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Show WAll Over But the IfgP piarRicharfi Powell- Shooting M j,r&:W- AN INNER SANCTUM MYSTERY f $''ft f ililU STARRING ARAB t AMDY BLAKE. o fe.tu.is Kl THE STORY THUS FAR : Lt. Andy Blake and his wife, Arab, discovered evidence evi-dence ol a spy ring headed by a Mr. Jones. They arranged to have Jones and his gang follow to Andy's home. While there Renee, who kept the hangout, came through the window and was taken to the i cellar. Arab tried to escape but was captured by Jones. Renee tried to Ibelp Andy by cutting a small hole over his heart so that when Jones broke Into the cellar he left Andy there, believing him dead. Andy rushed to his superior, .reported the whole matter, then headed to a black market gas station used by Jones. He captured the operator, but not until the operators had sent out an alarm to the gang. CHAPTER XIII The War Department connection came through and I gave the extension ex-tension number. In the few seconds' sec-onds' pause I yanked at buttons, squirmed out of my blouse. The regulation belt with its telltale brass buckle and keeper went next. It was just as well to be set. I had the tie hall undone as our branch secretary answered the phone. "It's Blake," I said. "Get Colonel Parker." In another moment his voice rumbled rum-bled over the wire and I began babbling bab-bling out the story and trying to listen lis-ten to him with one ear and to road noises with the other. I was incoherent in-coherent at first. If an average person per-son had been on the other end, saying say-ing "Huh?" and "What's that?" and "I didn't get that," we'd have had the wire snarled faster than a kitten with a ball of yarn. But the chief brought me along like a CO. handling a green forward observer. When I finished, he had all the facts and he had them straight. "Blake," he said, "can you give us fifteen minutes?" "I'll try, sir. But the way this guy's listening he expects his friends awfully soon." "Got a gun?" "No, sir." "Then get your prisoner hidden and " My left ear went out of business and my right took over. It had picked up a faint hum. Like bees swarming. But bees don't swarm in late October. "Blake, did you hear me?" The hum was rising. Ninety horsepower would sound like that a quarter mile away. "Blake! Blake!" I whirled to the mouthpiece. "Car on the way, Colonel. Hitting plenty. This looks like it." "Won't hold you, then. Good luck." The receiver clacked. I slammed it into the holder, and cleared for action. My fingers had finished loosening loos-ening my tie as I talked. I flung it into a corner, ripped the shoulder straps from my O.D. shirt, and got id of my dog tags.. That left nothing noth-ing to scream army. Two hundred yards down the road tires yowled around the curve. I dropped to the floor and rolled oil and grease and dirt into my clothes. It wasn't enough. I scrambled to the workbench work-bench and found a battered tin can filled with penetrating oil and rusted parts. I dipped both hands in it, ran them through my hair. They were looking for a redheaded guy. I gave my face a smearing, snatched an old sweater from a hook, dove into it, and swiped the lanky man's crumpled felt hat. The shack trembled to the roar of eight cylinders. Brakes shrieked. I slugged the lanky man back of the ear just hard enough to make him groggy. Not a time for playing nice. Then I ran outside and saw dust still spurting behind a big sedan. "Jeez," I yelled, "am I glad you guys got here! I thought you was never comin'!" Two big men piled out of the car and came at me like guards double-teaming a tackle. Big hard hands jolted me, twisted my arms into pretzels behind my back, slapped my body. I howled, "Take it easy! I'm with you guys!" They moved in high gear but thought in low. Right away they handed me the lanky man's name. "Who're you?" one said. "Where's Eddie? Make it fast if you wanna be able to scratch again." He gave the arm he held an extra twist. "Eddie got nailed!" I cried. "I'm just tryin' to help. Gimme a chance. The army put the snatch on him!" The pressure eased. Two square stolid faces pushed close to mine. "Whatcha mean, the army? Quit yammering and give out!" "I'm tryin', fellows. .This army lieutenant come back, see? He was onto Eddie sugarin' his gas. He sticks a rod in Eddie's ribs and says come on, buddy, we're goin' for a trip up U. S. 1 and you're gonna show me where Jones and Raeder and the others hang