by John Blaine
He kept moving as the express disgorged its crowd of passengers and others began getting aboard. He had to make up his mind in a hurry. He chose the train, pushing in through a door just as it slid shut.
He couldn’t be sure that Lewis was on the train, but he couldn’t take a chance. He made his way through the packed crowds, working down toward the extreme front car. The train gathered speed, slowed, jerked to a stop.
PennsylvaniaStation!
Rick waited until the last passengers left,then pushed his way through those getting aboard. He kept an eye open for Lewis, and thought he saw him.
Yes! Lewis got off the train, too, and was starting for him!
Across the platform, a local pulled in and its doors slid open. The express was still waiting, to give people a chance to change trains.
Rick faced Lewis, waiting. Lewis waited, too, ready to leap either way.
The crowd thinned. The local started to close its doors. Rick jumped for it and caught a door as it started to slide closed. He held it, waiting. Then he pulled it back and jumped onto the platform again.
The door slid closed with a sighing sound. The red lights winked out and the train began to move.
Lewis wasn’t in sight!
Rick made a wild jump for the express, and an obliging soldier held the door for him. As the express started, the local roared out of the station. He saw Lewis, his face pressed to the car door, and he waved jauntily.
Success! His quick move had left Lewis on the local; he was safely on the express, next stopFourteenth Street , while the man with the white face had several stops to make. Rick breathed freely for the first time and an overwhelming weakness made him lean against the car vestibule wall.
At the next stop he left the subway, heading toward the place where he had parked the car. The envelope under his belt crunched as he walked, and burned his curiosity. He went into a doorway, out of the pedestrian traffic, and took it from under his jacket.
It wasn’t sealed. He drew out three eight-by-ten photographs, with as many negatives.
The doorway whirled, gyrated,then steadied. Rick stared at the first picture, completely stunned.
He looked at it again, refusing to believe what he saw until a careful examination showed him that it was true. He sank down on the doorstep and muttered, “Well, I’ll be doggoned! Manfred Wessel! But it’s Page 80
impossible!”
The dark-faced, thin-lipped man in the picture had once worked for Rick’s father, and had shown every sign of becoming an important scientist. Then he had gone away, and had been next heard of inGermany .
Rumor said he had aided the Nazis in the development of the robot bombs, but, since proof was lacking, he hadn’t been tried as a war criminal.
Then, when Hartson Brant and his associates were constructing the moon rocket, a mysterious man with a hideously scarred face had appeared, and with the aid of a traitor on the Spindrift staff, had tried to sabotage the experiment while working on a rocket of his own in an effort to win the two-million-dollar Stoneridge grant for advancement of the science of electronics.
Rick’s thoughts flashed back to the day of the rocket launching. The man with the scarred face had made a last, desperate attempt to destroy the Spindrift rocket, had been captured and his identity revealed. He was the same scientist who had worked for Rick’s father and had later aided the Nazis.
Manfred Wessel! His face had been scarred beyond recognition in a chemical explosion sometime in the past.
But Wessel had gotten away from his captors, and, eluding Rick andScotty, had leaped from the cliff behind the laboratory down to the surf and rocks below. His body had never been recovered, but they had been sure he was dead.
They had been wrong. By some miracle, Wessel had lived. The proof was in Rick’s hands.
The first picture was of Wessel as he had looked when he worked for Hartson Brant. The second picture showed how he had looked when he tried to destroy the moon rocket, when his burned face had caused the boys to nickname him “ Scarface.”
And the third picture was of Fred Lewis!
Fred Lewis was Manfred Wessel!
These were the before-and-after pictures of a plastic surgery operation-an operation that had been a failure, changing Wessel’s face, but leaving it colorless, the skin tightly stretched!
All at once everything was clear.
Lewis-or Wessel-had been the one who had tried to kill them. He had two good reasons: First, revenge, because Rick and Scotty had discovered his plot to wreck the moon rocket, thus preventing him from winning two million dollars and later making him a fugitive from justice. Second, he had been afraid they would recognize Fred Lewis as Manfred Wessel!
