Rosabel nodded, dark eyes bright.
“They’d see this impossible sight,” she said, “and be convinced they were going crazy. They wouldn’t dare tell anyone about it. They wouldn’t dare even talk to each other about it. They’d be too afraid of being put in padded cells.”
“And then,” added Josh, “they’d be horrified to find that someone, probably this psychiatrist, Fram, had ‘discovered’ their secret. They could be threatened with a lifetime in an asylum if they didn’t do just as they were told!”
One of the almost identical little red midgets spoke up, jerking at Josh’s viselike hand.
“I tell you, it was all done for a joke! The guy who hired us said so. He wanted to play tricks on a couple of senators and a congressman; so we paraded in front of ’em at odd times when nobody else was around. One of ’em, Burnside, shot at me,” he added angrily. “Almost winged me. Then my pal walked into another doorway and drew his attention away from me.”
Josh was puzzling over something.
“How can you live in steam?” he said.
“Live in steam? You’re nuts,” his captive snapped. For a miniature, he was certainly bad-tempered.
“In Bison Park,” exclaimed Josh, remembering Mac’s and Smitty’s account of seeing a little red man and a green dog in the heart of the steam column from lost Geyser.
“Bison Park? We were never in Bison Park in our lives,” snarled the little man.
“You had the dogs’ vocal cords cut, so they couldn’t bark, and make your victim realize that he was seeing something real instead of the fantasy of a disordered mind.”
“We didn’t have the dogs fixed,” protested the little fellow writhing in Rosabel’s resolute grasp. “The guy who hired us must have. Because the dogs never barked when we had ’em. So what? Lots of folks have the bark cut out of a dog, so they won’t keep the neighbors awake at night.”
Josh returned to one of the midgets’ statements.
“You say one of the men you paraded in front of was a congressman.”
“Yeah!”
“Was it Congressman Coolie?”
“Yeah. That’s the one. Congressman Coolie.” The little man scratched his bright-red chin with his bright-red hand. “The one that got bumped off by somebody just last night. He didn’t fall for the joke at all. Just asked us who the devil we were and what the devil we were doing in his house. He threw a chair at me and nearly got me. He wasn’t scared a bit.”
Josh thought he knew the answer to that one, too.
“I looked over that short biographical sketch of Coolie, that I got for Mr. Benson,” he said to Rosabel. “It said the Congressman was color blind. You see? Coolie didn’t see what the rest did. All he saw was a little man with a dog, without the crazy coloring. It wasn’t quite enough to plant the insanity scare in his mind. He held out on the Bison Park deal, therefore, because he wasn’t properly subdued. So they had to kill him to get him out of their way.”
“I think you’re right,” nodded his pretty wife. “But Josh — who are,’they’?”
Josh turned to his diminutive captive. “Who hired you for these practical jokes, to assume for the moment that you aren’t lying?”
“I’m not lying. The guy who hired us was a bony man with a pale face, as if he had been sick a long time. Said his name was Petrie. Just lately he showed up with a cut down his forehead. That’s all we know about him.”
“Josh—” began Rosabel.
But he held his hand quickly to stop her, and she didn’t say whatever it was she’d had in mind.
The upraised hand was not necessary to halt her. She had felt the same thing he had — the thing that had brought the intent look into his black eyes.
A slight tingling at her waist.
That tingling was the vibrating little signal of their belt radios that same other member wanted to contact them. Josh took his radio out with his free hand.
“Hey, that’s a cute little dingbat,” said his midget. “Where do you buy—”
“Shut up!” snapped Josh.
And a tiny but sweet voice came from the little set. An urgent voice. The voice of Nellie Gray.
“Mac — Smitty — Josh — Chief. Nellie Gray talking. If any of you hear this, come to the aid of Nan Stanton and myself. We are being held for death. Come as soon as you can. We are being held in a cell in a tunnel under the Potomac River. The entrance to the tunnel is through a vacant warehouse. Part of the sign over the warehouse is — RAIN CO. Probably some grain company. In the basement, a concealed manhole leads to the tunnel. Watch for a lever about fifty yards from the tunnel entrance. If there is anyone at the lever, get him before he can pull it down. It operates a floodgate which will flood the whole tube. I will repeat. We are held in an abandoned tunnel under the Potomac River. The entrance is through a vacant warehouse with the sign—”
Josh laid his little radio down so as to have both hands free. He grabbed Rosabel’s midget, and held both.
“The dog leashes,” he said. “Get them free, and we’ll tie these two back to back.”
Rosabel’s slim dark hands were flying before he had finished the sentence. The leashes were really of leather thong, with the flowers braided over the outside. Rosabel used one to bind the midgets’ ankles securely together, and the other to pass first around their chests and then in a deft loop over the wrists of each small man.
“Hey!” snarled one of the midgets. “You can’t do this to us. Leave us loose. We ain’t done a thing—”
“We’ll see later just how much you’re guilty of,” said Josh. “Meantime, you’ll stay here, on ice, for a more thorough questioning.”
They left the raging little men and the soundlessly barking dachshunds and piled into their car to seek for a warehouse on the river with the sign — RAIN CO.
Several miles away, Mac and Smitty were racing on the same mission in their car.
SOS! Nellie Gray! She didn’t have to call twice.
CHAPTER XVI
Terror in the Senate
There were few visitors in the Senate gallery. Perhaps it was the earliness of the hour; perhaps it was because no very important legislation was on the slate for the opening.
The Avenger, disguised as Tetlow Adams, looked around.
There were half a dozen middle-aged women, looking as if they might be a small party touring the Capitol. There were several newspaper reporters. And there was a man who seemed to have been able to smuggle a small camera into the gallery. The man was vague-looking, with watery brown eyes, not dressed very well. He had his small camera up between the folds of his coat, where it could only be seen from straight ahead — or by eyes as keen as The Avenger’s.
Just these few in the gallery. And there weren’t many more than that in the room below.
About twenty-five senators were there, reading newspapers, talking in low tones, walking on and off the floor. The rest were in various cloakrooms.
All the senators reported to have had anything to do with Dr. Fram, however, were present. Benson’s eyes went from Wade to Cutten, and Hornblow, and Collendar, and Burnside.
Yes, the Senator taken from The Avenger’s hideout was there. Benson had been sure he would be. It was improbable that Burnside would have been hurt or killed — or permanently detained. His usefulness was there on that Senate floor.
Burnside looked like a man who was ill. His face was pale. His eyes were dull and weary. His shoulders drooped. His fingers drummed nervously on his desk top, and his gaze was confined to those fingers and that desk top. He didn’t look at anyone else.
The rest of the senators whose names were linked with Fram’s were pale and nervous too; but not so much so as Burnside.