There was no sound from the silent mansion. Bruce waited a second to make sure that his attack on the butler had been unobserved. Then he closed the heavy garage door and the sound of his laughter was ugly. He kicked Charles brutally in the ribs until the slumped servant stirred and groaned.
"You dog!" he snarled. "You cheap snooping rascal! Thought you'd do a little spying, eh? Well, you've just sealed your death warrant!"
Charles was staring in terror. A new car that he had never seen before was
parked in the front space of the garage. Directly opposite it was Arnold Dixon's
personal car, whose mechanism Bruce had just finished tampering with.
"Where - where did that new car come from?" Charles gasped.
"I drove it in here, you fool! It's going to carry both of us, when we leave here presently."
"You're kidnapping me?" Charles whispered.
"I'm doing better than that. I'm killing you!"
It was hard to believe that this was the same young man who had left the mansion by the front door only an hour and a half before. His good-looking face
was stiff with rage. His lips were a thin murderous line.
"You're not Dixon's real son!" Charles cried. "I was right! I warned Mr.
Timothy! Help! Murder!"
Bruce covered the cry with the pressure of his palm. A blow on the head ended all chance for the butler warning the old man in the silent mansion a few
hundred yards away.
DAZED, Charles saw his captor lift the garage telephone from its hook. He tried to shout, but his vocal cords were paralyzed. He heard the young man call
his father's phone number - the private one in his father's room.
"Hello, dad!" He was deliberately making his voice urgent, almost terrified. "This is Bruce. Dad, you've got to come to me - at once! I'm in New York!" His voice dropped to a purring whisper. "I've found out who stole the Cup of Confucius!"
There was a pause, thinly filled by the squeak of his father's voice on the wire. Then again Bruce was speaking racing words, lying words, into the instrument. He gave an address in lower New York.
"There are two of them in the apartment. The crook in the brown beard and a henchman of his. I'm calling from a drug store across the street. And they've
got the cup with them, dad - I saw them carry it in!"
"What shall I do?" Arnold Dixon's voice shrilled in far-away excitement.
"Get your car. The small one. Drive as fast as you can to New York. I'll meet you in the drug store on the corner, opposite the address I've mentioned.
And dad - don't take the regular road. It's too crowded with traffic; the thieves may get away from me before you arrive."
His eyes were cold slits.
"Take the winding road - the shortcut that runs past the stone quarries.
You can make faster time, that way. I - I can't talk any longer. I'll be waiting!"
Bruce hung up the receiver with a click. He heaved the fainting butler into the new car that was waiting with its motor purring softly. A moment later, the garage door opened and the car emerged.
Bruce backed up and made a quick turn. With his eyes alertly on the rear of the mansion, he drove off along a weedy lane that traversed the back of the sprawling estate. It led to a wooden gate that opened on a back road.
The road was unpaved, but Bruce stepped recklessly on the gas and sent the
car hurtling along at a furious pace. Presently, he came to an intersection and
took the left turn.
The only vehicle that used this dangerous, winding road were the trucks that formerly ran to and from the quarry pits a mile or two onward. Now the pits were deserted, because of the business failure of the contractor who had owned them.
Bruce slowed his reckless speed. He had to or risk the plunge of his car and himself down the steep chasm of a deserted quarry pit. The road made a sharp S at this point as it wound past the enormous excavation in the earth.
THE sweating son of Arnold Dixon drove around the first sharp swing of the
S. He brought his car to a halt in the shadow of scraggly scrub oak and pine that lined the steep hillside opposite the quarry excavation.
On the inner side of the curve was frail wooden guard-rail painted white.
It was the only protection against a dizzy plunge to death. Bruce laughed as he
saw it.
He roped Charles's ankles and wrists and tossed the moaning butler into the weeds behind the shadow of his halted car.
Charles made no outcry. His head lolled like a dead man's. He had fainted.
That suited Bruce perfectly. Seizing a large tin of oil he ran back along the deserted road to the point where the concealed curve commenced. He spread a
thick, wavering line of oil along the hard surface of the highway. Bruce's plan
was simple.
A car, racing along at high speed, would be forced to brake for the sharp turn. The oil under the wheels would cause an instant skid. The car, swerving toward the low wooden railing, would be doomed unless the driver, by a desperate wrench of the steering wheel, succeeded in easing it out of its skid.
One such tug - and the tampered steering mechanism would snap.
Bruce had one more detail to take care of any unforeseen hitch to his murderous plans. A light rifle lay on the floor of his own hidden car.
Stationed out of sight behind the sweep of green leaves, he intended to put a bullet into the front tire of his father's automobile and explode it to a flat pancake.
But only in case of emergency. He didn't want any bullet holes showing in the wrecked car. The oil on the road would be an impossible clue for a coroner's jury. Oil might mean carelessness, a leaky truck - almost anything.
The jury would find the smashed bodies of Charles - Bruce intended to throw the
butler's body after the car - and Arnold Dixon and return a verdict of accidental death caused by reckless driving.
Such were the grim thoughts of the youthful killer as he reached into his parked car beyond the first curve and picked up the light rifle he had secreted
there.
Suddenly, a warning thought struck him. He turned, glanced toward the sheltered spot where the unconscious body of Charles had lain. He uttered a frightened oath as be saw that the trampled grass was empty.
Charles was gone! He was not unconscious, as he had pretended to be. The hasty cords that had bound his ankles and wrists were lying under the bush where the butler had been trussed.
HARDLY had the significance of this disaster flashed on the mind of Bruce when a sound from the road itself made him whirl about. It was the noise of an automobile approaching the curve at high speed.
That distant roar was echoed by a shriller sound; the scream of a man desperate with determination. It came from the wide open throat of Charles. He had leaped suddenly into the road, was racing at top speed toward the bend of the curve, waving his arms high above his head. Screaming a warning -
It was remarkable how the old servant could run. Before Bruce had time to squeeze his rifle trigger, Charles had turned the curve and was hidden by the steep shoulder of the slope that formed the outer side of the hairpin.
Bruce raced after him.
A louder sound drowned out the piercing yells of Charles. It was the squeal of tortured brakes. The motor of the approaching car had been cut off.
It was sliding with locked wheels to an abrupt stop on the unseen straight-away
that preceded that first sharp curve of the quarry highway.
Bruce Dixon dropped panting to one knee. His face peered around the boulder that marked the bend in the road. His rifle leaped to his shoulder.
The speeding car had already jerked to a halt. Broad black tire-marks on the pavement behind it testified to the sure power of those brakes. Only the steering gear was damaged, and the straightness of the approach had given no occasion for Arnold Dixon to twist the weakened wheel.