The radio broke into life: "Attention! Attention! All cars—Attention!"
The driver and the other policeman stiffened slightly. The driver turned another corner onto a traffic street. Three or four blocks along, the bright blue lights of the police station called like a lighthouse, marking the Journey's End.
"Attention! Attention!" said the radio. "All cars be on the lookout for Police Squad Car Seventeen. Stolen—"
The policeman not driving was fumbling in a pocket; found a jangling set of keys and fumbled with them uncertainly. Then Grayson's manacles fell away as the squad car drove up in front of the police station.
"Lively, Grayson," snapped the driver as the car came to a quiet halt.
Still in a complete daze, Paul obeyed stiffly. He followed the driver out of the squad car from the driver's side, squeezing under the steering wheel and forced by the pressure of the other policeman behind him. He was unceremoniously hauled into a waiting sedan, pushed again from behind, and then before he could get his balance the car lurched forward and away.
"That'll kill 'em," chuckled the policeman that had rescued him from the stage.
"Dump their rig and the drunken cops right in front of the station," chuckled the driver of the police car. Both were shucking their blue uniforms. And the driver of the large sedan was not driving like a maniac. He kept to sane speeds, but used side streets.
"Stolen—?" murmured Grayson. Paul was still dazed. Something was going on but he did not know what. He had been ridiculed, charged with murder, arrested, and—but he had not really been arrested for these were not officers of the law. "Wha—what—?" he blurted.
Both of the erstwhile officers laughed. One of them hauled a small flask from his hip pocket and handed it to Paul. "You've had a rough time," he said. "Take a bracer."