Now she knew. Her hand went to her slim waist.
At his or her waist each member of The Avenger’s little band always wore a compact little receiving-and-transmitting radio that had been designed by Smitty.
So Nellie’s hand went to her tiny radio to call the help that Fram despaired of getting, and which should trap the trappers down there under the Potomac’s flood.
CHAPTER XV
Catch a Nightmare
Josh and Rosabel had located the pet store from which, about a month ago, had been sold the dachshund answering to the name of Bob.
The pet store proprietor couldn’t remember the purchaser very well.
“He was a bony fellow, well-dressed and, yet, not looking right, somehow. His skin had an unhealthy color. And that’s about all I can tell you.”
It was enough for Josh and Rosabel.
A bony man with a skin like tallow had tried to kill Smitty and Mac at Bison Park. A bony man with a new scar across his forehead which, The Avenger had surmised, was made by the heavy end of a trash basket thrown at him by Spencer Sewell.
Which meant that he was the murderer of Sewell and Sheriff Aldershot.
Now this character was turned up as the purchaser of a dachshund.
“You have his address?” Josh asked. Ordinarily he talked and looked as sleepy as a worthless houn’ dog from his own South. But now the Negro was using his best and most precise English. He had to appear authoritative or he wouldn’t have gotten any information at all. As it was, the pet-store owner was talking with a great deal of reluctance.
“Of course I have the address of the buyer,” said the man. “But I don’t see why it should concern you—”
“I’ve already said,” Josh retorted, stretching the truth a little, “that we want to know because we found such a dog and would like to return it to its owner.”
The pet-shop man shrugged and opened an account book.
“Name of the buyer: Job Petrie. Address: 2232 K Street, Georgetown,” he said ungraciously. “I doubt if you’ll get a reward from Mr. Petrie. He didn’t strike me as a man who liked dogs very much. He probably bought it for a friend.”
“Then he can tell us where to find the friend,” said Josh.
He thanked the man and left, with Rosabel. But outside the pet shop they looked at each other and shrugged.
It looked as though they had struck a hot scent — but a short one. For, of course, the bony man wouldn’t have given a real address.
There was no such number as 2232 K Street in Georgetown. Where it would have been, along a well-to-do residential street, was only a vacant lot.
“Stuck!” said Josh.
But Rosabel shook her head slowly, soft dark eyes intent. Rosabel had plenty of brains, and she kept them polished by frequent and efficient use.
“There’s only this one vacant lot for blocks along here,” she observed. “All the rest is built up.”
“Well?” said Josh.
“Well, the man who bought the dog could hardly give the first number that came into his head — and have it just happen to be this vacant lot. The chances are a hundred to one against such a coincidence.”
Josh’s quick brain was getting into step. “Of course!” he said. “The purchaser gave this address because he knew it was a vacant lot. He did it to throw off all possible investigation. But to know that, he must be very familiar with the neighborhood. In fact, it’s a safe bet that his real address is near here. Let’s get a city directory. An old one, if possible.”
They went to the next street, where a few stores were mingled among houses not quite so pretentious as those on K Street. In a drugstore, they found a directory about three years old.
House by house they checked the block they were in and the block on either side.
They were in an old section; and the people there were home owners and not transient. They were looking for a recent buyer or renter in the neighborhood; but they didn’t find one.
But almost behind the vacant lot, on the next street, there was a vacant store.
Josh and Rosabel looked at each other. It was the one possible location for monkey business that showed anywhere around there. They went back down the street and through an alley to the rear of the vacant store.
There was a cluttered back yard and a general air of desolation, as if no one had been around the place in years. The two went to the rear door anyway.
Josh didn’t need to point to the lock. He and Rosabel worked so closely together that she had seen it as soon as he.
There was a shiny scratch on the lock where a key had recently been used.
Rosabel took a bobby-pin from her jet-black hair and handed it wordlessly to Josh. Josh bent it, inserted it in the lock experimentally, bent it a little more, and opened the door.
They stepped in.
There was a large back room, one side of which had been partitioned off and had a frosted-glass door in the partition. Then there was an open door to the front room of the store. A little light came from that one. Not much. The store front was shuttered.
They started toward that door, and then stopped. A noise had sounded within the small, narrow space partitioned off as an office. Josh took a step toward that, to throw the frosted-glass door open. But it was opened before they got there.
As silently as if swinging of its own volition, with no hand touching it, it opened back. And Josh and Rosabel croaked out exclamations and stared with rings of white showing clear around the pupils in their rolling eyeballs.
A little man, bright-red in color, stood in the doorway. The impossible little fellow was in frock coat and topper. At the end of a leash of braided flowers he had a dog. The dog was grass-green, and was smiling.
“For the love of—” breathed Josh.
A sound came from the door to the front room of the store. They turned.
There, on that threshold, was a little red man and a smiling green dog.
Rosabel checked a scream. She and Josh stared first at the one unbelievable apparition and then at the other, identical one. And after that they acted.
When in doubt, jump.
Rosabel sprang like a black tigress for the little man in the office doorway. Josh jumped at the little man in the store doorway.
And both found their hands clutching tangible substance.
These things looked like nightmares, more than anything that could really exist. But if so, each of The Avenger’s assistants caught a nightmare.
Rosabel’s little red man spoke first.
“Stop twisting my arm, will you?” he said peevishly. “You’re about three times as big as me. You don’t have to break me all up.”
Josh’s small red captive was yelling at the top of his voice.
The green dachshunds were apparently barking like mad — but no sound came from them. Then Josh caught on to the entry in the veterinarian’s book:
“Vocal cords cut.”
And also he caught on to a lot of other things.
“What’s you going to with us?” squalled one of the little men. They were quite unremarkable midgets, dyed red, when you examined them closely. And the dogs were quite ordinary dachshunds, dyed green, with lines cleverly painted at the corners of their mouths, thus making them appear to be smiling.
“What’re you going to do to us?” the little red man repeated sulkily. “We ain’t done nothin’. We just worked for a guy a coupla times who wanted to play a practical joke on some friends. And we posed for a coupla pictures. And that’s all.”
Josh knew, now, what The Avenger, it was apparent, had known for some time.
“Practical joke?” he burst out. “Why, say! This is the threat that was held over the Senators! This is the thing that’s making them willing to put over the Bison Park steal, even though it means their finish politically.”