That had been the beginning of an experiment; an experiment, Bradley had to admit to himself, that he might be feeling more than a little foolish about later on. But over-confidence in company not formally introduced had just missed netting him a headstone once that night, and he couldn’t help seeing something just a bit bizarre in people who carefully locked their garage when the car was touring.
A drumfire of gay chatter came at him across the table, but despite it his eyelids began to droop a little after a time. That was a continuation of the experiment, and a notable success. It wasn’t hard for him to look sleepy, because he was sleepy. When the roast had come his attack on it was feeble.
“You’re dog-tired,” he stood accused through that failure. “Too tired to eat.”
Bradley indignantly denied it, eyes half closed but not yet losing sight of those doors at the rear. A sixth sense told him that his danger, if there really was danger for him here and he wasn’t the victim of an addled imagination, lay behind one of them.
In the face of raillery, his eyelids drooped lower and his head sank. He answered with a mumble to another invitation to remove his gun-belt. Then he slumped sleepily in his chair.
She apparently had been expecting that. Her chatter ceased. Silence spun out long. He heard chair legs scrape and then a hand was at his belt and a whisper at his ear.
“You’re not comfortable. Do you hear me? Do let me get that belt off — there’s a dear.”
But the hand on the belt was not at the buckle; it was moving to the holster. Bradley was breathing heavily and the blond woman’s own breath was coming fast now.
“Can’t you hear, honey? I’m trying to help you,” she softly insisted.
Bradley had the holster safely pinned under the chair arm, his whole weight anchoring it, when her hand reached it. In another instant, tugging, she had disclosed the true source of her solicitude — and it exactly confirmed the suspicion on which Bradley had undertaken the test. He couldn’t want any better proof than this that the tea he had sprinkled on the rug instead of drinking had actually been doped. His imagination hadn’t gone haywire, but had simply proved itself in good working order. Her whole aim had been to get him separated from his pistol. How, without help, did she think she was going to accomplish the separation now?
While she pulled at the holster, less careful when she was sure he was too far gone to know what was happening, Bradley’s mind was busy.
If he had been brought out here to drink drugged tea and to be disarmed, that certainly clinched it that the telephone call had been bait in a trap for him. But whose trap? Why all this elaborate stage setting when he was traveling daily through the hills alone and a stray bullet through the back would finish him any old time?
While he was in this position the blond Lorelei couldn’t get the gun and she couldn’t budge him. She soon found that out.
Through slitted eyes he saw her cross the room and open that second door at the rear — the door which until then had stood closed. Beyond it, she whispered to somebody hidden there in a big closet. A man’s whisper replied.
In a moment the man had appeared. Bradley had thought a lot of things out by then and was less surprised than exultant. The man was Dutch Gompert!
“And that,” said Gompert, looking toward the table, “is the dumbbell that’s had these hick hill-counties buffaloed! The wise guy! Couldn’t he be grabbed off easy, though? Wasn’t I right?”
“He’s got the gun wedged there, somehow,” the woman complained in the querulous voice of Red Riding Hood.
“Hell of a lot of good the gun is to him!” scoffed Gompert. He stood scratching his chin. “Just about ready to roll up and sink,” he added with a flat laugh. “It’s a lot neater this way, Gwen. When the water’s deep enough, it’s a swell way to get rid of a guy you don’t like around. No blood, no dirt — just, plop! — and he’s gone for good.”
The woman moved closer to Bradley.
“I don’t like the idea of him having that gun on him,” she murmured. “You get it, why don’t you? If he comes out of it—”
“He won’t,” Dutch said. “Not a chance. The Crow know’s more about dope than half the doctors. This boy friend’ll be in the drink before he’s due to rise and chirp.” He walked to the wall phone. “The first thing to do is call Little Moose and take a load off Scudder’s mind.”
Directly after that the wall phone tinkled. Gompert called for a number and got it.
“Scudder?” he asked. “Everything’s jake at Gwen’s, Scud. Yeah, he came and he fell. I mean it. He’s here, dead to the world. I’ll be bringing him over.”
Gompert hung up and turned from the phone.
“Now I’ll unharness your prize bull,” he said.
He took one step toward Bradley and stopped short with a strangled oath. The blond screamed. The gray figure was no longer slumping, but erect in the chair and the police positive was out of its holster leveled at the end of a steady gray arm.
“Be careful how you take hold of the pistol, Gompert,” recommended Bradley, eyes wide open. “The end aimed your way is hot!”
Chapter X
Road Closed!
Somewhere or other, Dutch Gompert had got another gun to replace the one Bradley had taken from him at the lakeside bungalow. It was in his shoulder holster now — but it was Bradley who drew it, his own pistol jabbing hard into Gompert’s ribs.
Then his handcuffs flashed out. A moment later he shoved Dutch back into the closet, the blond woman safely manacled to him and passionately accusing him of responsibility for the upset. He turned a key on their vitriolic quarrel and pocketed it. The door was a heavy one. They’d stay put.
Now what? Ahead of him lay the chance of a single-handed capture out at Little Moose Lake, a spectacular grab, the walloping thrill of a big job done without help. Scudder being there meant that Thorne Duncan’s little girl was there. Capture, rescue and the salvaging of Morton Wendover’s career in politics — a one-man accomplishment!
But he couldn’t chance it. He didn’t have the right to. They’d certainly put up a fight against one lone trooper, might get him before he got them. Against a big posse, though, they’d see they didn’t have a show. What was he to consider — glory for himself or safety for the kid?
No argument there. To hell with glory!
When he called High Acres on Gwen’s telephone and exploded his bombshell of news, he was throwing glory out the window. Duncan, wildly excited, called the Governor into consultation while Bradley held the wire. Then Wendover was on the line, his voice crisp.
“Good work, Bradley! Damned good work! I’ve got a road map in front of me, and if the kidnapers are at Little Moose lake we can bottle ’em up. One posse going in from Holtsville and another coming west from Fairchild will do it. I’m phoning both places at once. You pick up the Holtsville posse at the crossroad and take charge. Duncan and I will be with the other one.”
Bradley didn’t have to go to the crossroad to pick up the Holtsville posse. They had to come by the Ketchum homestead, and when they did he sent his two handcuffed prisoners back to the Holtsville jail in one of the half dozen cars.
The storm had broken then and a driving sleet stung his face as he led his score of armed special deputies over the hill road. At half past one he was looking down for the second time that night at Little Moose Lake and a lighted bungalow. Now a big sedan stood outside the house.