out. And he makes Eddie get in his car and they drive off. Jeez, it was oney a couple minutes after Eddie buzzed you." "What were you doin' all this time?" "I was in the house. I watched him. He didn't know there was anybody any-body but Eddie. I couldn't do nothing noth-ing I didn't have no rod." One of them jarred me with the heel of his thick hand. "Yah," he said, "if you'd had a rod you wouldn't of used it. You duu't weijJli in like a real guy, for my money." The other codded, said, "I lined him up for a rat." They looked at me disgustedly, but let my arms go. They weren't so worried about me now. They had me typed, and it Was a type they understood. I had been lucky. It isn't healthy to puzzle guys like them. Playing rat might not be nice work, but there was more future in it than playing suspicious character. "Whaddya want?" I whined. "Want me to come out and bite that rod outla his hand?" One of them slapped me. Not hard. The kind of slap that tells a rat he belongs. The kind a real guy gets on his back. "What was you doin' here, huh?" "Just helpin' Eddie out, that's all. Listen, fellows " "Aah, Eddie didn't go in for helpers. help-ers. You're hidin' out. Who's look-in' look-in' for you, huh?" "It was just a little job I pulled up north. Nothin' much." "Yeah? What kind of job? Let's hear it." "You'll make him cry. He never pulled a job. Where's your draft card, jerk?" '"I I lost it somewheres." "It gets me," one of them said. "These jerks will plead to anything except keepin' one jump ahead of a Greetings." "All right, 1-A. Fill up the tank, quick." I fumbled in my pocket, brought out the key. That seemed to wipe out any remaining suspicion. I went to work filling their tank. My hands kept shaking. All they had to do was to glance into the repair shop . . . but they didn't. I finished the I grabbed a handful of dirty rags and stuffed them into his mouth. job, screwed the cap on tight. I had their license number and a good description. de-scription. They wouldn't get far up U. S. 1. "You oughtta be able to catch that car," I said. "He don't have too much of a lead. Smack him one for me, will you?" One of them laughed. "Do your own smacking," he said. He wrenched open the rear door and shoved me into the car. "We like your company." , "Listen, fellows, I got to stick around here! Jeez, if a highway cop says Where's my draft card and I " "Shut up! We need you to spot the car." He climbed in beside me. "Take it away, chum," he told his partner. The engine howled. The big sedan se-dan made a rocking turn which slammed me against my companion, compan-ion, and roared back the way it had come. Only five minutes had passed since Colonel Parker had hung up. Five minutes . . . and he had asked me for fifteen. I had let him down. I had let a lot of swell people down. And I might have cost Arab her only chance of rescue. It was no use counting on cops, but the army was something else. Every time we screeched around a bend I prayed for a road block and a squad of tough G.I.'s from Meade in battle dress. A couple of phone calls from the gas station would sew up this road until armor couldn't get through. Curve after curve loomed ahead and then dwindled in the rear-view rear-view mirror. I chilled a little more each time. My idea had been on the optimistic side. I couldn't expect ex-pect the army to read minds. Probably they were losing time right now searching the underbrush around the gas station for my body. When they didn't find it they wouldn't know where to look next . . . until they got the lanky man talking. , It takes time to loosen up a man when you don't use Axis methods. Until he talked, the army was looking for an unidentified car filled with an unknown number of strangers headed in an undisclosed direction. The car nearcd Baltimore. Once the man next to me snapped orders to keep a closer watch for the green coupe I had described. Both he and the driver were getting jumpy. We spotted a green car at a diner, and two thick automatics slid out into two big hands. They almost seemed j to doubt my word when I said it wasn't the car, and the driver slowed to check. But the car had Delaware p'.ates and we went on. We slipped through Baltimore shortly after ten. Then came open country, and the driver swerved to the side of the road and halted. "Wei!?" he said, scowling at me. "Who, me?" I asked. An elbow slammed into my ribs. Not extra hard. Just enough to remind re-mind me of my