The second reason accounted for the telegram. He had sent it, hoping to keep them away from Crayville. That was why it had been addressed to “Rick.” Wessel had known his nickname!
Rick knew it had to be true, but it was hard to believe. Hadn’t he and Scotty seen Wesselleap to his death? But he had survived, to become Fred Lewis, and to continue hisMe of crime by trying now to wreck the sea mine plant.
He looked at the pictures again, and examined the envelope. Inside he found a slip of paper.
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“I.O.U. $3,500 for plastic surgery operation.M.W.”
This was the hold the businessman in the restaurant had on Wessel. The police would be after the renegade scientist, once they knew he had survived the jump from the cliff. A stiff prison sentence awaited him for what he had done to wreck the Spindrift rocket.
Now that Rick realized what he had found, he was nervous. It wouldn’t do to carry such dynamite around with him. A mailbox caught his eye. He hurried up the street and found a drugstore that had a stamp vending machine, and inserted three dimes. Eighteen cents should be enough. He borrowed a pen from the druggist and then hesitated. Where should he send it? He couldn’t put anyone he knew in jeopardy, in case Wessel found out.
He finally addressed it to himself, care of General Delivery, Milford . Then he went to the mailbox and dropped it in. Not until the metal door clanged shut did he breathe easily.
Now to get Steve’s car and head back to Crayvillel He crossed near the garage where Lewis had gone only after a long survey showed him that the man with the white face was not in sight. Steve’s car was right where he had left it. He walked up to it, searching in his pocket for the keys, and a voice hailed him.
“Got a match, bud?”
He whirled, and all the color drained from his face. Standing in a doorway, grinning, was Tony Larzo!
And Wessel! He started to run, but Tony moved faster. He took Rick’s arm and twisted it until he gasped with pain.
“Let’s go,” Tony said.“In the car, punk.” He opened the door and pushed Rick in. “Where are the keys?”
Rick’s lips clamped shut. He was sick with realizing how easily he had walked into the trap, but he was puzzled, too. How had they known?
“Search him,” Wessel rasped. He slid in behind the wheel.
Tony’s hands patted his pockets, found the right one,came up with the key.
“One squawk out of you and you’re all done,” Tony warned.
The coupe swung away from the curb, circled the block,then turned in at the garage. It was empty, except for the black sedan.
“Out,” Tony commanded.
Rick got out; there was nothing else he could do. They marched him into a back room and pushed him into a kitchen chair. Wessel patted his clothes rapidly,then straightened up with a snarl.
“Where’s that envelope?”
Rick stared at him dully. An open hand caught him on the side of the face, sending a wave of pain through him.
“Talk!”
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Another slap.
“I can’t think,” he managed. “Honest. I was so surprised . . .”
Wessel permitted himself a grim smile. “We thought you would be. You were so smug when you waved at me ... I began to think. You must have
trailed me by car, although I don’t know just how. No one followed me from the plant. And if that were true, you must have parked near by. I left the subway, took a cab directly here. Tony had arrived, and we simply searched until we found a car just around the corner withConnecticut license plates. And now, where is that envelope?”
There was no mercy in the white face. Rick knew he could expect none. Wessel hated him. But as long as the whereabouts of the envelope remained a mystery, he was safe, to some extent. They might torture him, but they wouldn’t dare kill him. At least that was his hope. He closed his mouth tight and gritted his teeth.
Another slap rocked him and almost knocked him from the chair.As though through a mist he saw the white face of Wessel, the dark complexion of Tony Larzo.
Slap! Slap!One side, then the other. The air was pink now, and his eyes wouldn’t focus.
“We can’t stay here,” Tony’s voice said from far away. “Someone is apt to walk in.”
“You’re right,” Wessel said. “Okay, Tony, give it to him.”
