Just before it got to the corner, the metal license plate came loose and dropped to the curb, where it skidded along for some ten or fifteen feet.
The traffic officer blew his whistle and held up his hand.
The big Cadillac didn’t stop at once. It looked as though the driver was going to make a run for it. The officer was mad by this time. He reached for his hip. The Cadillac stopped. The officer pointed to the license and said something. The signal was against us and we had stopped. I saw the driver jump from the car, run to the license, saw him exchange a few words with the cop, then pull out his card case and show something to the officer.
“His driving license,” said the cabdriver in response to my question.
The traffic light changed. We went on across the intersection and passed the black Cadillac, but within a block it passed us, and by that time it must have been going sixty miles an hour.
I saw something as the car passed me the second time which I hadn’t noticed the first time. There was a peculiar hole in the front fender of the car. It was the kind of a hole which would have been made by a steel-jacketed bullet.
I wondered about that hole. It looked as though some one had shot at a tire, and the bullet had glanced, then torn its way up through the fender. The license plate was bolted on now. They’d done a hurried job. I wondered why they were in such a hurry.
The boulevard they were following ran along for a couple of miles through a sparsely settled district given over largely to golf and country clubs. Then the road swung into a densely populated district once more. It was the best shortcut to the depot. Pete Ringley had built his house out in the exclusive section, where he had plenty of elbow room and was within easy walking distance of the country clubs. People in that section paid more attention to clubs than to offices.
The cabdriver jammed the brakes on hard.
“Look over there,” he said.
I looked.
The roadster George Ringley had been driving was in the ditch. The fender on one side was badly crumpled. The car rested on its side. One of the front wheels was still turning, barely moving, but turning, nevertheless.
“Stop the car!” I shouted to the cabdriver.
He had it stopped by the time I had wrenched the door open. I got out and looked around the wreck. There was no trace of George Ringley. He had vanished, apparently, into thin air. I looked the seat over. There was no sign of blood. The windshield was cracked. The car had evidently skidded into the ditch. I looked the fenders over once more. They were crumpled, and on one of them was a smear of black, as though it had collided with some object that had been painted black and had scraped off part of the enamel.
“What do you suppose happened?” asked the cabdriver at my elbow.
“Too much speed,” I told him. “He skidded into the ditch. Some car came along and he picked up a ride in it. Let’s go.”
The driver looked the roadster over and nodded.
“I’ll say one thing,” he said, “he didn’t lose any time.”
“Oh, he may have been five minutes ahead of us,” I told him. “Let’s get to the depot.”
The cabdriver shrugged his shoulders. After all, it was no affair of his. I reentered the cab and we drove to the depot without incident. I paid off the cab, entered a telephone booth and called Pete Ringley. I had some little difficulty getting Pete on the telephone. There was a butler or valet, or something, who wanted to know all about me. Finally I heard Pete’s voice.
“Pete,” I said, “George passed me in a roadster. I was in the taxicab. We got a mile or so down the boulevard and saw George’s roadster in the ditch. George wasn’t anywhere around. Have you heard anything from him?”
He hemmed and hawed and hesitated.
“Come on,” I said, “out with it.”
He lowered his voice. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve heard, Bob, but I can’t tell you over the telephone.”
“Sure you can,” I told him. “What is it? Is the boy hurt?”
“Not hurt, Bob,” he said, “he’s been snatched.”
“Been what?” I asked.
“Snatched,” he said; “kidnaped. It’s a new racket that’s sweeping the country. I suppose I should have anticipated something like this. I’m supposed to be a very wealthy man. George is an only child. They telephoned just a minute ago and told me to get fifty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills if I ever wanted to see my boy again. I wasn’t certain that it was on the square, but if you saw the car I guess it is.”
“You’re notifying the police?” I asked.
“Good Lord, no!” he said. “That’s one thing I don’t dare to do! They told me that if I notified the police or said anything about it, the boy would be killed instantly.”
“Suppose they meant it?” I asked.
“Of course they meant it,” he said.
“What are you going to do?”
“Get the money, of course. I can get more fifty-thousand-dollar-cash stakes, but I can’t get another boy. Money doesn’t mean a single damn thing at a time like this. It’s a question of getting my boy back.”
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Don’t say anything about it. I can get the money without attracting any attention. I’ve got four or five times that much on deposit in banks here in the city. Naturally, I’m worried, but worrying isn’t going to help any, and if they knew I told a soul it might be bad for George. That’s why I’m telling you, Bob, because I know I can trust you, and I want you to keep the information under your hat.”
“I’ll keep in touch with you,” I said, “and see how you come out.”
“You won’t need to,” he told me. “As soon as George is returned the newspapers will have the story and then the police will start trying to trace the kidnapers. It’ll be in big headlines all over the country then. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t call up, Bob, because I want to keep the line clear for communication with the men who have George. They’re going to tell me where to take the money.”
“How soon will you have it?” I asked.
“The money?”
“Yes.”
“I can get it within a couple of hours,” he said.
“Okay,” I told him. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“So do I,” he said, “but there’s nothing any one can do. It’s simply a question of raising ransom and raising it fast. And I’m not going to make the mistake of taking a single soul into my confidence. The authorities always bungle cases like this.”
I expressed my sympathy once more and hung up the telephone. My train was due to leave in half an hour, but I didn’t bother about it. I got my bag from a checking stand, went to the lavatories, took out my big six-gun, with the shiny leather holster, black and polished from much exposure to sun and wind, and strapped it around my waist underneath my coat. I knew there was some sort of a law against it, but I didn’t care particularly. I had a hunch and I was going to play it.
I got a taxi and made time back to the intersection, where the cop was still on duty. I got out and walked toward the cop.
He saw me coming and surveyed me frowningly.
“You’ve got some information that I want,” I told him, pulling a ten-dollar bill from my pocket.
He looked at me and at the ten-dollar bill, and his expression was uncordial.
“It’s okay,” I told him, “not only something that you can give out, but something that you should give out in connection with your duty.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I was driving a car,” I said, “when a Cadillac sedan bumped me. At the time I didn’t think it had done any damage. I thought my rear bumper had taken care of it. But when I got home I found that the gasoline tank had been punctured. Now that sedan dropped its license plate when it got to the corner, and you took a look at the operator’s license of the fellow that was driving it. Do you remember the name?”