place. "Where's the car? Where's Eddie?" "How would I know?" I whined. "I ain't been carryin' them in my pocket." "A clown," the driver said, reaching reach-ing back to clip my jaw warningly. "Why didn't we spot that car? You said he took Eddie up U. S. 1. What about the sugar in his gas tank? We didn't see no green coop stopped anywhere." "Maybe he stopped and drained his tank before we caught up," 1 said. "He could have had time foi a fast job. He could still be uf ahead, couldn't he?!' "Not now, jerk, not now." He looked at me from empty blue eyes and said, "You know why? On ao count of Eddie don't know where we go from Baltimore." It took a few seconds for that tc sink in. When it did, I got sick. The army wouldn't be able to fine out the location of the hangout frorr Eddie. He would give them Balti more and then they would have tc guess. They still had the whole Jersey Jer-sey and Maryland coastline to worl on. It would take ten divisions tc check that coastline, and it couldn'1 be done between now and tomorrow morning. About now was time foi me to get my brain out of cold storage. stor-age. I had been letting things slide counting on others to clean up the mess. I hadn't even noticed, for example, ex-ample, that we had turned off U. S 1 in Baltimore and had taken the more easterly highway: 40. It tool a route marker near the car to make me realize that. "What do you think?" the drivei asked his buddy. "Get going. But watch for a tail." "If you guys don't want me nc more," I said, "I'll thumb a ride back and " A slap ended tMt try. "We're taking tak-ing you along, jerk," my companion compan-ion said. "The chief might want tc get a load of you." From that point on we didn't trj to set any speed records. In oper country we eased along at thirty. Occasionally another car would tag along behind us for a while, and the big men would start to worry. Oui car would drift into a side road and then crouch on its rear springs frorr sudden acceleration. Sometimes we made long detours, or turned intc side roads and parked to watch traffic traf-fic on the highway. Once a lighi plane circled overhead and the big car ran for cover like a rabbit un der a hawk. A little while later I noticed mj companion staring at my shoes. The shoes were dirty enough, but the russet leather wasn't cracked, the laces were neat, and the heel: weren't run over at the back. shuffled my feet back out of sight Nothing was said, but I knew tha this and other odd facts were bein studied. The two big men had low gear minds, but low gear will ge: you places if you have time to spare. And low-gear minds aren't likely tc get off the track. We stopped for more gas at e place in Delaware. They let me gc into the washroom alone while mj companion smoked a cigarette out side the window. I had time to teai off a piece of paper towel, write Colonel Parker's War Departmeni address, and print: ONE-THIRT'i MID-DELAWARE SEDAN VIR GINIA LICENSE 360642 ROUTE 4( HEADED JERSEY STOP UNDEB SUSPICION BUT NOT YET PRIS ONER STOP BLAKE. Underneath I wrote: Telegram. URGENT! underlined URGENT three times and backed it up by folding a five dollar bill in the paper. It made small wad which I could hide in mj hand until I got a chance to pass il to somebody respectable. They let me get away with that, but when we reached the Newcastle Pennsville ferry one of them stucli beside me wherever I went. I had no chance to slip the telegram tc anyone. By the time we rolled ur the Jersey ramp the wadded papei was getting damp with sweat. Aj we drove on I noticed that my pal nc longer kept his automatic in his pocket. It was on the far side 01 the seat beside him. I knew whal the books said to do: clip him across the throat, grab the gun, and plug the man up front. But maybe mj pals hadn't read the same books, And I hadn't the right to take thai kind of gamble . . . yet. Ten miles into Jersey we stopped at a diner for coffee and sinkers. A faded middle-aged woman served us and wondered aloud if we knew a war job for anybody with arthritis. She told us that gas rationing had ruined the diner business. When we finished I made my bid. "Let me take this," I said, and wen! to the cash register before they could answer. I dug out a dollar bill with a flourish, turned my back to them, and handed the woman the dollar and the folded note. She gave me the change from the dollar, fingered fin-gered the note, saw the five, and started to speak. (TO BE CONTINUED) |