Rick sensed the coming blow and tried to duck. The room exploded,then faded into darkness. His limp body sagged from the chair to the floor.
CHAPTER XV
Shadows in the Night
Had Scotty guessed what had happened to Rick, he would have been frantic. As it was, he was being pushed to the near edge of erupting like a dark-haired volcano. The reason was Gunner’s peculiar actions.
Scotty had followed the dragger, keeping at a safe distance, until darkness began to close down. Then he had followed the white light at the stern of Gunner’s boat. He couldn’t be sure how far they had come: he knew only that they had passed no towns. By the scent in the air, they were close by extensive salt-water marshes.
Gunner alternately throttled down, then speeded up again, but at his fastest, he never exceeded five knots, Scotty figured that he was deliberately killing time, so that he wouldn’t get to some mysterious rendezvous too soon.
He glanced at his watch. It was almost nine. He shook it to see if it were running. Surely more time than Page 83
that had passed!
Up ahead, the lights of Gunner’s boat moved lazily. Scotty tried to relax, but there was too much tension in him. If only he could be certain that the water trail would lead to Rick! He had a hunch that Rick desperately needed him. He might even have phoned the plant to call for aid.
Suddenly Scotty straightened, eyes trying to pierce the darkness ahead. Gunner was swinging into shore.
Scotty killed his engine and drifted, listening. He heard the coughing sound of the dragger’s exhaust, saw the lights move toward the dark bulk of shore. He thought he could make out some kind of building, but he wasn’t sure.
He had been hugging the shore pretty well, now the incoming tide and the swell pushed the motorboat toward the tree-shrouded bank. That was good; he needn’t risk starting the engine again.
In a short while the craft grounded gently and he leaped ashore, carrying a rope. He snubbed it around a tree root that jutted toward the water and secured it. Then he began to make his way through the dark underbrush toward the place where Gunner had pulled in.
Scotty was at home in the woods, even in the darkness. He moved swiftly, silently, and presently came to the edge of a clearing. There was a building there, an abandoned barn, from the look of it. A small pier jutted into the water, and Gunner was tying up to it. After a moment he switched off the dragger’s lights, and there was only the glow of a pipe.
The waiting was hard. Scotty chafed with impatience, but he didn’t move. He lay at full length, screened by underbrush. Mosquitoes settled on his exposed ankles and had a banquet. He made no move toward them. He was taking no chances of giving away his presence.
After what couldn’t have been more than five minutes but seemed like eternity, he heard a car engine. In a moment head lamps cut a swath through the woods and the car rolled into the clearing, pulled up to the dock, and stopped. The engine died and the lights went off.
Scotty could see only dimly. Objects appeared to be shadows rather than substance. He heard the car doors open, heard subdued voices. Two men got out of the car, reached in, dragged something out. A third person! Scotty saw them halfcarry, half drag the limp figure toward Gunner’s boat.
Fear took his heart and twisted it.
Who was it that they carried?
CHAPTER XVI
Swim-or Die!
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Rick was smothering, the weight of a ton of wool pushing him down. A sudden bump jolted his teeth together. He struggled to rise, and a harsh voice warned him:
“Stay put or you’ll get slugged again.”
A foot pushed at him. The voice and the foot belonged to Tony Larzo.
Things began to make some kind of sense. He was on the floor of a car. He could feel the harsh floor rug and the footrest. Yes, he was in the back seat, and there was a blanket over him. He pushed the blanket aside and cool air swept into his parched lungs.
His head ached unbearably. He put up an exploring hand and found a lump the size of an egg. No, two lumps.One above his forehead, the other behind his ear. He looked up at the window and saw that it was dark.
The bumping continued rhythmically, each stroke curling in his tortured head like a whiplash. After a while he identified it. Those were the tar expansion joints in a concrete highway.
Tony spoke from above him. “He’s coming to. Shall I sap him again?”
Manfred Wessel’s hated voice answered from the front seat. “No need. We’ll be turning off the parkway in a minute. Let him yell if he wants to. No one will hear.”
