big man merely smiled and shook his head again "We're wasting a lot of time and a lot oi words, Rob," he said. "Suppose you just break down and tell us. Give us the low-down and 1 can assure you that nothing more will happen to you. You'll be inconvenienced a little bit, but that's all. You'll have a chance to get away around midnight and ... well, we'll have to fix it so you can't communicate with the authorities for, oh, maybe eight or ten hours, but that's all that will happen to you."

  "ThaL sounds like enough," Rob said.

  The smile left the big man's face. "Look, Rob," he said, "if you cion't co-operate, things are going to be bad, they're going to be plenty bad. After the boys have gone so far, then you can't tell what'il happen. They'll get the information they want, but if they've had to go far enough to get it, they well, put yourself in their position. You wouldn't want to leave a witness behind you who could testify to kidnapping and diabolical torture and then make an identification. Now let's be reasonable about this thing."

  Rob said, "From where I sit, my chances don't look too good anyway."

  "Why not, Rob?"

  "I can still make an identification."

  For a moment the big man's eyes were cold and hard, then he said ominously, "You keep crowding your luck and you just might never show up in circulation again. This river's about forty feet deep out in the channel and we could put weights on you so that after the bubbles quit coming up nothing else would ever come up."

  Rob said, "You could do that just as well no matter what I said. What assurance do 1 have that you'd play fair?"

  "You'd have to take my word for it."

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  "1 don't think your word's very good."

  The big man slowly got down off the table, removed the cigar from his mouth, placed it carefully 011 the edge of the table, took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, said, "All right, young fellow, you're going to get hun. You're asking for it. Any time you want to quit that's all you have to do, just say so."

  The big man bent over him. His face had undergone a complete transformation. It was a hard, wicked, ruthless face, and the right hand, with the fingers open, was moving, towards Rob's face, paused for a moment with the thumb over Rob's left eye. Then abruptly the man stopped and said, "Say, you got a fountain pen in your pocket?"

  "Well?" Rob asked, striving to keep his voice firm.

  "What the hell. They haven't even frisked you," the big man said. "That's a hell of a way to ran a business The boys are getting on edge, and when they get on edge you can't seem to depend on them for anything. Let's take a look and see what you've got in your pockets, son."

  He rolled Rob over, casually placed his right foot on Rob's bound wrists, bore down with so much weight that Rob winced with the pain of it.

  His hands started through Rob's pockets. "Handkerchief," he said. "Money ... why, the damned fools, here's a knife. You know, Rob, I get tired risking my neck trying to do the brainwork for a bunch of dumb eggs like that ... the boys just do not think.

  "Now you take that business of putting your car out of commission. Sticking something in the ring and pinion gears ... the stupid fools. They could have let the air out of your spare tyre and then loosened the valve in one of your rear tyres so the air would ooze out. Then they'd have happened along just when you were up against it with two Hats, it would have been a cinch then to have picked you up

  "After they'd grabbed you, one of the boys could have screwed the valve back in the tyre, pumped it up, driven your car away, and that would have been all there was to it. Then your car would have been out of sight. The way it is now, what's the garage man going to think when he finds that somebody deliberately stuck something in the gears? You'll have disappeared and your car will be there.

  "The other way, you'd have disappeared and your car would have disappeared and everyone would have figured you'd taken a powder. Of course, they tied you up pretty well, but you could easily have hooked your heels up on the table and jiggled until that knife fell out of your pants pocket. Then you could have twisted around and got your fingers on it and cut the ropes, without anyone knowing about it."

  Rob felt his face getting red with self-anger as he realised how simple it would have been for him to have done exactly what the man had said. Yet he had never thought of it.

  The big man removed the ball of his foot from Rob's wrists. "Okay, Rob," he said, "let's roll over and see what we've got in the other side . . Hold it a second, let's take a look in that inside coat pocket ... Oh, yes, a wallet, driving licence and ... hey, wait a minute. What's this? A notebook!"

  The big man picked up the notebook, moved off a short distance and turned so that the light came over his shoulder. He said, "You're one of these meticulous chaps. You probably keep complete, accurate records. Yes, here we are. Expenses ... the numbers of your traveller's cheques, the number of your passport. Now, Rob, you know, if you'd hidden anything, I've a hunch you'd have made some note about it ... particularly if you'd had to hide it along the highway. Now let's see, Rob, we'll turn through all these pages of expenses and look for the last page in the notebook. The last one where ... well, well, well! Here's a little sketch map of a road intersection and - well, now,

  S>6

  Rob, I think we're beginning to get somewhere. If you'll just loosen up and tell me about what these marks mean - no, wait a minute. You don't have to. They're fence posts, and these numbers must be the numbers of the highways, just so far from the intersection. That must be the count of the fence posts, and this diagonal with distances on it - why, bless your heart, Rob, that will be a road sign, right on the highway, and we can locate that road sign mathematically from these distances. Well, now, Rob, that's better, that's a lot better. Just a whole lot better.

  "Well, now, Rob, it's going to take a couple of hours for us to investigate this thing, but 1 think we're really on the right track now. 1 think we really and truly are. Of course, it could be a trap, but I don't think so. Now, look, Rob, I'll put it up to you. You're a grown man and we may as well be frank. I'm going to send one of the boys to take a look.

