He might have saved himself the trip.
The bird had flown again. Not only was Frank Nostrand not at the Madison Air Laboratories, but he wasn't at home either. Larry Woolford, mindful of his departmental chief's words on the prestige these people carried, took a full hour in acquiring a search warrant before breaking into the Nostrand home.
Nostrand was supposedly a bachelor, but the auto-bungalow, similar to Larry Woolford's own, showed signs of double occupancy, and there was little indication that the guest had been a woman.
Disgruntled, Larry Woolford dialed the offices, asked for Walt Foster. It took nearly ten minutes before his colleague faded in.
“I'm up to my eyebrows, Larry. What'd you want?”
Larry gave him Frank Nostrand's address. “This guy's disappeared, Walt.”
“So?”
“He was a close friend of Professor Voss. I got a warrant to search his house. It shows signs that he had a guest. Possibly it was the Professor. Do you want to get some of the boys down here to go through the place? Possibly there's some clue to where they took off for. The Professor's on the run and he's no professional at this. If we can pick him up, I've got a sneaking suspicion we'll have the so-called Movement licked.”
Walt Foster slapped a hand to his face in anguish. “You knew where the Professor was hiding, and you tried to pick him up on your own and let him get away. Why didn't you discuss this with either the Boss or me? I'm in charge of this operation! I would have had a dozen men down there. You've fouled this up!”
Larry stared at him. Already Walt [pg 051] Foster was making sounds like an enraged superior.