Peter Pettigrew's prisoner

by Nelson S. Bond

For a moment fantastically long, Peter stared at him incredulously. Then recollection of a more immediate problem than this flooded back on him. There was a mystery here, but elsewhere in the building was a skulking spy whose plot Peter must nip in the bud.

He wheeled and hastened into the drill-room. No one there but a drowsy radioman, nodding over his transmitter. A dozen doors opened off the drill-room. Peter, scurrying from one to another, noted with subconscious approbation that each room with windows to the outer street was darkened. Only the inner chambers of the Armory were lighted.

But of the sack-bearing stranger there was no trace. Room after room was deserted, save for here a detail of slumbering reserves, there an Intelligence officer cat-napping at his desk. This latter raised his head when Peter roused him, repeated muzzily, "Whuza? Lil man with a bag? Uh-uh. Di'n see'm—" and went back to sleep.

Peter wasted no more time upstairs. The basement was "out of bounds" for all civilians and, indeed, for all soldiers save those specifically assigned to guard it, but this was no time to adhere to normal regulations. Peter raced toward the store-rooms, and was just in time to see, as he found the top of the staircase, a tableau on the landing below that forever justified his fears.

The little man was there! He was tiptoeing silently toward the unsuspecting back of a guard assigned to watch the stores. As he crept he fumbled at the mouth of his gunnysack and—remarkable verity Peter could scarcely believe—he was humming a soft tune!

Peter knew what he should do. He should shout aloud to warn the soldier. But when he opened his mouth it felt as if he had swallowed a throatful of warm glue; his lips were a pair of adhesive plasters muting a larynx frozen with terror. The best he could manage was a tiny, whimpering bleat.

It was not enough. The soldier, as though warned by some belated, intuitive sense, whirled just as the interloper gained his side. But his eyes never recognized peril, for at that instant the little man's hand flew from the bag, hurling something squarely into the guard's face.

And—the soldier dropped his rifle, yawned noisily, rubbed his eyes with clenched fists, staggered to a seat, and fell fast asleep at his post!

In that moment, Peter Pettigrew understood all. Now he knew why the guard at the outer gate had not stopped—had not even remembered!—the stranger. He knew, too, why every defender of this building save himself was lost in Dreamland. The stranger's bag was filled with a new and dreadful weapon. A powder with the power of drugging victims into heavy slumber!

Anaesthesia! But if that were so, it was useless to pursue the little man who now, having glanced once again into his notebook—a leaflet of instructions, no doubt—was moving stealthily down the corridor. One whiff of the substance and he, like the others, would—"But, no!" squealed Peter Pettigrew. For a thought had struck him with swift, encouraging force. Over his right shoulder was slung that which made him invulnerable to the spy's treacherous weapon. His gas mask!