  "If this is a trap it's going to be pretty bad for you, Rob You know, I don't want to be melodramatic and make a lot of threats, but if this is a trap, Rob, things are going to happen to you that you won't like. There are a couple of old drive shafts that weigh about eighty-five pounds apiece down in the engine-room, and there's lots of baling wire. We'll just wire you to these shafts so you'll stay there for ever, and drop you in about forty feet of good, deep river water, Rob. We're just going to risk one person on this. If the stuff is there, one person can find it. If it's a trap ... well Rob, we'll be here, and you'll be here."

  The big man paused and looked down at Rob, then he pulled back his right foot and calmly and methodically kicked Rob in the ribs, hard.

  "Speak when you're spoken to," he said.

  "It's not a trap," Rob Trenton groaned.

  "That's better," the big man said. He walked out and locked the door behind him, leaving the. light on.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The state trooper lay crouched in the ditch, covered with a dark blanket, so that just his forehead, eyes and nose were exposed. He was cold. The damp chill of the ground seeped through his clothes and the blanket.

  Out on the highway, cars went droning by, first making themselves audible by a distant whine caused by tyres and motor. The whine would grow to a snarl, then headlights would briefly become visible, flash past, and the car would hurtle on into the night.

  The state trooper shifted his position two or three times to avoid cramped muscles. He looked at the luminous dial of his wristwatch, anticipating the hour when he would change places with Moose Wallington.

  At the moment, Moose was sitting on a side road parked in a cruiser, and on another side road two miles below two men waited quietly, under orders so strict that not even the glowing tip ol a cigarette was permitted to betray their presence.

  A car coming from the west slowed down perceptibly, then pulled to the side of the road, crawled along in low gear. The beam of a spotlight, dancing out across the irregular shoulder of grass, caused the state trooper in the ditch to drop down entirely under the blanket.

  The military-type field telephone between bis feet was connected with another telephone by a black wire which ran

  along the ditch for a couple of hundred yards, then ambled off aimlessly across a field until it followed the top of a barbed-wire fence.

  The trooper turned the crank, raised the receiver to his ear. Almost instantly the voice of a waiting trooper said, "Hello, Larry, what is it?"

  "I'm getting a customer," Larry said. "Get the cars alerted."

  "Okay. Can you describe the car?"

  "Not yet. All I can see are the headlights and a spotlight searching around. They're looking for something. Now hold the phone. I'll take a peek."

  The trooper gently raised a corner of the blanket for a long look, then said, "They're getting closer. They've found the signpost and evidently they're counting fence posts. They're looking along the ground now. It's a black sedan ... a big one. Could be bullet-proof glass."

  "How many of them?"

  "There's one working the spotlight and I can see another one ... wait a minute, the other one looks like a woman."

  "Okay. Hang on for just a minute," the man at the other end of the line said. He called Headquarters of the State Police fifty miles away and over the radio a signal went out. "Cars sixteen and nineteen special signal twenty-four."

  Instantly the two state patrol cars switched on ignitions and started their motors so they would be warm and ready for the chase. The monitor came back on the telephone, and Larry, crouching as flat as possible, said, "The man's started to dig now. The woman seems to have moved on over to the other side of the road in that orchard. I can't see her at all now."

  "Okay, keep me posted. I'll hang on."

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  lit^l

  Larry could hear the monitor saying into the other telephone, to the radio dispatcher, "Okay, send out special signal twenty-five," and within less than a second after that, the waiting cruisers heard the voice of the dispatcher at Headquarters saying, in that peculiar monotone with which all radio dispatchers send out even the most exciting news, "Cars sixteen and nineteen special signal twenty-five, confirm back to Headquarters."

  Within a matter of seconds both cars had reported, staling that they had special signals twenty-four and twenty-five and were all ready to go.

  ILV-W^tl

  Crouched on the ground, Larry waited uniil the shovel had struck the metallic protective covering. Then a moment later, he saw the flash light snap on and off and a figure started for the car. Larry said into the telephone, "I'd be ready to give the next signal if it weren't for that woman. She's over across the road and hasn't shown."

  "Ready for twenty-six with the man?"

  "That's right."

  "Okay. He can't get away. We'll wait a minute and catch them both when the woman gets back."

  "Say wait a minute, she isn't coming back," the trooper said. "She's gone scouting. You'd better get this man. He's starting the motor. Flash signal twenty-six."

  Over the phone the trooper heard Moose Wallingtc t's voice addressing the central dispatcher. "Car seven to Headquarters, special signal twenty-six to cars seventeen and nineteen."

  The trooper in the ditch had waited too long for the woman to return. The man in the driver's seat of the big sedan now had the car in gear.

  Throwing off his blanket, hitching his gun into a favourable position, the trooper crawled through a hole in the barbed-wire fence.

  He suddenly impaled the car with a flashlight.

  "State Police," he called. "What's the trouble?"

  "No trouble, officer."

  "What have you stopped for?"

  "Nothing."