They were on theMerritt Parkway then, and about to turn off it. Much time had passed that he couldn’t account for. He had a dim recollection of trying to sit up, and then something hit him. He pieced together the broken bits of memory and they added up all right.
Tony had knocked him out, back at the garage. Then they had put him in the sedan, perhaps immediately, perhaps not until later, because that must have been almost four hours ago. And after a while they had headed forConnecticut . He probably had come to me sometime during the trip, and Tony had slugged him again.
Rick’s analysis was all right, so far as it went. What he could not know was that Wessel had tried to force a dose of chloral hydrate knockout drops into him at the garage. He had swallowed some, but not enough to keep him drugged for the entire trip. He had shown signs of returning consciousness at a gasoline station, while Wessel was telephoning Gunner, and Tony had hit him again.
He lay quietly, gathering his strength. A break might come, and he wanted to be ready for it. The sedan turned sharply, piling him in a corner. Tony cursed and kicked at him. The bumping of the expansion joints gave way to the smooth hum of tarvia or macadam surfacing. Rick let his mind float off into misty darkness and let his body relax. His time wasn’t here yet. He needed all the strength he could muster.
After a while the sedan made another sharp turn, and the joggling ride told Rick they were on a back road, probably dirt. It seemed to grow worse. His chance might come on this road, if they slowed enough. Little by little he began to gather his legs under him.
The sedan slowed. Rick looked up, past Tony’s head, and saw the dark outlines of trees silhouetted against the lighter darkness of the sky. The sedan slowed even more and crept over some obstacle in the road.
Rick tensed. Now! Now, before they gathered speed again. Soundlessly, with all the drive in his legs, he Page 85
threw himself upward and forward, reaching for the door handle. He gained it! The door swung open!
Something descended with stunning force on his head and the strength flowed out of him. Hands reached out and dragged him back. He fought to keep from losing consciousness, and partially succeeded, but his body refused to obey. He was paralyzed, temporarily unable to move as much as a finger.
Dimly, he heard the car door slam, and voices talking. He didn’t know what they said; he didn’t care.
/> The sedan moved ahead, and presently it swung in a half circle and stopped. Tony got out, stumbling over him. Wessel got out, too.
They reached in and dragged him out, and carried him across rattling boards, his legs dragging. They carried him in through an open door into light that blinded him, and they put him in a chair. He sat upright, his head lolling, and he felt ropes being passed around his arms, around his legs.
Cold water smashed into his face. He shuddered, and the haze cleared. After a moment he looked up, into three faces. When had Gunner come? He couldn’t remember.
“Well, Brant?” Wessel said harshly.
Rick looked up at Wessel and tried to make his face expressionless.
“There’s no one within miles of here. You can yell as much as you like. And you will, too, before we’re through. Unless you make things easy on yourself and tell me what you did with that envelope.”
Rick set his jaw stubbornly and met the renegade scientist’s eyes unflinchingly. Even when Tony slapped him he didn’t take his eyes away.
Gunner winced. “Stop that!”
“Shut up. Listen, I know how to make this bird talk,” Tony grated.
“Go ahead,” Wessel said.
Tony reached into his pocket and came out with a jackknife. He pressed a spring and a gleaming blade snapped open. Rick saw the cabin light reflected from it and a deep shudder racked him.
“Talk,” Tony said, “or I’ll cut my initials on your face!”
The blade was a magnet, drawing his eyes. He saw a tiny nick on the point, almost microscopic in size.
He swallowed hard. The blade came closer, was only inches from his face.
The blade touched his forehead, pressed . . .
A form hurtled through the door and grabbed Tony’s arm. Incredulously Rick saw Scotty! He saw him lift and twist, heard Tony’s scream, saw the knife go flying and heard the sickening crack of Tony’s arm.
Wessel leaped on Scotty’sback, and miraculously continued right over the boy’s head, to land with a stunning crash against a bulkhead.