  "Hold it. I want to inspect your licence."

  The car lurched forward.

  Larry pulled out his gun, but grinning, held his fire.

  The car literally rocketed off into the night, headed eastward. The man in the driver's seat, white-faced and tense, threw the car into second, then into high, keeping the throttle down to the floorboards.

  The state trooper stood waiting. His flashlight shot its powerful beam into the orchard on the other side of the road. Once he thought he saw a swirl of swift motion, but he couldn't be certain. The orchard was on a slope. Behind it was a brash-covered hill thick with second growth.

  The trooper kept swinging the beam of his flashlight in a questing circle. He picked up nothing.

  The man in the getaway car exhaled his breath in a deep sigh. His heart was pounding and his mouth is as dry. It had been a close call, but he had made it. He was in the clear now.

  Then the headlights of the fleeing car suddenly disclosed the body of a State Police cruiser broadside on the road. A red spotlight blazed into the eyes of the startled driver.

  The man jerked a gun out of his hip pocket. His lips tightened. His foot slammed down on the brake pedal. The car screamed to a sliding stop.

  Moose Wallington came walking up on the driver's side. The other officer walked up on the other side of the car, coming cautiously.

  The driver roiled down the window and said, "What's all the trouble about?"

  "That's what we want to know," Moose Wallington said. "Why didn't you stop for that other trooper?"

  The driver laughed. "That guy wasn't a t rooper. That was just a bird playing a joke."

  Moose opened the door on the driver's side. "Let's take a look at your driver's licence."

  "Okay, copper. Here it is," the man said and shoved the revolver across his lap.

  What happened next happened with incredible speed. Moose Wallington's big hand came down over the man's wrist. The gun was twisted, the man's arm doubled into helplessness. He screamed and came tumbling out of the car.

  Moose Wallington kicked the gun to one side, methodically pulled handcuffs from his belt.

  From behind, the other cruiser which had been closing in blazed its red spotlight over the scene.

  "Everything's okay," Wallington said.

  Two minutes later Headquarters received a signal, "Car nineteen special signal thirty-one, black sedan with one person, licence number on sedan 6LB4981."

  The dispatcher repeated the number.

  Moose Wallington reported, "We're bringing in the prisoner."

  "Okay. Federal Narcotics has been notified and will x here. Any resistance?"

  "Not to speak of," Wallington said casually. "Let me have fifteen minutes here before we start, in. We want to help comb she territory for a woman who seems to have made an escape. Apparently she didn't get back into the car when the driver did. She was scouting and something may have alarmed her."

  "You got the evidence?" the dispatcher said.

  "Yes, it's here."

  "All right, search tor the woman. I'll put out a special broadcast."

  Thereafter a veritable porcupine of light shafts from the trooper's flashlights combed the countryside and combed it in vain.

  The voice of the dispatcher, however, blanketed the entire district, "Calling all cars. Near the junction of state highways 40 and 72 at co-ordinate AB north three hundred; seventy-two east, a woman escaped a dragnet and may be hitch-hiking. Study all cars with women riders, make routine checks. Hold all hitch¬hikers for questions. For the next half-hour this is of paramount importance."

  Thereafter cruisers concentrated on the area. Hundreds of motorists were stopped for 'routine checks' on driving licences.

  But the woman made good her escape. Two hitch-hikers were held by State Police for questioning, but neither was the one the police wanted. Each could prove she had been riding in a car at the exact time the state trooper had had a vague glimpse of a woman, whom he as described as "young and attractive - judging by her figure and the way she moved", emerging from the car when the cache of dope was being uncovered.

  With what the police already had on Rob Trenton, however, they felt justified in checking on the young woman with whom he had made a recent European trip.

  The only hitch was that Harvey Richmond, ace narcotic investigator, who had been working on that 'angle', couldn't be reached. He was, in the words of the reporting trooper, "Not immediately available." He was, in fact, investigating a 'hot lead', so that he expected to make a flock of arrests by midnight, and had asked for two loads of state troopers to be held in readiness at that hour.

  Colonel Miller C Stepney paced the floor thoughtfully, studying reports which were pouring in from state troopers all over the country. The man who had been picked up had refused to talk. The driving licence showed thai his name was Marvus L

  Gentry. He had in his possession every one of the oiled silk packages which had been left at the scene to act as bait for the persons who would return to pick them up. There was at the moment nothing to connect L Gentry with any person anywhere in the state. He had an out-of-state driving iicence, and while the classification of his fingerprints was being rushed in for comparison, it would be a matter of several hours before anything definite could be obtained. His manner, however, was that of the veteran crook, sitting completely tight and keeping his mouth clamped in a firm line of silence.

  Colonel Stepney debated the possibility that the passenger list would give him more information about Rob Trenton's companions on the European tour. This matter had been within the exclusive province of Harvey Richmond and it was against the policy of Harvey Richmond to make a repott until the case was thoroughly in hand. Richmond was a special narcotic officer and his relationship with the State Police was thai of coordinating the narcotic work of the different law enforcement agencies. While he might make more, detailed reports to his immediate superiors, he certainly adopted an enigmatic policy with the State Police.